Was in Delhi for a long while, about two weeks, busy with all the MBA interviews. Got done with them, hopefully with a few positive results. Then we decided to push to Rajasthan to meet my sibling in law school.
After three days of hectic travel, I finally reached home and the first thing I did was to fall sick and have the worst cough of my life. Anyways, I had lots of fun, and more importantly, am glad that I only have one interview left, albeit the most important one of all.
The road to Jodhpur from Delhi is good, no doubt. Got to ride the expressway between Delhi and Gurgaon. The expressway is great, but just awful, awful driving skills. People cut lanes at will, and just cut you off whenever they noticed even an iota of space. Very scary, because all this takes place at very high speeds. Also, although its called an expressway, it still does not stop pedestrians from crossing over at many places.
The road from Gurgaon to Jaipur is good too, its four lane, but decently surfaced, and I didnt find a lot of traffic. Then there is the GVK Expressway from Jaipur to Kishangarh, which is about 30 km from Ajmer. The expressway is very good, and a pleasant drive.
Ajmer to Jodhpur is good in the sense that although it is two lane, there is very little traffic, and you can ride your fastest even though its two lanes.
I think I missed a lot of juicy news while I was away, but definitely not enough to not have an opinion about them.
First, the media is again enamoured by a little girl who was stuck in a borewell for 27 hours, before being rescued by the Indian Army. Before this, a few more children had become the centers of media attention after being stuck in wells, and some children have even lost their lives. Only one news channel actually said anything about no lessons being learnt after all these tragedies. Why are borewells being allowed to be abandoned without being filled up? Why aren't there rules about effective fencing around borewells, or any deep holes dug for any purpose to prevent children and other crazy people from getting near them? There should be laws dictating how they need to be dug up and how to be utilized and how to be abandoned.
The entire country was apparently praying and holding vigils and all that, but I doubt anybody will have the good sense to raise this safety issue further. I think our belief is God supersedes our belief in ourselves.
Also, I am reading India 2020 these days, and we have already lost 12 good years, because this book came out in '98, but I think everybody who has a vision for this country should read this book, because even if we don't achieve a lot by 2020, at least we know the possibilities and what needs to be achieved.
Reading the book makes me wonder of the great opportunity we seem to be bent on missing. And President Kalam is right about one thing - we need to rise about the little problems we worry about all day and for once think ahead and think far. I realize now that most of the politicians we elect today don't have a vision for the country. I don't blame them, because most Indians don't seem to have a vision for the country. Thats unfortunate and that needs to change.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
amnesty FM
Just like Jaswant Singh was called the rollback FM for rolling back the price hike in fuel after announcing it in his budget last decade, they say P Chidambaram is the Amnesty FM for his super sized write off of Rs. 60,000 crores in small farmer loans. Of course, everyone says that all this is being done with the polls in mind, but this still needs to be looked deeper, because there are more shades to this decision than just the polls.
Farmers with land holdings of 2 acres or less are eligible for this write off, to begin with. Now there are a few things that even in my ignorance, I can more or less figure out. First, and probably the biggest cliche of all is that our agriculture sector is in such a pathetic condition that it can't survive without such bailouts. Most of the small and marginal farmers simply can't produce enough from their small land holdings to even break even. I feel that the biggest reason for this is India's very poor farm productivity, which is even below the global average.
I think another point to look at is that the number of small and marginal farmers who actually get loans from the public sector and co-operative banks are actually actually not as large, with private money lenders still lending to many of these farmers.
And no matter what, I am sure most of them who worked hard and cut into their savings and consumption to pay off their loans probably feel cheated, and I think the FM should have done something for them as well. Maybe he could have offered them new loans at a much lower rate. Besides, its not that these farmers whose loans are written off have a clean slate. They have no choice but to go in for new loans.
The FM says that he is simply wiping the dust off these loans for the banks. Which is a good point, because many of these loans were NPA's for these banks already, and with the FM saying he has the money, maybe they will receive some of the money which they probably wouldn't have received before.
The bottom line is that agriculture needs a much bigger and comprehensive push that just debt write offs. On TV, they had a few farmers from Punjab who said the same thing about not having any incentives for the farmers who actually worked hard to pay off their loans. Also, one of them urged the FM to teach them how to fish, and not give them fishes. Good points, and I think the second Green Revolution can't come any sooner.
Farmers with land holdings of 2 acres or less are eligible for this write off, to begin with. Now there are a few things that even in my ignorance, I can more or less figure out. First, and probably the biggest cliche of all is that our agriculture sector is in such a pathetic condition that it can't survive without such bailouts. Most of the small and marginal farmers simply can't produce enough from their small land holdings to even break even. I feel that the biggest reason for this is India's very poor farm productivity, which is even below the global average.
I think another point to look at is that the number of small and marginal farmers who actually get loans from the public sector and co-operative banks are actually actually not as large, with private money lenders still lending to many of these farmers.
And no matter what, I am sure most of them who worked hard and cut into their savings and consumption to pay off their loans probably feel cheated, and I think the FM should have done something for them as well. Maybe he could have offered them new loans at a much lower rate. Besides, its not that these farmers whose loans are written off have a clean slate. They have no choice but to go in for new loans.
The FM says that he is simply wiping the dust off these loans for the banks. Which is a good point, because many of these loans were NPA's for these banks already, and with the FM saying he has the money, maybe they will receive some of the money which they probably wouldn't have received before.
The bottom line is that agriculture needs a much bigger and comprehensive push that just debt write offs. On TV, they had a few farmers from Punjab who said the same thing about not having any incentives for the farmers who actually worked hard to pay off their loans. Also, one of them urged the FM to teach them how to fish, and not give them fishes. Good points, and I think the second Green Revolution can't come any sooner.
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