Saturday, March 31, 2007

Book Review: Sonia-In the perception of a Nationalist

This book is a collection of articles written by Sri Gurumurthy,Co-convenor for Swadesh Jargran Manch. This book discusses in-detail the background of Antonia Maino(also known as Sonia).

Whenever I raise objection about having a foreigner for the highest office in the nation. There is always some one who asks me in response "Why not?", "What's wrong?", "After all she is also a citizen of this country",etc. If I had come across this book earlier, I would have certainly asked them to read it or atleast would have answered them better.
For me, the only fact that she is a foreigner is sufficient to reject her.
But, It's not just her foreign origin that is the problem. The deeper problem is her loyalty towards this nation.

Among the various facts discussed in this book,you have to know the following about this lady.

1. She remained as foreign citizen for 15 years after entering this county as the wife of Rajiv. Even after giving birth to 2 children in this country, she has renewed her foreigner status twice.That means that for 15 years she did not want to be even called as Indian after living in the home of the then Indian Prime Minister Mrs. Indira.

2. Even after 15 years,her Indian Citizenship application had her Italian name "Antonia Maino". She did not accept the name "Sonia" given to her by her mother-in-law.

3. She fled the nation and took refuge in Italy during the India-Pakistan war in 1971 along with her family. i.e. Rajiv-then commecial pilot also left the country. (During war times the commercial pilots are not allowed to leave the country for obvious strategic reasons).

4.Again in 1977, after the Congress party was defeated in elections after emergency, she took refuge in Italian Embassy. Sanjay & Indira Gandhi went pesonally pleaded and brought her home. (For us, this Nation is our Mother land. But for her, its Mother-In-Law's land. What do we expect from her!).

5.Our RAW Agency was not interested in having liason with the Italian Spies. They thought we dont have common interests and it was waste of time. But under Rajiv's pressure they had to agree for liason. A meeting between Italian spies and RAW was arranged. Guess, who arranged for the meeting from the Italian side. It was none other than our Sonia Antonia Maino. Yes, she had contact with the Italian spies.If you are one among those people who believed that she was just a simple housewife before entering politics. It's time you change that opinion.

6.She never trusted the Indian Agencies for Security. She depended Italian Agencies to arrange for security whenever Rahul / Priyanka were travelling abroad. This happened even when her own sweet husband Rajiv was Prime Minister. The relevant Indian RAW offcials were not even informed. At times, they later found it on their own to their embarassment.

7.The Quatorocchi the prime accused in the Bofors scam case is her family friend. Narasimha rao government just let him escape from India. He has been absconding since then.

This book was published about 3 years ago and it is still more relevant even today. Because Sonia is still in politics and Quatorocchi is still roaming free some where in Argentina.

Friday, March 30, 2007

Is Our Prime Minister Mr. Panneer Singh?

When AIADMK won the majority last time, There was a verdict against Jayalalitha in one of the several cases against her (I think it was TANSI case). So, she had to give up the Chief minister post temporarily. So she selected an obscure MLA from her party to be a place holder for that temporary period. His name was Panneer Selvam! He was never even a minister before.

As many of us are aware of the dominent personality of Jayalalitha. She would have been looking for a more sub-ordinate person (i.e. spineless). The rubber stamp candidate should be harmless, even if it means that the candidate is useless. That's exactly why the Panneer selvam was choosen.

It's another Irony that our Lalu, who was in a similar situation was not even able to find a trust-worthy candidate from his own party.

Maino Antonia (who is also known as Sonia) was in a similar condition, after the last parlimentary elections. The NDA led by the BJP did not have the necessary majority for forming the government. Supporting foreigners has been one of the consistent policies of Communists, so they decided to support the foreign lady for forming a government. There was a strong national sentiment against accepting Maino Antanio(a.k.a Sonia) as the Prime Minister. It still exists even today. So, Maino Antanio had to look for a rubber stamp. Hence, Our Manmohan Singh become the prime minister.

We have been known to misunderstand popularity for capability. Thats why we have been electing film-stars as M.L.As, M.Ps and even as Cheif Ministers. Just because some one has a Phd. from a foreign university, it does not mean that the person is a good administrator.

If you were involved in the hiring process for your company, you would have realized that people with flashy resume doesn't necessarily deliver on the job. Many times they don't even fit the job.

The purpose of this article is to examine what Manmohan Singh has been delivering during his tenure as Prime Minister. Did he make any difference Or did he manage to remain as Mr. Panneer Singh.

.... to be continued

I decided not to continue this article, because writing about Mr. Panneer Singh is not even worth it. 

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Measuring Inflation in India

This article attempts to describe the process of calculating Inflation in India and tries to identify the anomalies in the process.

Inflation is generally calculated based on price indices.A price index is a basket of items with weightage for each item.
We have 2 price indices:
Wholesale Price Index (WPI): Based on whole sale (in some cases Producer's Price) of commodities. This data is available on a weekly basis released by the office of economic advisor to government of India. This department comes under the Ministry of commerce and Industry. http://eaindustry.nic.in/
Consumer Price Index (CPI): Based on the retail prices of commodities. This data is available on a monthly basis released by the Central Statistical Organisation. The department comes under Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation. http://mospi.nic.in/

In India, the Inflation is calculated based on WPI. I feel this approach has the following fundemental flaws.
Apples with Kangaroos
Currrently, the WPI has a base of 1993-94=100 where as the CPI has the base of 1984 - 85 = 100. I dont think they have the common basket of items for the calculation. If we try to compare the WPI with CPI then we will not just be comparing apples with oranges, perhaps we will be comparing apples with Kangaroos. i.e. two entirely differnt things.
(I think the term Kangaroo might better represent the rate of the rapid raise in cusumer prices recently :-))

Responsibility of calculation & Frequency
If both the indices (WPI & CPI) are calculated by the same organization then atleast the approach will be consistent. Both the indices should be available at the same frequency. currently, one is weekly and the other is monthly. In my opinion, monthly frequency for both should be sufficient. After all, most of us buy groceries for our home on a monthly basis.

The final price matters the most
1. Each commodity in the index might be sold to the end customer after going through a series of middle layers before reaching the end customber and with varying profit margins at each layer.
2. When the Wholesale price( or the Producer Price) of a commodity increases the profit margin changes doe not get cascaded uniformly. i.e. each layer will increase the profit margin differently and usually the margins increase towards the end of the chain.
3. The final consumer price can differ due to government subsidies, sales and excise taxes, and distribution costs.

Assuming that the WPI & CPI are comparable (currently they are not), if we try to plot them on a single graph as overlays then the gap between them will never be uniform in a given resonable period of time. What i am trying to say is that WPI does not properly represent (i.e no uniform correlation to) the price paid by the consumer.

I think inflation is meant to measure the additional burden to the consumer. If it fails to do that then it defeats the whole purpose of the exercise.

The inflation number for last week was around 6%. I would be happy, if our Finance minister could name a single commodity whose end price increased only by 6% the past one year.

I think the reality is much worse that what is being presented. I think we are having Real annual inflation of atleast 10% - annualized for the past 4 years. If we include housing cost inflation rate will be much higher. This will be (and should be) an issue at the upcoming elections.