Covid

India and the Global Attention Surplus Disorder!

Jan 17th, 2023:  BBC releases the first part of the documentary on Modi titled “India: The Modi Question”. Among other things, the documentary goes on to levy charges on Modi for his role during the Gujarat riots back in 2002 when he was the Chief Minister of the state. It is another matter that the courts and different committees have delved into the same matter for so many years and have exonerated Modi for his involvement in inciting the riots as claimed by the documentary.

Jan 24th, 2023: Hindenburg, an American short seller, publishes a report on the Adani group in which it accuses Adani group of “brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme over the course of decades.” This was just three days before the opening of Adani’s FPO in the market. The ensuing brouhaha led eventually to the withdrawal of the FPO only after a massive evaporation of its market capitalisation.

Feb 6th, 2023: In the US, the Deputy Secretary of State briefed that “The surveillance balloon effort, which has operated for several years partly out of Hainan province off China’s south coast, has collected information on military assets in countries and areas of emerging strategic interest to China including Japan, India, Vietnam, Taiwan and the Philippines,”

Feb 17th, 2023: At the Munich security summit, an annual conference on global security issues, George Soros, an American business magnate and philanthropist launched a scathing tirade on the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In his speech, he also referred to the Hindenburg report and said that Modi and Adani were close allies and that their fate was intertwined.

If you look at all these stories, a few things are strikingly common – the stories are about India, they are damning in design and emanating from outside India.

Quoting World Bank data, Centre says Indias PPP-based economy reached $8 trillion in 2017

Welcome to India’s “Global Attention Surplus Disorder” TM (GASD) era. At the outset, let me clarify that this has got nothing to do with Attention Deficit Disorder which is a mental condition. Global Attention Surplus Disorder is when a country is subjected to excessive attention globally because of which stories mostly of the critical type about the country keep coming out at regular intervals.

It is important to note that all countries are not automatically subjected to this syndrome. In the evolution of any country, there comes a time when the country becomes in a way eligible for excessive attention.  Once eligible, it becomes a part of this privileged league of nations. I believe that for India, this started last year (2022), though we have often threatened to get into this league but slipped back in the last minute. Why did India become part of this league and is getting subjected to GASD?

When a sportsperson starts doing well in mega events, she starts becoming the cynosure of all eyes. She also comes under scrutiny not just for her sports feats but also for her conduct in her personal life (Think Sania Mirza). Among all the film stars, if you are a top star like one of the Khans, obviously you are at the centre of all attention and scrutiny. You will receive your regular dose of bouquets but when the brickbats come, they will be heavy and bitter. Ask Aamir Khan. If you are the among the richest and most famous you cannot escape the attention of the prying news reporters. Look at the Ambanis. A dominant and globally successful company is always under media scrutiny not just for its success but also for its omissions and commissions. Search Google. A very quick upstart, which was initially the darling of the one and all could face the bile of the same media and regulators worldwide when it becomes over-successful. What happened to Facebook (Meta)? Even when a politician becomes extremely popular with the public and becomes a darling of the masses, he becomes a victim of excessive and continuous scrutiny. Even if it’s a Modi.

This has what has changed for India in the past few months. For a populous country like India, it weathered the Covid storm pretty well. In the past few years, the fundamentals of the economy are getting stronger because of which the country’s resilience to external shocks has improved drastically. Despite global headwinds like Covid, the Ukraine war and now the global economic slowdown, India continues to grow at a faster clip than all major economies. For the future, the world is now predicting that this could be India’s decade. There is a visible transformation of infrastructure in the country. Highways, Railways, Airports, Metros, sea links are all finally moving toward completion in the next five years after being in a permanent Work In Progress phase. The adoption of digital solutions to solve the country’s public issues seem real and this holds a lot of “hard” promise for the future. In the past, our promises remained “soft”.  As we saw in the recent mega order of the aircrafts, big powers are looking to India to help them.

In Marketing it is said that for a market leader apart from doing routine things to increase its share, and expand the market, the bigger challenge is to ring-fence itself from some “Public Relations (PR) storm” or other that it is subjected to now and then. For example, a successful brand and a leader in its category like McDonald’s has to spend extra marketing resources for challenging litigations and Class action suits by say, Vegans. A vigilante group will never waste time and resources on going after say a Biggies Burger or a Burger Singh (yes these are Burger brands and competitors to McDonald’s in India)

My point is, getting subjected to Global Attention Surplus Disorder is a sign of India’s success. It means that India has arrived. In my opinion, China started suffering from this around the mid-2000s when its economy started firing on all cylinders and China became the so-called factory of the world. But that’s when coverage of its record on Human rights, Freedom of expression, Public Data accuracy, Transparency Index, Corruption, etc. also started finding its way into the global media regularly. There is not a single day when there is no negative story on China these days in reputed publications like The Economist, The Washington Post, The New York Times and so on. China has been suffering from GASD for many years; India has just started.

In the coming days, weeks, months and years, you will see India being in the eye of the storm frequently and more often. We have to get used to this excessive attention from the world. As a country, and as a government we should put processes in place to handle PR storms of varied nature from here on that will ensure less Governmental time on such issues. At the same time, we should pick the right battles to fight. Otherwise, we could get into a vicious distractive cycle. India is at the cusp of making history. Focus on the job at hand is more important than getting waylaid by distractions.

As Cricket experts would say, in seaming conditions and turning tracks, a batsman should know which ball or bowler to attack and more importantly which to be “well left”!

Image courtesy: Hans India

India in 2023: Heads or Tails?

2022 just got over and as I sit to pen this blog on the 1st day of 2023, I am trying to recall the mood that was prevailing at the same time last year.  For all practical purposes, the stand-out sentiment at the beginning of 2022 was that of “Relief and Hope”.  Covid was just receding. Right through the last quarter of 2021, lockdowns were relaxed in the country, festivals were celebrated with gusto and normalcy was returning by and large. Almost the entire country was covered by the vaccination program by December.  There was relief and hope that things in the new year could only get better.

At that time, nobody thought that a war would actually break out and pour water on the collective hopes of the entire world. Russia invaded Ukraine and as we speak, the war is still on.  What was expected as a swift and big recovery of the global economy post-Covid didn’t happen. In today’s situation, a war between two nations doesn’t affect only those two nations. It pilfers to other nations as well, with a result we had the after-effects of the war being felt by nations across the globe.  Inflation has hit never seen high and with the US exporting inflation, the dollar has strengthened against most of the currencies worldwide.  The result was there to be seen in the last three months.  Economic growth has substantially slowed down and the expected post-Covid Uptick has evaporated into thin air. In summary, what was touted to be a year of recovery and swift growth, ended up being one of the worst years for the world. “Permacrisis” – meaning an extended period of instability and insecurity is the term being conferred upon the year 2022. Who would have expected this back then in January 2022?

I am now trying to recall what the mood was at the beginning of the year 2021. Coming at the back of a full year ravaged by Covid and lockdowns, it was expected that with the rollout of vaccination, the ebbing of the virus and countries attaining herd immunity we will soon see the back of the Corona Virus and get back to an Off line living from a completely Online living. However, that was not to be. We soon started facing the virus in its different variants, the effect of which was more lethal. 2021 also continued to be a year of woes except for some improvement in the last quarter of the year. Again, what started as a year where the dark clouds were seen to be disappearing ended up being an extremely challenging year for the world.

With these beginning-of-the-year scenarios of 2021 and 2022 in perspective, I am trying to look around what’s the mood like as we start 2023. The Economist in its 2023 outlook article says that a recession in 2023 is inevitable with the world reeling from shocks in geopolitics, energy and economy. There seems to be no end to the Russia – Ukraine war at this point in time. While other countries have seemingly shrugged off Covid, China is going through one of its biggest Covid waves now. This has once again put global supply chains in a dizzy which is expected to have a telling impact on Manufacturing worldwide. Now, will this wave from China trigger a similar wave in other countries that have all opened up, is the big elephant in the 2023 room! The lingering war and the lingering Covid with their aftereffects are what are keeping global leaders and policymakers anxious and awake as we ring in 2023.

GDP growth projections for most countries, in particular, the developed ones are muted for this year. Among all this bad news, there are bright spots on the horizon. India is expected to be one such. Even in 2022, though we didn’t do as projected at the beginning of the year thanks to the war-induced uncertainties, India came off much better than most other countries. As per World Bank, the Indian economy has shown higher resilience to global shocks of late. Therefore, for India, as per experts, the outlook for 2023 is a mixed bag. It is expected to grow faster than most countries of significance, yet slower than what is expected of it if there are no external headwinds.

2023, therefore, is being ushered in with cautious pessimism, unlike the previous few years. If the previous years proved the pundits wrong about their positive outlooks, can we have the pundits wrong again in 2023? Can the headwinds as we see now, become tailwinds when we close the year?  If the reality tends to be different than what the pundits have forecasted at the beginning of the year, there are reasons for us to be hopeful as far as 2023 is concerned.

For India though, we seem to be in an interesting place. If the trend of pundits getting wrong continues i.e., the global economy gets over its problems and does well, we in India too stand to gain. If the pundits actually get it right, India is expected to be a lone bright star anyway.

We seem to be in a “Heads we win, Tails we win” situation.  On that positive note, here’s wishing all my readers a new year filled with happiness and peace.

Postscript: If you are looking at forecast for investing in the stock market, here’s one from Mark Twain.

“October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August, and February.”

Pic courtesy: avepoint.com

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The Maahaul of India Shining!

If you are an avid watcher or reader of global commentary, you cannot miss the ongoing spotlight on India and mostly for good reasons.  India seems to be the shining star in what otherwise seems to be a global economy that is still coming to terms with post-Covid recovery and the spiralling effects of the Russia – Ukraine war. The past few weeks have seen a downpour of bad news on the economic front globally. And it is not just from the US which is a prime mover in the global economy but other developed nations as well.

India though seems to be a lonely planet in the universe. The stock markets are on a historic high as we approach the end of this calendar year and despite the global demand situation, the Q2 GDP numbers at 6.3% demonstrate that India is tiding over the global headwinds reasonably well. Therefore, on cue, we have been seeing many opinion pieces, commentaries, and encomiums of late not just within India but globally, saying that this could be India’s decade and so on. I am calling this the “India Shining” sentiment for easy understanding! The point to note is the maahaul of India Shining keeps visiting us every 5-6 years and ebbs off after a while.

The phrase “India Shining” was of course used for the first time by the Vajpayee-led NDA government to project a positive outlook of the country to foreign investors back in 2003-04. The campaign was envisaged by Jaswant Singh as the finance minister. Later on, it took shape of a political campaign for NDA in the 2004 polls. Many expert commentators till today opine that the India Shining campaign was the main reason for its defeat in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections. If one does a fine toothcomb analysis of the results, it will be clear as daylight that NDA was defeated due to other issues. We will keep that for another day, another blog.

The campaign did help to improve the image of India worldwide in that period. India was part of the BRICS coinage, a commentary that would have done countries like India, China, Russia, etc more good than any global PR campaign ever did. I remember in that period wherever I went, the BRICS story dominated discussions in board rooms and what followed was a long period of India Shining till the Global Financial Crisis in the form of Lehman shock struck in 2008.  If you recall, the period 2003 – 2008 saw huge investments in real estate and retail with the free flow of “Hot money” to India, all thanks to the positive India Shining sentiment.

The next brief and passive wave of India Shining started in 2014 after Narendra Modi took over as the Prime Minister of a full majority government after 1989. India was the flavour of the world then and this lasted for a few years till 2017.  The stock markets saw new highs with a heavy inflow of FII in this period.

What we are seeing now is the return of the BRICS type hype. The difference is, three of the constituents of BRICS namely Brazil, Russia, and China are no longer in the good books of the world while India continues to be. There are a few things that are going well for India overall now. A politically stable government that is confident in itself and no longer suffering from coalition compulsions.  A government led by a leader whose popularity and credibility among the masses is unprecedented in a long while which helps take decisions without looking over one’s shoulders.  Introduction of structural financial reforms like the GST and IBC that have stabilized and yielding results. India coming out of Covid relatively better off with life and business back to normal. The swift post-pandemic recovery in the economy despite the global headwinds due to the ongoing war. A nuanced management of the economy in the past few years and in a sense better than what the minders of the economy are being credited for, in my opinion.

Countries and Corporations who had conceived the China+1 strategy back in 2013 to de-risk from China are actually getting serious about executing the strategy now by shifting part of production elsewhere. The Covid pandemic and the way China has been handling the pandemic has now morphed the China +1 strategy into ABC (Anything but China) strategy.  These have certainly helped the cause of manufacturing in India as we can see in the exports of Mobile phones out of India now. We are still scratching the surface here and still miles to go before we become a credible +1 in manufacturing.

There is a visible infrastructural transformation that is happening in India as we speak. Highways, Railways, Airports, and seaports are all getting upgraded or added at a speed not seen before. Again, the pandemic derailed the progress for two years otherwise, many would have seen completion by now.

There is credence therefore to the India Shining sentiment that we are witnessing at the moment. Here is where I would like to add a caveat. Developed countries like the US, Western Europe, Japan, and so on look at other countries when their internal situations are not good. That is how China got the benefit of a huge benevolence from the US in the 90’s when the US outsourced almost its entire manufacturing to China.  Similarly, the US Economy is going through a trough presently with the spectre of a recession looming large. The economy is indeed resilient but there are lots of ifs and buts. Commentators call this the “Yes and But” situation.

If you look at India, I would say we are in a “No and But” situation. Living in India, one cannot resonate easily with the India Shining maahaul. Our cities are in a state of perennial under-construction.  Projects, whether they are flyovers or Metros just don’t seem to finish.  Interest rates have become so high that have pushed EMIs over the roof.  IBC has not helped to resolve quickly the issue of bankrupt companies. In Mumbai, bankrupt builders have ditched projects midway spoiling the aspirations of so many middle-class families and filling the skyline with incomplete towers. Jobs and Unemployment data point to a very grim situation for the youth.

But the economy is indeed growing. GST collections have been on a healthy trend. People are travelling and holidaying like there is no tomorrow. Just look at the long queues for check-in and security checks in big airports like Mumbai and Delhi in the early morning hours. Festival and marriage shopping crowds have been unprecedented of late in shopping areas in all cities. Cheap data and bandwidth have transformed our day-to-day lives in more ways than one. The “India stack” is a global case study. Amidst all the negative sentiments globally, there is an air of positivity in India. We have to move to a “Yes and no But” scenario that too as early as possible.

As Shekhar Gupta says in one of his columns, we have a habit of flashing victory signs early.  India as we speak is still a WIP and a lot of work is yet to be done.  From here, what we need is an uninterrupted home run where the economy keeps clocking 7-8% if not more on a year-on-year basis for 20 years.  If that happens, we will not be talking of just a maahaul but an actual India shining!

Pic credits: Alex Fine in The Economist dated 13th May, 2022.

Wanted: Swachh Bharat Abhiyan 2.0!

After about 24 long months, we are finally seeing a relief from Covid! I am hesitating to say that we are seeing the end of Covid yet, looking at the past propensity of the virus to take different shapes and names to haunt us.  In India now, we see normal life returning. Children have gone back to schools putting an end to the tyranny called “Online classes” at least for now. Employees have started working, meaning working from offices except of course those who continue to follow a hybrid model. Shoppers have started thronging the markets and malls. Cinema halls have started seeing crowds. Events of all hue are back. Travel for pleasure and work has re-started. Traffic is back on the roads with a vengeance.  And garbage, filth and littering on the roads are also back!

Flash back to the day when Narendra Modi announced the kicking off of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, a Clean India mission during his Independence Day speech in 2014, few months after taking over as the Prime Minister.  He said, “A Clean India would be the best tribute India could pay to Mahatma Gandhi on his 150 birth anniversary in 2019!” On the 2nd Oct, 2014 on Gandhiji’s birth anniversary, Swachh Bharat Mission was launched. I vividly remember the excitement it created immediately. There was a buzz around Swachhata in the following days in the whole country.

Everywhere I went, I could see and hear people talking about a Clean India. Politicians led “photo op” sessions to clean their neighbourhoods.  Celebrities followed suit. Social workers led actual sessions to clean their neighbourhoods.  Children followed suit.  Dustbins started making their presence felt all of a sudden in public places. Administration started spending money on keeping towns clean. Tourist places started to become cleaner. Railway stations, Bus depots sported a cleaner look.  Making cities, towns and villages “Open Defecation Free” became part of this program. Construction of toilets got a fresh impetus.  Even Bollywood appropriated the fever when a film titled Toilet Ek Prem Katha was made with Askhay Kumar in the lead with toilets for women as the theme. Swachh Bharat Abhiyan had arrived.

India had not become a Singapore but there was a movement in the right direction. But down the line somewhere, the goal post got shifted. Somehow the government made “Open Defecation Free” (ODF) by 2nd October, 2019 as the only goal of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. Parameswaran Iyer, who had resigned from the IAS earlier was re-drafted as Secretary of the Ministry of Sanitation and Drinking Water and was tasked with achieving the ODF goal. He made the unthinkable happen.

As of November 28 that year, some 10.14 crore individual household toilets were constructed under the programme. And as per the concerned minister’s statement in Rajya Sabha, the sanitation coverage in the country, which was 38.7 per cent as on October 2, 2014 had increased to 100 per cent and all the 5,99,963 villages of the country had declared themselves ODF.  Therefore, while this goal of achieving universal sanitation through toilet construction was achieved, which in itself is not a mean achievement at all, the original objective of a “Clean India” got buried somewhere in the garbage dump perhaps. I am not yet clear as to when the goal post got shifted.

With the return of the Modi Sarkar in 2019 in the back of a historic win in the elections where toilet construction also played a part, the original Swachh Bharat Abhiyan seemed to have vanished from the collective memory of the nation. Then of course by March 2020, Covid struck and everything else lost focus and priority.

It is therefore I feel, now that we have a reprieve from Covid and things are getting back to normal in India, it is time to put Swachhata on the National agenda again. I read that in October 2021, Modi launched the second phase of the Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban (SBM-U) and the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) stressing that these missions were aimed at making India’s cities garbage-free and water-secure. So it looks like the program is in place. However, I don’t recollect (probably it could be due to our pre-occupation with Covid way back in October 2021) the launch of this second phase.

October 2nd, 2019 has come and gone and three more years have gone by. It is time to go back to the original idea of “A Clean India”. In my earlier posts on Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, I had mentioned that if this program fails, it is not because of Modi. It is because we as public failed the program. I see now that people are back to littering on streets. Paan spitting and “painting the city red” never even paused. I pity the municipality workers who are given the job of cleaning road dividers time and again of the paan stains only to be painted red just in a few days. Men peeing on highways has become a common sight again. Those toilets which were put across highways have somehow vanished! Garbage is overflowing from the bins on to the streets. Public places like municipality parking lots in Mumbai and Pune (which I have seen first-hand) are reeking of squalor like in the past.

There is hope still. When one sees for example, the Ghats in Varanasi or the Railway stations these days, they are squeaking clean. Just that the awareness about Clean India has to be brought back as a National obsession.  India needs Swachh Bharat Abhiyan 2.0.

As I wrote before, Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is not about cleaning but eliminating or reducing the need for cleaning in the first place. The onus of that of course lies with us, the public of India not the municipalities, not the State Government, not the Central Government and certainly not Narendra Modi.

Pic Courtesy: Swachh Bharat Mission website

The new LCS Trinity in the Carnatic World!

In the Carnatic music world, the Trinity refers of course to the three legendary composers – Thyagaraja, Muthuswami Dikshitar and Shyama Sastri. So, what is this new LCS Trinity I am talking about? Read on.

With the Covid pandemic stretching itself for close to two years now, there is hardly a domain in the world that it would not have disrupted. The world of Carnatic music is not an exception. Concerts typically involve gathering of people and travel – both of which were subjected to restrictions due to Covid.  The result – For the rasikas, no opportunity to sink their heart, mind and soul in some peaceful music in person and for the musicians no opportunity to perform live in front of an audience and revel in their applause.  Suddenly, the musicians found that they had a lot of time in their hands when lockdown happened.

This is not the case however for most of the Carnatic musicians usually. In normal times, their schedules are packed with live concerts throughout the year within and outside India.  The rise of the Indian diaspora, with a substantial chunk of them with origins from the south of the Vindhyas, has set the demand for Carnatic musicians outside of India soaring beyond imagination since the beginning of this millennium.

I would imagine that for most of the Carnatic artists, a typical year would look like this at normal times. Starting from November till Mid-January is when they would be stay put in Chennai, the global epicentre of Carnatic music, to be part of the “December Music Season”.  After this season is over, from Mid-January to end March is the window available for the musicians to perform in other cities in India. In between, you also have the Annual Thyagaraja Aradhana festival at Thiruvaiyaru which is also now being held simultaneously in other cities where usually the musicians participate. This period is also the season for Temple Ulsavams in Kerala. And Carnatic musicians of all hue make their presence felt in kutcheries as part of the ten day Ulsavam festivities.

Come April, it is the onset of summer in most parts of India and musicians travel to other parts of the world to perform during this window. Again in April during the Easter break, The Cleveland Thyagaraja Festival, which is touted to be the largest Indian classical music festival outside of India is scheduled, where many leading Carnatic exponents participate year after year.  By September/October with the onset of the festival season in India starting with Ganesh Chaturti and followed by Navarathri, you will find most of the musicians back to their bases to participate in concerts organised around these festivals in different cities. And in November, it is time to prepare for the “Season” ahead.

So, with this type of a crowded calendar, a typical Carnatic musician is so busy that he/she doesn’t have the time to think of anything else apart being in Pack-Travel-Perform-Repeat mode. But this was all before the global disruptor called Covid came and upset the rhythm of this well set routine.

During the pandemic induced lockdown since March last year, with more time and bandwidth at their disposal, Carnatic musicians have tried to re-invent and re-engineer themselves in more ways than one. Just like how the JAM (Jandhan-Aadhaar-Mobile) trinity helped the government to reach social benefits directly to those in need more efficiently, I would say that the LCS (Lockdown-Connectivity- Social Media) trinity has come in handy for the artists to stay connected with their audience. Many of the leading musicians lapped up this opportunity with both their hands and became social media savvy in this period.  Though most of them existed in social media before also, they now have started using it to converse with the rasikas and not just use it to put out schedules and other announcements like they did before.

T.M.Krishna, usually active on social media continued to engage with his rasikas during the pandemic period with his singing bits and in fact did a few fund raiser gigs streaming from home to support fellow artists who were deprived of income during the pandemic. The singer duo of Ranjani-Gayatri put out quite a bit of content on social media for listeners to watch and enjoy.  Trichur Brothers – Srikrishna Mohan and Ramkumar Mohan have been very regular in uploading their singing videos on social media.  Vocalist Sikkil Gurucharan, through a series of webinars answered questions of rasikas on various aspects of Carnatic music in general and his music in particular while explaining the technicalities of the form.  Rajesh Vaidya became an instant hit with his short and sweet “Do you have a minute?” series where he plays bits of hit film songs and puts them out almost every day. Veena exponent Dr. Jayanthi Kumaresh is another musician who has been extremely active on social media since the pandemic in engaging with her rasikas.

We could also get a glimpse of the other sides of the artists as well. Famed singer Sudha Raghunathan let us enter into her kitchen with her short videos of singing while cooking.  She also displayed her anchoring skills by doing online interviews with a wide range of interesting personalities.  Singer Unnikrishnan, apart from showcasing the talent of his daughter Uthara through joint singing sessions, also showed that he is a fitness freak by regularly posting his work out videos.

Among the Carnatic musicians, if I have to pick up one musician who stood out in engaging with the rasikas during the last few months, it would be Carnatic vocalist Sanjay Subramanyam.  Using a combination of his own pleasing personality, savvy marketing and smart use of social media, Sanjay constantly upped the ante in terms of rasika engagement. While in the initial few months of the lockdown, he was putting out some of his old recorded videos, he then started investing a lot of time and effort on this with a help of a social media team and started putting out fresh and interesting content which stand out on a regular basis.

In a series of short 2 odd minute videos titled “On That Note”, Sanjay narrates interesting side stories and episodes from his life including some of his interactions with legends like M.S.Subbalakshmi, M.L. Vasanthakumari etc.  Similarly, “Short Notes” – another series of short videos where he takes up a raga and sings few phrases, is now a huge hit among his followers. He typically ends these notes with phrases from Maestro Ilaiyaraaja’s hit songs in the same raga. In some of his videos and interviews he has mentioned that he is an unapologetic fan of Ilaiyaraaja and #RajaisGod is his favourite hashtag which he uses often on Twitter.  It is interesting to see Sanjay bringing out such nuances from film music which otherwise is not possible to appreciate for an ordinary music listener who is not trained in Carnatic music.  I can see that this aspect of highlighting the Carnatic influence on film music has become a huge hit among his followers.

In continuing with his rasika engagement efforts, he has started a paid channel – “Sanjay Sabha” where full-fledged professionally recorded concerts are put out regularly for people to pay and watch.  All this has culminated now with a series of live concerts in Chennai as part of “Sanjay Sabha” for the ongoing music season. From the social media conversations on his handles, it is clear that these efforts have generated a lot of interest and chatter among music followers.

One can also see that his web site is regularly updated to the last detail in terms of events, schedules and other press notes. Sanjay also keeps penning his thoughts on a blog and the last one was about the experience of taking the stage for a live concert after two years! Even for a seasoned musician like Sanjay, there is a re-discovery and rebirth, I reckon.  I do recall that in the dotcom boom period in the late 90’s, Sanjay ran the web site on Carnatic music where he answered questions from rasikas and put out some content. But I guess over a period of time, the site met a gradual death. So now in the back of the LCS trinity he is now back with his site with a slew of offerings and content of interest to the rasikas and I am sure that this inning will be longer and permanent.

The pandemic will hopefully end soon but I hope that the engagement kicked off by the musicians will continue even in the post Covid era with the help of the CS (Connectivity-Social Media) duo.  This will go a long way in mainstreaming Carnatic music and further open it up to a newer audiences.

Postscript: It’s not my take that the LCS Trinity is exclusive to Carnatic world or something like that.  It is relevant to many other fields as well. I have just tried to explain how LCS has helped to transform even a very traditional domain like Carnatic music.

Image Courtesy: Outlook India

HNY to HNQ??

As I sit to pen my first blog for this year in the early days of another New Year, I am reminded of my first post for the last year which was titled “Thank God it’s a New Year”! That time (1st week of 2021) we were just coming off what appeared like a terrible year. The entire world was disrupted by the global pandemic in a scale not seen or heard in many, many decades.  But then by January, we already were recovering and started gradually getting back to pre-Covid way of living. Lockdowns were over, travel started and so on. So, the theme of my piece then was that the worst was behind us and we must thank God that we are in a New Year and raring to go.

In the year 2021, we did finish the first quarter on a high. There was optimism all-around of a sharp turn around. But then, just in a few weeks, the world in general and India in particular was mauled by the 2nd wave.  I shudder to recount the horrifying things which were happening around us in the months of April/May/June/July. Enough to say that the cursed tentacles of the virus were still spreading all over spelling doom on all recovery predictions.  Drawing room conversations were all around the availability of vaccines and the time when vaccines will provide an eventual shield for the virus.

If we recall, by the third Quarter of 2021 however, things on the ground started changing rapidly. The vaccination pace picked up dramatically with better availability of vaccines by August. And we were talking about flattening the curve for the second time. Through the festival season in the months of October/November the mood was upbeat and we could start seeing the recovery even in “Contact sensitive sectors” like travel, tourism and so on.

Things started dramatically changing again with the discovery of the Omicron variant in South Africa in early December. And towards the end of December and as we speak now, we are witnessing another rapid spike in cases and preparing ourselves for the inevitable third wave!  If you have been following the IMF predictions for the global economy and specific countries through the pandemic, you will realise that they have been changing their forecasts every quarter up and down. Now, what am I trying to drive at here?

With such an uncertainty in the world triggered by a virus and its variants today and it could be something else tomorrow what does it leave for long range planning for a country /company /household etc.?  It is tough. To elucidate this point let me talk about the way Indian government handled the economic support during the pandemic versus some of the larger well to do countries. When the pandemic struck in March 2020, big economies like the US, Canada and European countries who could afford, opted for cash transfer to its people to pump prime the demand and therefore the economy. Some of the Non-resident Economists of Indian origin of the likes of Dr. Raghuram Rajan, Dr. Kaushik Basu and Dr. Abhijit Banerjee also advocated this route for India and were extremely critical of the Narendra Modi government for not going the whole hog and opting for a more calibrated “Drip support” approach.

In this approach, instead of direct cash transfer, the government opted for free supply of rations to the needy and generous support of working capital to ensure that the businesses stay afloat. There were also moratoriums on loan repayments for most part of the year 2020. The logic of the economic think tank that included the likes of Dr. Bibek Debroy (Chairman – PM’s Economic Council) , Sanjeev Sanyal (Principal Economic advisor in the Finance Ministry) and Dr Krishnamurthy Subramanian (Chief Economic Advisor) was to take one step at a time when how the virus situation will pan out was uncertain, uncertainty being the key word. The time period for which any support was to be provided was not clear. Also another important thing, during the pandemic induced lockdowns, the issue was in the supply side largely. People stopped going to salons during the pandemic not because they didn’t have money. The same logic can be extrapolated to other service sectors as well. So, the idea was to keep the powder dry for eventualities in the future. As per IMF’s Dr. Gita Gopinath, large economies including the US have no more leg room left to keep supporting the economy and hence are facing an imminent challenge if the virus continues to hold sway. I must say therefore that the Indian think tank certainly stand vindicated on this account when we had to contend with the second wave and now the third wave.

My point therefore is, are long term planning or Annual plans relevant anymore? Things on the ground change so dramatically and drastically these days that any assumption for the better or worse of the future happenings is proved wrong very quickly. Since in India we understand similes from Bollywood easily, let me give an example. RRR is the next film after Bahubali from the ace director Rajamouli. This is also a magnum opus that has been made in multiple languages. Obviously due to the huge budget involved, it had to opt for a theatrical release and was planned for a release in January. The entire team was seen doing mega roadshows in different cities as part of the promotion for whole of December. But then, I see today that they have taken a call to postpose the release due to the like increase of restrictions in many cities due to the Covid surge of late! So it is a matter of few weeks for things to change for the fate of a film that was on the works for five years!

Even in the context of business in the pre-Covid times, I have not been a big fan of rigorous annual planning as, over a period of time, I have seen that assumptions and market conditions change drastically leaving the annual plans as an academic exercise. Now in the post Covid New normal, I feel that time has come to focus on QSQT (Quarter Se Quarter Tak).  While an overall Annual plan can be made for directional purposes, the drilling down of everything to quarters and months and weeks is a wasteful exercise in my opinion. In the sense does it make sense to assume that Omicron is not going to impact the economy so much and plan expenses accordingly for the coming fiscal year? Or we in any position to comment the recurrence of any new waves in the future? Instead in the current situation, whether it is the country or corporation or housing society or our own house hold we may be better off to keep the horizon of three months and take it from one quarter to another. On that note, wishing you all a Happy and contented New Year or should I say Happy New Quarter (HNQ)?

Image courtesy: Kat Millar.com

Debate around the Growth of the Indian Economy!

Few weeks ago, the GDP numbers for the 1st quarter of this fiscal year for India were published. As per that, the Indian economy grew by 20.1%. In the following days, there were columns, Op-Eds and Social media commentary on whether it was a good quarter or not. Since “Neutral media” is an Oxymoron, depending upon the leanings of the media, the economic performance was either branded “historic” or “pathetic”. There are no surprises here and we have now learnt to live with the media spin on all issues.

Along with the media, the tribe of “Neutral Economists” is also on the wane.  Depending upon their political affiliation, the first quarter performance was touted to be “record breaking/highest ever” or “worst/shocking” in decades by reputed economists.  Therefore for an Aam Admi, it is difficult to judge what actually the situation is. And the truth as in many situations may be somewhere in between.

I am no economist but as an ardent follower of the Indian economy, I tried to make sense of the numbers and the trends thereof and this is what I find. I would like to hear the opinion of the readers as well on my hypothesis.

In isolation, a GDP growth of 20.1% is of course very good. But, we should not forget that this is at the back of a low base of -24.4% same Quarter last year. In that sense, some of the commentary from pro Government circles that this growth is massive and is earth shattering etc. is immature.  At the same time, commentary from the opposition side comparing this with GDP rate pre-Covid and claiming that actually it is lower than what it was two years ago is equally immature. And this is why.

First, the reality is, on a trend line after a massive negative growth of 24.4% in Q1 last year and growing marginally by 1.6% in Q4, a growth of 20.1 in Q1 this year shows that the economy is indeed recovering and the recovery is V-shaped to be precise. This is certainly to be happy about.

Second, we must keep in mind that during Q1 this year, we got caught by a massive second wave which again put several curbs on the functioning of the economy, which was as such firing at much lower levels than before. So, among the eight buckets which contribute to the GDP namely Manufacturing, Construction, Agriculture/forestry & fishing, Mining & Quarrying, Electricity/Gas/ Water & other utilities, Trade/Hotels/Travel & Communication, Finance & Real Estate and Public administration, Defence & other services, it is obvious that a couple of engines are not firing at all. It is therefore natural that when you compare with the pre-Covid situation, the GDP in absolute numbers will be lower. This however does not take away the fact that with the easing of restrictions, the economy is obviously recovering.

Third, let us take a look at the monthly GST collection numbers for the past couple of years.  The average monthly GST collection figure in 2018-19 was Rs. 98,114 Cr. and the average in the 1st four months of 2021-22 is Rs.113,333 Cr. 2018-19 was pre-Covid, normal times and these four months are right in the midst of Covid. And compared to Rs. 101,818 Cr. monthly average last year. So just a cursory glance shows that the economy is on the mend clearly this year.

Here, I would like to dwell into a larger point and thereafter a question.

I would presume that GST collections represent transactional activity in the economy with respect to both goods and services. We are all aware that post the pandemic all “Contact” based sectors have been severely affected. This includes the likes of Travel, hospitality, Wining and Dining (all these for business and pleasure), impulse shopping, recreation and entertainment of all sorts and other human touch related services (salons, spas…). While the Software industry per se has not got affected due to Covid with “Work from Home” filling in well, the ecosystem around it has been significantly disrupted. This includes transportation, catering, real estate, utilities, other discretionary spending and stuff.

As common public, our shopping is mostly restricted to what is required. We travel only when it is utmost required.  The “Festival economy” which is big in India has been crippled since last April.  So my question is, when transactions around goods and services have been curtailed, how is it that the monthly GST collections have shown a growth over 2018-19? (Pre-pandemic period)

There are can be two inferences from this trend:

First, if the monthly GST collection is showing such a robust 15% growth (over 2018-19) even during the pandemic times, once we are done with the pandemic and when all the cylinders start firing, we are looking at an exponential growth in monthly GST collection figures. (Even adjusting for inflation)

Second take away is, either with whatever limited avenues left to us, we are consuming much more than average or there is a significant shift towards formalisation of the economy. I would like to believe in the latter. I don’t think we are consuming more than what is required. However, certainly our purchasing patterns have changed. Due to the pandemic imposed curbs, it is possible that our dependence on the neighbourhood mom and pop stores have come down and we have got used to the convenience of door delivery for everything.

As a personal example, pre-Covid, we used to buy vegetables and fruits from our neighbourhood bhaiya. Once lock down struck, this shifted to a vegetable vendor who was arranged by our apartment complex for door delivery. Here, payment was through G-pay/PayTm etc. Now in the past few weeks, the same vendor is now part of an E-Commerce aggregator called Bhajiwala.com! Bhajiwala.com, I am sure is within the ambit of GST and hence clearly part of the formal economy! My view therefore is, the benefits of GST implementation which we were all looking forward to is beginning to accrue and will be more visible when we are out of the pandemic.

It was widely believed that once GST is implemented, it will add 1-2% to the annual GDP. I now believe that once the pandemic is over and when economy starts firing in all cylinders like before, the bump due to GST could be in excess of 2% because of the increased formalisation of the economy is the last 2/3 years. This I am talking about even after the pent up demand effect.  That should put the naysayers of the GST to rest.

Though we cannot take the stock markets as a real indicator of the state of the economy thanks to its fickle and speculative nature, probably the markets are seeing into the future as above which others are not.  Which is why the markets have been on fire since the last few months even in the midst of the pandemic.

In conclusion, I would like to say that yes, the high growth in Q1 is due to the low base effect.  Yet, it is a significant milestone and pointer towards a robust economic recovery. It is certainly one to be cheered upon if not celebrated upon as yet.  Acche Din are around the corner!

Pic Courtesy: The Economic Times

30 Years of “1991”!

As I was wondering what to write on this week, I realised that in a few days, half of this year 2021 will be over.  Back in January, everyone thought or rather hoped that we were all done with the “New normal” and soon one will get back to the “Old Normal” in more ways than one. Till March, we were coasting on towards that. Then came the dreaded 2nd wave leaving us literally gasping for breath. And in no time we are back to hoping to see the end of this year.  Just the feeling we had the same time, last year.

And probably 30 years ago in the year 1991.  If 2021 has been a tough year for those who are running the country, I reckon 1991 would also have been so and for a variety of reasons.  When the history of post independent India is written, the year 1991 would feature prominently. Today, the year is associated with the unleashing of economic reforms and liberalisation in India and being crowned as the ‘Year that changed India”. But it has got so many other associations to it, which is what I thought I will write about, when we are in the midst of “30 Years of 1991”!

As 1991 dawned, I was in my 2nd year of MBA course in Bombay. Just as the year commenced, we were witness to the 1st televised war in the Gulf when US attacked Iraq to liberate Kuwait in “Operation Desert Storm”. In India, cable TV was still in its infancy. But we could watch some visuals of the war in “The World This Week” programme which made New Delhi Television (NDTV now) and Dr. Prannoy Roy household names in English speaking households in India.  I must add here that those days as young students we had tremendous appetite for news and current affairs which is seemingly missing in the current generation. Oh yes, that law of diminishing marginal utility! When News is a plenty all around, it finds lesser and lesser interest.

And it was during this war in 1991, that India probably removed its veil of Non Alignment, when the then government under Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar allowed re-fuelling of US Aircrafts in India. The decision had to be soon reversed under immense political pressure eventually in particular from the Rajiv Gandhi led Congress which was supporting the Chandra Shekhar government from outside. Though the war happened in the Gulf, it had its own implications for India as a country. Oil prices sky rocketed pushing the imports bill to hit the roof and plunging the economy into a deeper crisis. And we had a humanitarian crisis to deal with as the Gulf was home to millions of Indians.

In May, I was back in Madras after completion of the course and preparing to return to Bombay after a short break. On the 21st May, 1991, Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in Sriperumpudur near Madras by a suicide bomber at an election rally. The death of Rajiv Gandhi that too in that most tragic manner shook the nation. Rajiv Gandhi was all set to return as the Prime Minister with the Congress getting a comfortable lead. But his untimely death put the country again in chaos and when the results came, Congress became the single largest party but short of majority on its own.

It is difficult to speculate as to what would have happened to our country had Rajiv not been killed and had he returned as the Prime Minister. It was widely believed that having learnt his lessons from his first stint, Rajiv was a wiser man and with his youth, energy and impatience would have changed the course of the country for the better.

With the loss of Rajiv, P.V.Narasimha Rao became the Prime Minister heading a Congress led coalition government. He made Dr. Manmohan Singh his finance minister and between them unleashed a slew of economic reforms that liberalised India. Those were eventful days and day after day, headline grabbing announcements followed.  Dramatic devaluation of the rupee, pledging of the country’s Gold reserves, announcement of the New Trade policy, announcement of the New Industrial policy that would end the licence-permit Raj,  the historic Budget presentation and so on. When all these were happening, one didn’t realise that these will forever change the destiny of India.

Unlike now, when economists and policy experts are in unison singing the praise of the 1991 reforms, back then the reforms were always projected as “Acts in Duress”.  Even among the ruling Congress, there was no consensus on the reforms forcing Dr. Singh to make that famous quote that he walked around with his resignation letter in his pocket.

Elsewhere in the same year, the dissolution of the Great Soviet Union was in rapid progress and by December the entire Soviet Union was formally dissolved that eventually ended the Cold War.  Google also tells me that the World Wide Web was launched to the public in 1991 and Microsoft.com went online, though I have no recollection of these!

Coming back to India, not to be limited to financial problems, in the same year 1991, on June 28th, Kashmiri militants kidnapped the then Executive Director of IOC, Mr. Doraiswamy. He was finally released after a couple of months in exchange of a few militants. I remember this vividly as day after day front page in the newspapers were occupied with this news.

For India, not just 1991 but the next two years were indeed full of challenges that wrecked the country pushing it from one crisis to another.  So, looking back, as a country we came out of all that relatively unscathed as we kept growing to what we are today, though the pace and extent of growth may not be our liking.

30 years hence, in 2021, as a country we have been inflicted hard by a global pandemic that has been hogging everyone’s attention. Our economy has been bruised badly. Lives have been lost and still counting.  Clearly not just India, but globally we have been set back by couple of years if not more.

As we come out of the 2nd wave, a recovery is imminent but not without the potential danger of further waves. We can only hope that this time also we will follow the 1991 cycle.  If you remember, the economy fared poorly in the 1st year of the reform (1991-92) but from 1993-94 after two years, the economy was on a roll.

Going back to 1991, personally for me that was the year when I started my professional career and so along with the country, the year has a personal significance and it will be always etched in my memory.  Where were you in 1991 and what are your memories of that year? Do share in the comments section.

India’s Vaccination Conundrum!

Delhi, India’s capital reported around 1600 new cases yesterday with the test positivity rate dropping to 2.5% from a high of 35% in April. Mumbai, the commercial capital reported around 1300 new cases yesterday. In the 1st half of April, the daily cases were averaging 10000 plus.  Both these cities are under near complete lockdowns and the reduction of activities has helped to bring the case load down. Elsewhere in India, many cities and towns are still showing a worrying trend and the respective authorities have imposed circuit breakers and I am certain the numbers there will also show a decreasing trend in the coming weeks.

Now with the decrease in the case load in Mumbai, already there is a clamour to “Unlock” so that business activities can resume. In Delhi, the Chief Minister has said that if the cases continue to drop for another week, his government will start the process of unlocking. As we saw in the past, when the lockdowns are eased, there is a chance that the case load goes up. It is a vicious cycle of numbers going up and down with locking and unlocking. Hence, at this point of time, the only option we have, to break this cycle is to rapidly vaccinate majority of the population.

India’s vaccination program thus far has only flattered to deceive. The programme kicked off on the 16th Jan, 2021. It is now over 5 months and yes, we have administered over 18 crore doses but, the coverage has only been 3% of the population. If we continue at the same pace, we will take years to cover the total population by which time, wreckage on all fronts due to Covid will be humongous. It is clear as daylight that we have to up our ante on the vaccination front as of yesterday.

This is where the government’s overall planning on the vaccination program begs all kinds of questions.   During the initial phases of the program that was meant to cover health workers and later senior citizens, one thought that the program was proceeding smoothly. However, it was during the 2nd phase – that of citizens over the age of 45 commenced, the whole program started falling apart. From a phase of vaccine hesitancy we quickly moved to vaccine shortages. And this was happening exactly at the time when the second wave Covid numbers were hitting the roof on a daily basis.

A panic struck government facing fire from all directions on a single day opened up the vaccination program whereby it allowed vaccine makers to sell 50% of their stock to states and private sector. And in another bizarre move, it opened up the vaccination to 18+ age group with a caveat that this will not be sponsored by the Central government.  Bizarre, because the opening up happened when there were no sufficient stocks to cover the 45+ age groups adequately.

Today as far as vaccination is concerned, there is a strange situation. As I mentioned earlier, there is less vaccine hesitancy among people. There is a good awareness and urge amongst many to get the vaccination done. However, due to the shortages, we are back to the good old “IRCTC” days. The tyranny of OTPs, slowly loading site and the fastest finger first routine are back. Those who are not IT savvy, have to make the daily trips to the centre and try for walk in jabs and of course deal with big lines there, that too during Covid times. The Cowin portal which at the outset is impressive is a gate keeper today. And for some strange reason it is available only in English language!

As I have written in my earlier posts, as far as Covid is concerned, there have been many unknowns. The magnitude of the second wave came as a big surprise and caught all of us in the back foot. I have argued that no government in the world could have planned and smoothly handled a wave which is 3X and 4X times the peak of the previous wave in terms of hospitalisation requirements. On this, the barrage of excessive criticism on the Indian Government has been a bit unfair and we should cut the government some slack on this.

Having said that, where the Government and here I mean the Central Government, has been found wanting is on the vaccination project front. In this project, there were lesser or no unknowns. Data of the population, the production capacities of the indigenous vaccine makers were all available right in front. Yet, we did not move on securing enough stocks of the doses for vaccination. It is not clear if it is executive decision making or bureaucratic sloth that has landed us in this situation. Either way, we missed the bus.

While the important aspect of arresting the second wave is in progress, the Central Government must shift its priority to bringing the vaccination program back on track. We are now seeing that the program of state governments procuring vaccines directly is not taking off. In response to the global bids floated by the Municipal Corporation in Mumbai (BMC), only suppliers of Sputnik have quoted. And there again, with the stringent supply conditions of the tender, I doubt any supply will happen in the near future!

Therefore, the onus is on the Central Government to ensure sourcing of the required doses of vaccines required to vaccinate at least 70% of the population by end of this year. That would mean making available over 160 crore doses from now till December. In a recent press conference, the government put out a table that said that the Production/Availability of vaccines from August to Dec is 216 crore doses. With this availability picture, has the central government placed the orders on the vaccine makers already at least for the approved ones? Are the approval process for the other vaccines on queue put on fast track? Has the government assessed the working capital requirements of the indigenous vaccine makers and committed the same? Is the supply chain secured for the production of the vaccines as per capacity? IS work happening on the Cowin site to make it more citizen friendly?

If the answers are yes, we have learnt from the past mistakes. If No, we have decided to live “Ram Bharose”.

Image Courtesy: Amul