December 26, 2011
December 25, 2011
Like Every Indians, I dream a free India
Like every Indians, I have been watching Lokpal uproar for last few months; I attended protests for few days in a hope that I have been contributing in my best possible way. However, I didn’t donate to the trust, India Against Corruption (IAC), the organizing committee of protests all over India as I preferred to donate to my NGO, Sakshum. There are uproars going and going; reactions by the government, counter-reactions by the Team Anna. Things improved in the past few weeks with both sides conceding. The government prepared the draft and presented in the parliament; everyone protested other than government. The reason: CBI out of ambit of Lokpal, talks of minority reservations, quota in Lokpal et al.
When I saw the events like Tehrir Square (Egypt) and others all around the globe which ultimately ended in a bloody coup, I felt proud that India finished a peaceful protest with whole of India rallying for Team Anna, especially Anna Ji who has been fighting for a cause – corrupt-free India. But at the same time, I also feel the pain when I see how these politicians botch the whole event. In the latest development, the Congress led UPA government introduced Lok Pal graft in the parliament which didn’t match to the agreed provisions as discussed in the last parliament session. The whole movement saw a new twist as politicians demanded the existing reservation rules in Lokpal too. At this point of time, I won’t argue whether reservations are good or bad. But we fail to understand that the structure of Lokpal is similar to an investigating agency; the very question of introducing reservations in Lokpal will dilute its effectiveness.
Our history has imbibed us a very dangerous rule - divide and rule. They knew that they would be successful as India being a vast country differs a lot in views. And to a large extent, they are correct too as they successfully divided India based on religion.
We still endorse the policy – divide and rule. After the UPA government presented the Lakpal Draft in the parliament, many regional leaders endorsed the minority including the broad reservations. Some leaders even endorsed the reservations based on religions.
One thing is clear in India; whether we have the strong Lokpal Bill or not, the fight over the religion will continue and will go long in the history of India. All politicians know if a strong Lokpal comes through, at least half of them would be behind bars. That’s why they have been sitting over it for the last 40 years. Every time they attempted, they blocked someway. This time again, the government played the dirty joke by provoking others to fight over reservations and passing the minority reservations of 4.5% within 27% reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBC). Everyone knows that this has been done in a view to upcoming elections in UP and other states. They want it at any cost.
Like every Indians, I dream of a country free from all kind of nonsense craps, corruption etc. Long live India!
December 10, 2011
FII Inflows in India vs QE-II – Is there any relation?
Very often, we say that the FII inflows in India lead to domestic indices’ upward movement. To a large extent, it is true. Post the economic bleak in 2008, the advanced nations cut their interest rates to spur the economy which has almost dried. Developed nations like US announced a series of quantitative easing and credit easing programs in a bid to aid faster recovery and fight deflation. It is widely believed in academia that QE-I and QE-II leads to increasing capital flows into the emerging market economies (EMEs). This also holds true for India as we largely believed that QE-II led to large FIIs inflows in India.
However, Anand Shankar, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in his paper “QE-II and FII inflows into India – Is there a Connection?” says that FII inflows have fallen after the November 03, 2010 announcement of QE-II by Fed which is very contradictory to popular belief of increased inflows.
The first phase of longer term asset purchase in the US was terminated on Mar 31, 2010, with about $1.75 trillion worth of asset purchase by the Fed between Nov 2008 and Mar 2010. However, this injection seemed insufficient to aid faster recovery and fight deflation and control unemployment rate. On Nov 03, 2010, the US’s Fed announced another series of quantitative easing, widely known as QE-II worth $ 600 billion over an eight month period along with reinvestment of principal payments from agency debt and mortgage backed securities to the tune of $ 250 billion - $ 300 billion.
Anand Shankar further says,
“One would have expected the FII inflows to increase significantly after November 3, 2010 announcement of additional purchase of treasury securities. However, results suggest that FII flows have indeed fallen in the period after November 3, 2010. One explanation is that since the markets had already anticipated and factored in the effect of QE in their behavior, they were not surprised by the announcement of QE-II on November 3, 2010.”
The paper says that there have been other factors which led to movement of FII inflows in India in that period. The paper results suggest,
“Post the announcement of QE-2, FII inflows have fallen significantly. The fall in FII inflows post November 3, 2010 has been explained via factors negatively affecting stock market returns in India using global and domestic factors which include sovereign debt problems in the Euro-area, political tensions between North and South Korea and in the MENA region, high inflation in India and policy rate hikes by Reserve Bank of India.”
This finding has been explained using expectation factoring behavior of market participants and developments in India and abroad.
A nice analysis by Anand Shankar; thanks to RBI.
December 5, 2011
Magic of RBI – 2,054 job aspirants per seat
Who says the charm of PSU has died? The volatile and uncertain global scenario had forced many MBA and Engineering aspirants to settle for PSUs in 2008-09 crises but the optimism in following years forced many aspirants to go back to private honchos. In India, the best goes with the best. Be it IITs or IIMs, the best candidate gets the best as per his/her caliber. There is a very tough competition for IITs and IIMs as many students appear for the examination; however, only few candidates are able to make it. In 2011, the number of IIT aspirants was 485,000 for total seats of 9,618; thus, an average of 50 students vie a single seat in IIT. In 2010, the competition was little less i.e. 43. For IIMs, the situation is little better with an average of 69 students vying for a single seat in IIM in 2011. The total number of applicants was 206,000 for a total seat of 3,001 (approximate).
If you believe the next number, you may be in a complete surprise. In the month of Sep 2011, the Reserve Bank of India Services Board, Mumbai invited applications for Officers in Grade ‘B’ for a total seat of 75 including all reservations. To everyone surprise, the total number of accepted applicants are 154,023; thus, an average of 2,054 students will strive for each seat of offered seats on Dec 18, 2011 to appear for its first level. This, as per my knowledge is the highest average so far. The centre from which the maximum students are appearing for this prestigious exam is New Delhi (27,983) followed by Mumbai (13,613), Chennai (13,271), Hyderabad (11,623) and the list follows. Port Blair is having the least number of candidates (62).
Even in the recent past, SBI created a stir when it received a total of 20 lakh applications (approximately) for a total seat of 20,000; thus, an average of 100 students per seat. Also, for prestigious exam like UPSC, an average of 415 (approximate) students vied for a UPSC seat which had a total seat of 965 in 2011.
As per RBI advertisement, the position is a crème de la crème for any job aspirant as the successful candidates may get the opportunity to work in their Economic Policy/Monetary Policy division or other cream divisions. The total CTC as per the job advertisement claims to be Rs. 10 lakh per annum, not bad given the job security will always remain. Even in other PSUs like NTPC, the salary offered is competitive and it matches with the best paying corporate in the industry.
Corporate honchos may recruit the best candidates on day 0 or 1 in all top institutes; some government organizations like RBIs, NTPC still hold the charm in comparison to others and always remain the preferred employer for all candidates.
Fortunately, I have also been appearing for this prestigious exam and competing with other 154,022 candidates for 38 general seats; thus, competing among 4,053 candidates per seat.
Happy Reading!
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