Skeletons in the Closet

Hello friends. Welcome to a brand new year. As we start this year, I wish you all the prosperity and good luck.

Well, I had plans of blogging something else. But as Oscar Wilde put it "The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it" ,I yielded to my temptations writing about the Satyam sham (I use the word sham because "Breaking news", "scandal", "Fraud" had already been used by most of TV channels , newspapers and the India Inc) . By now everyone would be overdose with news about Satyam . But I am sorry I can’t help but write about it and its your fate to read this :-)

At the outset it was a really sad day for India Inc. The entire episode took everyone by surprise. It is being compared to the likes of Enron and WorldCom. And rightly so. The entire Satyam episode had been like a jigsaw puzzle. As the story unfolded following the confessions of Mr. Ramalinga Raju, everything seemed to fall in its right place (as of now). Dunno if we can still believe Mr. Raju (Check Here)

Going by the facts put by Mr. Raju,

5040 crores of non-existent cash
376 crores of non-existent interest accrued
1230 crores of liability arranged by Mr. Raju in his own capacity
490 crores of overstated debtors position

This adds up to 7136 crores. Now come to the Maytas deal. The whole company was valued at $1.6 Billion . When we convert 7136 crores in terms of dollars, it comes around $1.6 Billion. This is the exact amount missing from Satyam's accounts. Since this cash did not exist in Satyam's books and since the acquisition of Maytas could be done for nothing , it all made perfect sense. It was a tragic end to a thrilling story which otherwise would have ended on a happy note if it wasn’t for the villains (In the form of Investors and shareholders in Mr. Raju's opinion).

What would have happened had Satyam went ahead with Maytas Deal? I can’t imagine what would have happened but I guess the catastrophe would have been of a lesser degree. Thank God it didn’t happen. Else we wouldn’t have known the real truth (Satyam) behind it.

One good thing is he came out in the public and admitted his guilt rather than waiting for someone to find it. All these days he had been dancing with the skeletons in his closet. I am sure he would be a relieved man and would have had a better sleep last night. Unfortunately robbed sleep of many others.

But my heart goes out for all the 53000+ employees of Satyam who have toiled for years and now face this for no fault of theirs. I wish the Satyam Employees all the strength to bear all these shocks.

2008: Musings

As the curtains for the year 2008 draws to a close, it’s time to reflect at the events and happenings that has shaped India and the rest of the world. The mental baggage that one carries in the year 2008 is certainly a forgettable one. The problem with the forgettable ones is you just can't do that - forget, that is :-). Just try and see whether you can forget the terrorist attacks of WTC, London bombings, Mumbai train blasts, Taj Mahal hotel up in flames, Tsunami or for that matter the film Azhagiya Tamil Magan (No pun intended). There have been a few positives in the year 2008 but a lot of other events have over shadowed the positives and have cast a gloomy shadow and threatening to grow at fiendish levels. No prizes for guessing the negatives. It’s the financial crisis and terrorism.

The problem is that these negatives have left a deep scar in our face and we need to probably nurse these wounds for years to come. And mind you the year is not over yet. There are few hours left :-)

Financial Crisis:

Certainly, the year 2008 was a watershed (for wrong reasons ofcourse) in the history of World financial markets in general and Indian markets in particular.

A crisis much talked about after the Great Depression. The old saying that "It’s difficult to go up the ladder but it’s easy to fall down." seems to be applicable to stock market as well. At the end of the year 2007, markets were at their phenomenal best and sensex was giving nearly 40% returns in a no time. Come year 2008, we started hearing a few words repeatedly - Words like slump, recession, slowdown, bubble. It was a Boom to Gloom story. And still we have not recovered from it yet. The fundamental reason- Greed. Greed has over powered everything. Robbed us of our sanity to think. Clouded our judgment. The greed of a few people has resulted in the entire financial fiasco the entire world is reeling over. India has not been spared either. Despite all the talk of India decoupling from the American Economy, the fact remains that India, like the rest of European and Asian countries is linked to the American Economy. And bore the brunt of the financial onslaught as well. FII withdrew most of the money which they had invested. (Close to $12billion)

However closer to home, our banks did not face a big impact thanks to the strict banking regulations and lesser exposure to American & European Markets. A big thank you must be said to Mr. Y.V.Reddy for saving us from otherwise what would have been a fall into a deep abyss. (Click Here) When the whole world was made accessible to easy money, Mr. Reddy took care to check on the unregulated money with his stringent regulations. Private sector banks which were criticizing the actions later had to agree with these decisions. Hats off to you sir.

Pink slips, something unheard of in our country became a reality. Consolidation started taking place in various sectors on the face of slowdown in the economy. Adding to all these woes were oil price and inflation although both of them have cooled down a bit now. Overall this was a forgettable for the financial markets.

Terrorism:

Even though Financial crisis continued to take the limelight, towards the end of the year Terrorism took center-stage thanks to the attacks in Mumbai (India's 9/11). This year has been one of the bloodiest years in the Indian History. Unprecedented levels of terrorist attacks have taken place in a single year. With an inept people at the helm handling the affairs, things like security for common men was too much in the asking. America and Britain needed only one instance to introduce draconian laws and intense surveillance systems. India had done away with the POTA but did not consider having an adequate substitute in place of that. Much has been said about the terrorist attacks and what is now needed is only action in the form of stringent laws and more sustained and organized effort to tackle terrorism.

Even though India remains a secular democracy, our secularism has come under some strain. These have been indicated by the violence in Orissa and the emergence of so called “Hindu Terrorism”. These people are trying to divide the nation on communal lines. India needs to overcome the ramifications to focus on development on the social as well as economic front.

On the Sporting Front:

It was a good year for the Sports. Starting from Euro 2008 till the SA-AUSTRALIA Test series, it was thoroughly enjoyable. Spain the perennial under achievers finally achieved something. Not to mention the Epic Wimbledon final between Nadal and Federer was a treat to watch. But the biggest sporting extravaganza on earth happened this year. The Olympics And China showed the world how grand and extravagant an Olympics can be conducted (With all the Human Rights Violation). After a long time India got a gold medal in Olympics and we have waited 108 years to achieve an individual medal. Kudos to Abhinav Bindra. Phelps achieved something unimaginable. One can only look in awe at the swimming genius. India is at their arguably best peak in cricket under the thoughtful and aggressive leadership of M S Dhoni. Elsewhere Australia is losing their grip on the world cricket.

As the year is drawing to a close, One hopes that this New Year brings cheers to everyone and hope. Wish every one a Very Happy New Year.

Who is the dominant Species?

There is a recent report prepared jointly by the World Health Organization & World Economic Forum that India will incur an accumulated loss of $236.6 billion by 2015 on account of unhealthy lifestyles. 

The report suggest that chronic diseases like heart attack, stroke, cancer, diabetes which are ailments of long duration and slow progression will dent into peoples earnings. 

India is already the diabetic capital of the world with close to 30 million people affected by diabetics. Non communicable diseases are also on the rise due to lack of healthy diets and inadequate physical activity. 

What is more alarming is the fact that this will affect more economically active people and almost half of the people who die from these related ailments will be in their productive years. Incidentally India has the largest working population in the age range of 20-40… 

The only silver lining is the fact that China will be ahead of us ( J ) or probably may be worse off.  :-) 

Now an interesting story…. 

Once Aliens visited the earth and wanted to conquer it.. And they decided that if they can conquer the dominant species present in earth, they can conquer the whole of earth. So they sent two aliens to watch the activities happening in earth. 

The two aliens began watching the activities and the daily happenings on earth. 

Early Morning a guy (Cleaner) comes and takes out a beautiful Car from the shed. Cleans it up. Then another guy (Driver) comes . Checks the car. Fill it with Petrol. Takes  the owner of the car to his office. Then evening drops him down at his home and keeps the car in the shed. 

The Conclusion the aliens made? The Car is the dominant species on Earth.

Why so?

The Car is given a special place to rest. It has a servant to clean it up, a servant to feed it and take it outside. Last but not least… It has a servant to earn and constantly feed it!!! 

The conclusion… strange this may sound… is what is happening to most of our lives. Are we becoming slaves to technology?? Consider the fact that there are already days like “No E-mail Day” “No cell-phone day” (Courtesy Google.) Isn’t such things height of madness?? 

There is always a concern for social implications of all these endeavors (To create new technology). Is the new technologies and machines releasing us from the endless toil of the centuries? Or is it in a way limiting us from being the dominant species? Its true that technology is there for the betterment of our lives.. But are we using the way it should be?? The reports from WHO & WEF suggests otherwise. 

I just conclude with words from American writer and critic Henry David Thoreau… 

“We’ve become the tools of our tools... One day, something vast and cool and strange may read these very words – and chuckle with amusement. Welcome to tomorrow.”