Saturday, March 28, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
Feelings !!
Feelings !!
Being away on a sabbatical assignment.... has been a great help for me to recoup, invigorate, look at different perspectives, appreciate what others say. Above all, break the ethno-centricity (or call it egocentricity) , that one develops sitting in offices and scribbling office notes. But, unfortunately people ...especially the ones who are vested with decision making have a different version when we use the term invigorate being on a sabbatical , they feel you were in a SPA during your sabbatical and gets a bit biased.
whilst, it was a challenge to get to the field from the desk, shed your official jacket and boots ...then soil your boots...look at issues rather dispassionately ..especially when you are in a development organization dealing with poor households, their needs, hopes and aspirations !!!! sabbtical is a great opportunity to bring the right colour and feel to your office notes...which is otherwise very drab.
But all these learning's and experiences can go for a toss...when you pluck in a promo stage ,....was it all worth it....you end up a looser !!!!...mine is a good case in point.
Attending official interviews during a sabbatical period is a good example of what should not be done, but one does not have options, especially when the dates scheduled for interviews fall during these sabbatical periods. You have awaited all this while.... for such a long peroid ....10 years in my case , I started feeling frail at the edges.
For me getting rejected in a promotional interview in a organization which you have served for 24 years , waited 10 yrs for this opportunity ,while serving it with all humility, day in day out with all earnestness, having obtained three merit certificates, posted numerous suggestions to the parent organisation, participated in n no. of debates, conceived and designed and grounded many pilot projects, contributed and published papers in support of the organization. Campaigned for policy changes externally, in short .......contributed much more than the just the desk work assigned or what was expected. But in the end ...you land in a interview , where you are quizzed which ...gets me down clutched on my knees ....oh god !!!
I am in this world of pain .... I am not sure was it pre-designed ? does these occur in many pvt and public sector undertakings ......any way let me cut the crap ---- why should i cribb after all
Being away on a sabbatical assignment.... has been a great help for me to recoup, invigorate, look at different perspectives, appreciate what others say. Above all, break the ethno-centricity (or call it egocentricity) , that one develops sitting in offices and scribbling office notes. But, unfortunately people ...especially the ones who are vested with decision making have a different version when we use the term invigorate being on a sabbatical , they feel you were in a SPA during your sabbatical and gets a bit biased.
whilst, it was a challenge to get to the field from the desk, shed your official jacket and boots ...then soil your boots...look at issues rather dispassionately ..especially when you are in a development organization dealing with poor households, their needs, hopes and aspirations !!!! sabbtical is a great opportunity to bring the right colour and feel to your office notes...which is otherwise very drab.
But all these learning's and experiences can go for a toss...when you pluck in a promo stage ,....was it all worth it....you end up a looser !!!!...mine is a good case in point.
Attending official interviews during a sabbatical period is a good example of what should not be done, but one does not have options, especially when the dates scheduled for interviews fall during these sabbatical periods. You have awaited all this while.... for such a long peroid ....10 years in my case , I started feeling frail at the edges.
For me getting rejected in a promotional interview in a organization which you have served for 24 years , waited 10 yrs for this opportunity ,while serving it with all humility, day in day out with all earnestness, having obtained three merit certificates, posted numerous suggestions to the parent organisation, participated in n no. of debates, conceived and designed and grounded many pilot projects, contributed and published papers in support of the organization. Campaigned for policy changes externally, in short .......contributed much more than the just the desk work assigned or what was expected. But in the end ...you land in a interview , where you are quizzed which ...gets me down clutched on my knees ....oh god !!!
I am in this world of pain .... I am not sure was it pre-designed ? does these occur in many pvt and public sector undertakings ......any way let me cut the crap ---- why should i cribb after all
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Jobless Economic Growth or Job led Ecomonic Growth ...you decide ...here are some facts
o The sample surveys of NSS clearly indicate a decline in the growth in employment during the 1990's despite reporting a comparatively higher growth rate in GDP.This is indicative of the fact that production is less labour intensive.
o The surveys clearly illustrate that the overall growth rate of unemployment was largely attributable to a near stagnation of employment in agriculture.
o The organized sector contributes only about 8-9 per cent of the workforce, that too predominantly from the public sector. However, it is important to note that organized sector employment has witnessed some positive trend particularly in the private sector, which in the current state of buoyancy of the industrial sector
o Prof Swaminathan himself has put it "The world is witnessing what is often referred to as "jobless economic growth". Jobless growth becomes joyless growth in developing countries where both population pressure and the number of unemployed women and men are growing"
o The Government is committed to strengthening the rural, social and economic infrastructure. This includes revamping the rural credit delivery system and reversing policy biases against agriculture
o As a result of various development efforts being made, the incidence of poverty expressed as percentage of people below the poverty line has significantly declined in India during the past two decades. However, those at the lower end of this economic ladder continue to remain poor participants in the growth process and do not benefit from it adequately. They do need improved access to financial services, particularly the capital funds, to become more useful contributors in the economic development process.
o All India Debt and Investment Survey (GoI), 1992, gave indications that the share of non-institutional agencies (informal sector) in the outstanding cash dues of the rural households was quite high at 36%.
o The share of debt from the non-institutional credit agencies was a whopping 58% in the case of the lowest asset group of less than Rs.5,000 as against a low of 19% in the highest asset group of Rs. 2.5 lakh and above (as on 30 June 1991).
o The main hurdle faced by banks in financing the very poor seemed to be the comparatively high transaction cost in reaching out to a large number of borrowers who required very small doses of credit at frequent intervals
o In cases where credit was made available to the poor through special programmes, absence of an integrated savings component and something to fall back upon in case of any adversity was leading to poor repayment performance. The problem was further confounded, as the users were unable to distinguish between the State support (grants/ relief) and bank credit. The political expediency for “removing poverty at a stroke” was putting resources for running micro enterprises in the hands of the poor without nurturing them to handle such resources.
o NABARD made its debut in the microFinance sector in 1992 through a Pilot Project for promoting 500 SHGs and financing them through banks
o Today : Cumulatively, 10,79,000 SHGs were instrumental in channelling bank finance to 167 lakh poor families. The cumulative bank loan to SHGs is whopping Rs 3904 crore from the banking system.
o The sustainability of any linkage or relationship hinges on the continuum of the purpose- its independence, ability to generate tangible surpluses for the primary stakeholders and benefit from the relationship and lastly their ability to network with the environment and remain relevant
o Self Reliance : This internal resources mobilized through savings and retained earnings are at the core of self-reliance, self-help and self-financing
o Empowerment: the process of SHGs joining hands with the formal banking structure has touched the lives of millions of poor women, building their self-confidence and increasing their self-worth
o Corporate linkages: Project Shakti of HLL provides micro-enterprise opportunities for women from Self-Help Groups, making them direct-to-home distributors of Hindustan Lever.
o All these developments are a clear indication of the things in store; the employment creation in the future essential be addressed by the informal sector like the extemporaneous societal groups like SHGs
o These need investments in building capacities of the poor in creating awareness, in basic numeracy, in economic literacy and above all believing in themselves, away from the dependency syndrome
o The SHG-bank linkage programme embodies creation of a supplementary financial infrastructure, to vitalize and support the existing structure. SHG-bank linkage holds the promise of fulfilling the country’s need to make the poorer sections participate in the growth process. It symbolizes great human action for economic development, calling for participation from a larger section of the society
o The mobilization of the people, formation of groups and nurturing them so that these could be linked to the banking system requires large human and financial resources. The primary responsibility for this is of the State. Without doubt it transcends the confines of the corporate mission of NABARD and represents a significant need of the nation as well. In a large movement of this dimension, besides the State, the citizens have a role to play.
o The cost of inaction on these issues is too dreadful to contemplate. We must act now to start the process of creating a better future for the poor and unemployed by enabling not by providing. The poor cannot confront the challenges of tomorrow with (no skills) or yesterday's skills
o The surveys clearly illustrate that the overall growth rate of unemployment was largely attributable to a near stagnation of employment in agriculture.
o The organized sector contributes only about 8-9 per cent of the workforce, that too predominantly from the public sector. However, it is important to note that organized sector employment has witnessed some positive trend particularly in the private sector, which in the current state of buoyancy of the industrial sector
o Prof Swaminathan himself has put it "The world is witnessing what is often referred to as "jobless economic growth". Jobless growth becomes joyless growth in developing countries where both population pressure and the number of unemployed women and men are growing"
o The Government is committed to strengthening the rural, social and economic infrastructure. This includes revamping the rural credit delivery system and reversing policy biases against agriculture
o As a result of various development efforts being made, the incidence of poverty expressed as percentage of people below the poverty line has significantly declined in India during the past two decades. However, those at the lower end of this economic ladder continue to remain poor participants in the growth process and do not benefit from it adequately. They do need improved access to financial services, particularly the capital funds, to become more useful contributors in the economic development process.
o All India Debt and Investment Survey (GoI), 1992, gave indications that the share of non-institutional agencies (informal sector) in the outstanding cash dues of the rural households was quite high at 36%.
o The share of debt from the non-institutional credit agencies was a whopping 58% in the case of the lowest asset group of less than Rs.5,000 as against a low of 19% in the highest asset group of Rs. 2.5 lakh and above (as on 30 June 1991).
o The main hurdle faced by banks in financing the very poor seemed to be the comparatively high transaction cost in reaching out to a large number of borrowers who required very small doses of credit at frequent intervals
o In cases where credit was made available to the poor through special programmes, absence of an integrated savings component and something to fall back upon in case of any adversity was leading to poor repayment performance. The problem was further confounded, as the users were unable to distinguish between the State support (grants/ relief) and bank credit. The political expediency for “removing poverty at a stroke” was putting resources for running micro enterprises in the hands of the poor without nurturing them to handle such resources.
o NABARD made its debut in the microFinance sector in 1992 through a Pilot Project for promoting 500 SHGs and financing them through banks
o Today : Cumulatively, 10,79,000 SHGs were instrumental in channelling bank finance to 167 lakh poor families. The cumulative bank loan to SHGs is whopping Rs 3904 crore from the banking system.
o The sustainability of any linkage or relationship hinges on the continuum of the purpose- its independence, ability to generate tangible surpluses for the primary stakeholders and benefit from the relationship and lastly their ability to network with the environment and remain relevant
o Self Reliance : This internal resources mobilized through savings and retained earnings are at the core of self-reliance, self-help and self-financing
o Empowerment: the process of SHGs joining hands with the formal banking structure has touched the lives of millions of poor women, building their self-confidence and increasing their self-worth
o Corporate linkages: Project Shakti of HLL provides micro-enterprise opportunities for women from Self-Help Groups, making them direct-to-home distributors of Hindustan Lever.
o All these developments are a clear indication of the things in store; the employment creation in the future essential be addressed by the informal sector like the extemporaneous societal groups like SHGs
o These need investments in building capacities of the poor in creating awareness, in basic numeracy, in economic literacy and above all believing in themselves, away from the dependency syndrome
o The SHG-bank linkage programme embodies creation of a supplementary financial infrastructure, to vitalize and support the existing structure. SHG-bank linkage holds the promise of fulfilling the country’s need to make the poorer sections participate in the growth process. It symbolizes great human action for economic development, calling for participation from a larger section of the society
o The mobilization of the people, formation of groups and nurturing them so that these could be linked to the banking system requires large human and financial resources. The primary responsibility for this is of the State. Without doubt it transcends the confines of the corporate mission of NABARD and represents a significant need of the nation as well. In a large movement of this dimension, besides the State, the citizens have a role to play.
o The cost of inaction on these issues is too dreadful to contemplate. We must act now to start the process of creating a better future for the poor and unemployed by enabling not by providing. The poor cannot confront the challenges of tomorrow with (no skills) or yesterday's skills
Friday, September 26, 2008
subprime saga - by NINAN
The United States is supposed to have not just great markets and great enterprises, but also great regulators. The Federal Reserve and the Securities and Exchange Commission are respected and feared the world over. Those great markets also rely on institutional mechanisms, like the rating agencies — all of which are now American-owned. The amazing thing about this entire pack is that the financial crisis has shown all of them to be as naked as the emperor who strutted out in what he thought were his new clothesWhat, for instance, was the SEC doing when the great investment banks (Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, et al) were leveraging their equity 30 and even 40 times? If a company runs $600 billion worth of assets on an equity base of just $26 billion, then if those assets drop in value by just 5 per cent, the company goes bankrupt — which is what has happened. If the SEC wasn’t looking at the problem, what were the rating agencies doing when they gave these firms the best ratings in the book? If the risks are blindingly obvious today, why could the Fed not see them and ask for corrective action from the lawmakers or by the SEC?
It seems obvious now that the whole investment banking model is simply not viable. They made fat profits because they ran risky, over-leveraged businesses; and they were not regulated in the way that traditional banks are, so they did not have any defences in place for when things go wrong. That explains why it is banks like Bank of America which are now gobbling up the investment banks, and why Morgan Stanley is running for cover to Wachovia and others.
When Enron went bust, it was run by a bunch of Harvard MBAs, advised by McKinsey, and its accounts audited by one of the big accounting firms (which imploded). It turned out that the accounting firms were busy getting money from their clients for doing consulting work — which created a conflict of interest when it came to proper auditing. That same problem now affects the rating agencies, which were getting a lot of work and therefore revenue from the investment banks. So did they go soft in their ratings of the investment banks — and mislead the markets? In any case, did the people in the rating agencies actually read and digest the thousands of pages of legalese associated with every complex financial instrument before they gave a rating, for which the fee was relatively modest? You can guess.
In other words, it is not just the investment banking model that is broken, it is the entire system of complex financial instruments that no one fully understood, so that risk was not properly measured — and that is lethal when things start unraveling. The trading practice that makes things unravel even faster in such a situation is called ‘going short’ — a practice long frowned on by Indian regulators for being destructive of value, but advocated by market fundamentalists as being an inalienable part of an efficient market. Now, surprise, the SEC is talking of banning ‘shorting’ because that is causing the selling stampede behind the bankruptcies!
Someone said the other day that the worst is over. Don’t bet on it. All the assets owned by the firms that have gone bust (trillions of dollars worth) have to be sold, and it will be a fire sale at knocked down prices. That means enormous destruction of asset value, and someone has to feel the pain. AIG, for instance, has been given two years to sell down, so it is going to last a while.
Closing thought: It isn’t funny any more to say that the Indian financial regulatory system shines because of its innate caution.
It seems obvious now that the whole investment banking model is simply not viable. They made fat profits because they ran risky, over-leveraged businesses; and they were not regulated in the way that traditional banks are, so they did not have any defences in place for when things go wrong. That explains why it is banks like Bank of America which are now gobbling up the investment banks, and why Morgan Stanley is running for cover to Wachovia and others.
When Enron went bust, it was run by a bunch of Harvard MBAs, advised by McKinsey, and its accounts audited by one of the big accounting firms (which imploded). It turned out that the accounting firms were busy getting money from their clients for doing consulting work — which created a conflict of interest when it came to proper auditing. That same problem now affects the rating agencies, which were getting a lot of work and therefore revenue from the investment banks. So did they go soft in their ratings of the investment banks — and mislead the markets? In any case, did the people in the rating agencies actually read and digest the thousands of pages of legalese associated with every complex financial instrument before they gave a rating, for which the fee was relatively modest? You can guess.
In other words, it is not just the investment banking model that is broken, it is the entire system of complex financial instruments that no one fully understood, so that risk was not properly measured — and that is lethal when things start unraveling. The trading practice that makes things unravel even faster in such a situation is called ‘going short’ — a practice long frowned on by Indian regulators for being destructive of value, but advocated by market fundamentalists as being an inalienable part of an efficient market. Now, surprise, the SEC is talking of banning ‘shorting’ because that is causing the selling stampede behind the bankruptcies!
Someone said the other day that the worst is over. Don’t bet on it. All the assets owned by the firms that have gone bust (trillions of dollars worth) have to be sold, and it will be a fire sale at knocked down prices. That means enormous destruction of asset value, and someone has to feel the pain. AIG, for instance, has been given two years to sell down, so it is going to last a while.
Closing thought: It isn’t funny any more to say that the Indian financial regulatory system shines because of its innate caution.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
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