Showing posts with label iipm-international. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iipm-international. Show all posts

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Heavy weight champ

Telang’s background in operations and his experience with the successful Commercial Vehicles business will be an asset

As Jack Welch once said, “If you pick the right people and give them the opportunity to spread their wings and put compensation as a carrier behind it you almost don’t have to manage them.” Ratan Tata has done exactly the same in Tata Motors, which is one of the key reasons why the company is the market leader in the Commercial Vehicles segment and more importantly, produces almost half of the Commercial Vehicles sold in the country. Well, P. M. Telang, Executive Director (Commercial Vehicles), Tata Motors would have a lot to do with that, for he is the man standing behind this success.

A Mechanical Engineer and an MBA from IIM-Ahemdabad, Telang has over three decades of experience in the automotive industry as he has been with Tata Motors since 1972. In his previous role as President (Light & Small Commercial Vehicles), Telang played a major role in ensuring a turnaround in the company through cost cutting and e-procurement. He is also serving as Senior VP (Operations), Pune currently. Overshadowing the success that the company achieved under Ravi Kant’s leadership will certainly not be a cake walk for anyone succeeding him. However, if we talk about the Commercial Vehicle segment of Tata Motors, Telang has been able to take its growth story forward very efficiently. And industry insiders believe that if Telang takes charge; it will surely set the stage for the next phase of growth for Tata Motors. And as auto expert Murad Ali Baig asserts, “The person taking charge of Tata Motors after Ravi Kant leaves should have an in-depth knowledge of the automotive industry apart from the basics of management and finance.”


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

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Monday, October 08, 2012

B&E’s Karan Mehrishi dives deep into the auto quagmire and gasps for breath...

 Of course, one has to accept that two years back, Bill Ford had divulged to the media that Ford would be necessarily moving towards more fuel efficient cars. That should have done it, right? Well, there was just a slight little problem. Despite his public statement, Bill never moved towards ‘fuel efficient’ cars! [“The market was pulling us in a different direction,” Bill reveals in BusinessWeek this August]. Dangerously, neither had GM! And we’ve not even started discussing the travails of the down and almost out Chrysler yet, which is perhaps simply looking around for a suitable buyer! The Detroit three, unfortunately, focused horse-headedly on selling SUVs and tough trucks, and investing more and more into R&D [close to $12 billion annually] to recreate products that were doomed from the start! That’s how tough it takes some billion dollar loss makers to understand no-brainer issues.

The no-brainer auto issue #2

I caught up with Christian Breitsprecher, equity analyst at one of Germany’s largest investment banks, Sal Oppenheim, and he commented, “Obviously, the auto industry did not foresee the trends... that one day the price per barrel would be so high. Companies, which do not invest in alternate fuel will go down and hybrids is just an element of the entire investment.”

That brought me to the no-brainer issue number 2, hybrids! To say that it’s the most over-hyped concept in the industry today not worth even the media space it occupies, is to speak the truth. The situation today is such that after testing out, one should say successfully, the concept of fuel efficient cars, car manufacturers today are assuming presumptuously that the next logical step in this hugely competitive world is the hybrid (for the rare uninitiated, a car that runs on a combination of petroleum and another source of energy).

And more so companies that are leading the race, like Toyota, Honda etc. Dramatically, the fact is that even with hugely profitable companies like Toyota and Honda, who believe that with hybrids they have the instant solution for the future, the concept could be a thrashing in disguise. The first structural defect afflicting hybrids is the market share. The hybrid is, in simple terms, before its time, and cannot account for significant market share and usage for the next ten years globally. Illogical you said? Look at the figures even in the world’s top auto market (or is it second already?). In the US, despite being ‘in the news’ for the past decade, only 347,102 hybrids were sold in 2007 (see detailed story later on, ‘Where, Mrs. Robinson, lies the problem’). That means that even with Toyota monopolising a 70% share of the market, and after all the billion dollar global marketing attempted by various auto corporations, hybrids accounted for only a miniscule 2.15% of the total new vehicle sales in the US, and puniest percentages in other global markets.

The second structural defect afflicting hybrids is their pricing. It could well turn out that unless auto companies ensure that the pricing levels of offered hybrids are in tune with mass market expectations – especially in markets like India and China, expected to be the world’s top two in the next five to ten years – they might well start failing. Hybrids are simply not cost effective, and will not be in the next seven to ten years, if at all then. A hybrid, to be rampantly successful, has to be priced in such a range that enables the consumer to perceive its ‘long term’ cost effectiveness over the ‘short term’, thus engaging his buying intent. Confusing? For better clarity, read what Deputy Editor Virat Bahri writes later on in the cover section: “Doubts are often raised about how cost effective hybrids really turn out to be. NuWire Investor’s Cali Zimmerman compared the [price of the] Toyota Camry hybrid with the normal version, and statistically proved that the cost difference cannot be recovered before 13.8 years!!! Even the first hybrid to be introduced in, say, a poor country like India – the Honda Civic – costs a huge Rs.18-22 lakhs.” How does one expect consumers in a poverty-ridden country like India (with per capita GDP just around $1000) to buy such a costly car? Isn’t it then quite a no-brainer issue to say that a hybrid, by its very definition, loses its USP once it is priced higher than even normal cars? Amusingly, not when you look at it from the perspective of billion dollar corporations who refuse to wink when drunk.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

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Monday, September 10, 2012

Rights behind bars

It’s a burning debate across the World – destroy the sin or the sinner? The issue of voting rights for criminals is a key aspect of that debate. The IIPM Think Tank looks at how various countries approach the issue, and why the prisoner-bashing attitude might not be so wise

On the very face of it, you may not even entertain the idea of allowing criminals to decide the political leaders of India. Yet, a common joke about our great nation remains that while lowly criminals get into prison, the really smart ones get into politics! Subsequently, allowing inmates to vote (currently India prohibits voting by inmates) may not affect the composition of our Parliament too much, considering its existing abysmal state. But their exclusion does bring human rights issues to the fore. We analyse how some major countries look at this issue.

First, the Barack country. There is no federal policy with regards to this issue in US. Different states have different laws on the voting rights of their felons. While Maine and Vermont are the only two states that have no restrictions over voting rights of felons, fourteen states including Alabama, Arizona, Florida or Iowa have disenfranchised the voting rights of inmates. The other 34 states follow a somewhat middle path. Interestingly, around 4.7 million inmates, who comprised 2.3% of the total voting age population, didn’t participate in the 2000 Presidential elections due to voting right restrictions.

A particular research on the 2000 Presidential elections by the noted American Political Science Association has revealed some interesting observations. Irrespective of their disenfranchisement, if felons had been allowed to vote, 35% would have voted in the Presidential elections, and out of those, 70% would have voted for the Democrats. Looking at past elections, evidently, this allowance would have altered the results of three close Senate results – Virginia in 1978 (John Warner [R] would have lost over Andrew Miller [D]), Kentucky in 1984 (Mitch McConnell [R] over Walter Huddleston [D]), and Kentucky again in 1998 (Jim Bunning [R] over Scotty Baesler [D]). There was hope for Al Gore in the 2000 Presidential election as well, had Florida allowed its 614,000 ex-felons to vote.

Moving on to other countries, the 17 European partners, and countries like Bosnia, Canada, South Africa and Israel allow their felons to vote without any restrictions. But courts can withdraw voting rights for up to five years if need be in Germany. Neighbouring France has similar laws, though it rarely uses them. In contrast, countries like Armenia, Brazil, Chile, India, Portugal, Russia and UK have complete restriction over voting rights of inmates.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
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IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face
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Saturday, September 01, 2012

The high royalty payment issue

R. C. Bhargava, Chairman of Maruti Suzuki talks to B&E’s Pawan Chabra about competitve threats from foreign players launching better technology cars and the high royalty payment issue.The secret to profits has, and always will remain competitive pricing and satisfied employees, says a Least Worried Bhargava.

B&E: But you can’t deny the fact that over time, foreign players and Tata Motors have managed to chip away Maruti’s market share...
RCB: During the era post economic liberalisation, that Maruti Suzuki had competition like Matiz and Santro. But even then, the company was able to outshine competitors and stay ahead of the pack with a 50%-plus market share. It was around that very time when Maruti and its now partner Suzuki, were negotiating on the renewal of our agreement. During this period, our market share had started falling, and had already fallen below 50%. But after the issue was resolved and the JV agreement was renewed, the company was back on track. Therefore, even though we have recently gone below the 50% market share mark, we will bounce back soon...

B&E: But experts opine that royalty payments will continue to drain your finances even over the coming months. How do you see the situation turning out to be?
RCB: Maruti relies heavily on Suzuki, so the royalty payments are bound to be at a level at which they are standing today. However, with the Rohtak unit set to become operational by 2012, a situation may arise where you will see Suzuki paying the royalty to Maruti for the use of the technology developed at the R&D centre.

B&E: The company has been actively involved in CSR activities of late. How do you connect it with profits?
RCB: My idea of CSR has been to do what makes all the stakeholders happy. We try and do the maximum to our capacity for the society. Then be it the traffic management program on the Gurgaon-Jaipur highway or the tree planting initiative, the company tries to give back to society in whatever ways it can. In fact, we started the water conservation unit at out Gurgaon plant in the 1980s, way before the CSR activities became necessary. Clearly, it was a proactive measure depicting the concern of Maruti Suzuki towards the environment and society. So people might link CSR to higher profits, but we don’t.

B&E: Maruti Suzuki has a very low attrition level. What are the reasons for the high employee satisfaction levels?
RCB: It is because of the processes and policies that we have inculcated into the system over the years. In fact, Suzuki also played a major role in it by bringing many Japanese HR practices into the company that make the employees an integral part of our journey. This keeps them motivated to work for the high profitability of the company. It is only through employee satisfaction that you achieve profits.



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Tuesday, August 28, 2012

A princely affair!

The cast and crew of Saif Ali Khan’s home production Agent Vinod recently experienced royal treatment while shooting for the film in Morocco. The junior Nawab of Pataudi stayed at a palace, in a suite which was larger than his residence in Mumbai! The meal preparations for Saif and Kareena were lavish and the table was laid with the finest of silverware. The Love Aaj Kal star was so impressed with the arrangements that he extended his stay to better savour the royal experience! 


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Tuesday, July 31, 2012

You can help build a cleaner India

The reverberations triggered by the Anna Hazare fast are still being felt across the country. Even though I personally find many ideas thrown up by the so called Team Anna version of the Jan Lokpal Bill utopian and bordering on the loony, I am delighted with the fact that activism of the kind witnessed last month actually forced politicians of this country to come down to earth and fear the wrath of the people. It was indeed a great celebration of democracy. Though there is one thing I would like to point out to the so called intellectuals who kept harping on maintaining the sovereignty and dignity of the Parliament. If the elected members of parliament themselves make a mockery of Parliament, why single out some activists and outspoken individuals for harsh criticism? Then again, I found it preposterous when some suggested that you and I must contest elections if we want to change the system. Surely, democracy and good governance is not just about contesting elections. Another thing I must point out is the manner in which activist and the self confessed Hanuman of Anna, Arvind Kejriwal, egged on the thousands gathered to watch Anna break his fast to take an oath that they will neither take nor accept a bribe. That was heart warming and touching and set me wondering if the thousands gathered there would actually stick to their oath once they confront the harsh realities of confronting Indian bureaucracy in all its grab and grin glory. In fact, I asked myself if I could stick to such an oath of never paying a bribe if I had to get something done in a hurry and didn't have the time.

These random thoughts made me come to a few simple conclusions that could be, as Rahul Gandhi says, game changing. You and I don't have to contest elections to do all that. But here goes my wish list of a few simple things that you and I can start doing right away to help build a better India

#1: The first thing that people like you and I can do for a start is to take a silent oath that we will not break any traffic rules. A friend was describing a vacation his family had enjoyed recently in the United States. One telling incident from that memorable holiday has to do with his 7 year old son who exclaimed in a shocked manner about how people were actually stopping their vehicles at red lights! My friend, who has a habit of often violating traffic rules, actually vowed never to do that again. I am personally appalled at how middle class and affluent parents brazenly violate all traffic rules at around 7 in the morning when they sometimes drop their kids to school. Surely, all of us can make and stick to this simple oath?

#2: Set aside some money every month for a poor child's education. There are at least a 100 million Indians like you and me who can easily set aside Rs 50 a month without hesitation. Just imagine, if we take that simple oath and stick to it, 100 million poor young Indians who could not otherwise afford the luxury of education would actually benefit from education and perhaps join the ranks of the middle class when they grow up. And don't tell me that it is difficult to find a good and honest NGO or trust that can use your money well. You can always finance the education of the children of your office peon, maid servant, driver or security guard. Believe me, the impact of this simple gesture will be more far reaching than the Anna movement.

#3: Take a pledge to henceforth treat our domestic help in a more humane way. One comment that kept cropping up during the Anna festival was the complaint about the arrogant, cruel and callous manner in which our political class and the bureaucracy treats ordinary citizens. Let's be honest with ourselves: are we any less arrogant, cruel and callous when it comes to interacting with our domestic servants, drivers and other helps? Sure, there are many of us who go out of our way to help them and treat them humanely, but there are umpteen horror stories of educated middle class Indians heaping indignities on hired helps. So let's stop being hypocritical and actually do something about treating fellow Indians in a better manner.

#4: Let us take a pledge not to give any dowry to get a daughter married off to someone who has got a plum government job where the scope of corruption is huge. Once again, we berate corruption in bureaucracy in public discourse, but make our actual feelings and intentions clear by relentlessly chasing grooms with cushy government jobs. You could say that this kind of thing happens less frequently now because many youngsters now opt for the private sector. But the fact is: we could send a huge moral signal to the marketplace for grooms that buying grooms is passé.

#5: Let us take an oath to actually go out and vote during elections of all types. I still recall the hysteria that was generated amongst the chatteratti after 26/11 convulsed India. There were countless TV debates and candle lit marches. A few months after that barely 45% of South Mumbai voted during the Lok Sabha elections. I think the political class does have a point when it argues that they don't want to listen to hypocritical lectures from people who cannot even invest a few hours of their time to vote. And let us not crib about all candidates being 'bad' and there being no real choice. It is going to take a long time for electoral reforms of the type demanded by Anna to actually happen. In the meantime, can we all go to the booths during the next election and deliberately vote wrongly if we find that no candidate is worth voting for? In Indian elections, the winning candidate often gets just about 30% of the votes polled. What if such disqualified votes also amounted to about 30%? You can bet the ruling class will sit up and take notice and the process of electoral reforms will actually be accelerated. Invalid votes can be as potent as votes. But please, let us at least get up from our cocoons and comfort zones and actually go out to vote.

#6: The sixth simple yet powerful pledge we can all take has to do with citizen participation. No democracy will work and good governance will always remain a dream unless citizens actively participate in the civic process. The simple pledge we can keep is to devote at least two hours every week to do something concrete to improve something around us in a meaningful manner. It could be looking after some trees in our neighborhood; it could be involving our kids to keep our streets clean, it could mean teaching a few poor children... the possibilities are endless.


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Friday, July 27, 2012

Just Keep Those Costs Down

Rec has seen its Numbers Grow at a Steady clip in The Past Few Years, but will have to now Tackle Increased Competition

Being the nodal agency under the Government of India in charge of financing rural power projects in India, the challenge for Rural Electrification Corporation is always about managing the opportunity, rather than looking for it. Unsurprisingly, the company has been experiencing y-o-y growth of 15-20% on an average over the past decade.

For FY 2010-11, REC reported a growth in net profit by 28.4% to reach Rs.25.70 billion, which has catapulted it to rank 33 in the B&E Power 100 list from 38 last year. Revenue grew by 26.09% to reach Rs.81.09 billion. Strong return on equity with low cost of funding allowed REC to generate superior spreads, which is currently around 4.34% despite the zooming interest rates. REC was able to maintain this margin largely because of the fact that they had gone for international borrowing of $1.2 billion & also set domestic borrowings to the G-Sec benchmark. Cost of borrowing for last year on an incremental basis was around 7.25%; whereas overall cost of borrowing was around 7.62%. Furthermore, REC successfully brought NPAs down to 0.03% due to the escrow mechanism and managed margins of 4.3% despite high cost of funds. The major bad news this year was the resignation of CMD J. M. Phatak, who joined the company in June 2010. Phatak is accused of playing a role in the Adarsh society scam when he was Municipal Commissioner of Mumbai.

The role of REC comes only when all delays & clearances, particularly environmental clearances & securing of coal linkages issues are accounted for & finalized. Last year saw loan sanctions of Rs.664.21 billion (growth of 46.44% y-o-y) but disbursals were just Rs.245.19 billion, a growth of 16.03% y-o-y. REC is now focusing on creditworthy projects by turning their attention towards power generation projects rather than exclusively on the transmission & distribution sector When asked about the shift, H. D. Khunteta, CMD, REC told B&E, “It was a natural shift to all the parts of the power sector & the Ministry of Power has expanded the mandate for REC to include generation projects.” The power generation share in the outstanding loan book has almost doubled from 26% in 2007-08 to 48% in 2010-11 and the private sector is also playing a huge role.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
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Tuesday, July 24, 2012

The Dark Side Of Private Equity in The Indian Real Estate Sector

PE Investors are Amassing Unusual Stakes in Indian Real Estate companies. But given their Short Term Profit Interest, there is a Critically huge Potential threat for The Industry. A close look at these Unregulated Flip Artists in The Indian Real Estate space.

It was in 1988 that the world witnessed for the first time the true power and colours of private equity when Charles Hugel, RJR Nabisco’s Chairman agreed to a $25.08 billion leveraged buyout by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR – a leading PE firm); rejecting a rival bid of $25.63 billion by a consortium of Wall Street investment bankers. Rightly so, the media then exclaimed, “Seldom since the robber barons of 19th century has corporate behaviour been so open to question.” A little more than two decades later, the same private equity investors who were then tagged as “barbarians at the gate” and slandered by Hollywood’s Gordon Gekko (portrayed by Michael Douglas in the movie Wall Street), have managed to undergo an image makeover. Quiet surprisingly, they have been able to shed the erstwhile perception of being corporate raiders plundering for profit to a great extent. In the present context, the ilk of KKR, Blackstone, Bain, Baring, Red Fort, Sequoia et al are no longer feared. On the contrary, they are revered as deep pocketed saviours who are willing to invest in companies, which otherwise have been overburdened by the law of the land and have been misunderstood by the bourses.

Frankly, private equity has been put on an exalted status globally. A 2006 Wharton seminar on Private Equity tried to prove how private equity investment for shareholders was apparently more efficient than standard equity markets! The Economist, no less, once described private equity as the “sharp edge” of contemporary capitalism; later on, in another report they even confirmed that “in an odd twist, all the money going to private equity has helped buoy shares of public companies!” Bloomberg’s Venture Economic report showed that over a period of 10 to 20 years, private equity has outperformed the equity markets by 66% in some cases, to even more than 100% in other cases! The National Bureau of Economic Research, in a paper titled The Cash Flow, Return and Risk Characteristics of Private Equity, showed that private equity always generated “excess returns” relative to equity markets. Mercer did its own stuff in its 2007 PE study, which said, “Not only has the rate of return for PE firms overall been substantially greater than that of public corporations, but such companies – once returned to public ownership – have outperformed the market as a whole.” According to the European Venture Capital Association, while the US and UK had the “broadest and most developed private equity markets in the world (ranked at number 1 and 2),” such PE investments had led to strong innovation and economic growth!

Now, the important lesson to take away from almost all these research reports is that PE firms harbour a fanatic orientation towards maximizing the returns to their PE investors – in other words, it doesn’t matter to a PE firm whether the company in which they are investing could well be doomed if the PE investments were withdrawn; all that matters is the right stock price at which the PE firm makes a substantial return on capital employed. And if all the global reports are any evidence, PE firms and their Gekko managers are giving the full performance for the money being thrown at them by their high net worth investors.

Now again, how has India been viewed with respect to PE investments? Five years ago, the Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2005-06 worldwide survey rated India ‘second from bottom’ in terms of promoting environment for PE. Apax Partners, in their 2007 survey, Future Trends in Private Equity Investment Worldwide, confirmed the same, “India has the second worst environment for private equity!” One wonders then, for all that it is worth, how did private equity investments from the world over find their way into India in the last decade or so (According to India Private Equity Report 2010 by Bain & Company, between 2004 and 2009, private equity and venture capital firms began to acquire critical mass; so much so that PE investors invested approximately $50 billion in more than 1400 businesses), a period that resulted in one of the biggest contemporary asset bubble bursts in real estate history in 2008/9 – helped with a gracious push by the PE investors, who pulled out of the sector en masse just when it had reached its peak, and ensured a swift fall of the sector subsequently?

Given this context, it was perhaps least surprising that when the real estate sector – both industrially and in the stock markets – crashed, one again saw a sudden spring in the PE step, running back towards India, to grab hold of stocks and equity at the undervalued rates. In the immediate periods succeeding the last asset crash, PE firms started forming investment vehicles left and right to invest in the Indian real estate sector, focusing on townships as well as infrastructure that surrounds communities. PE investors returned to investing in Indian real estate through projects rather than equity (as at the project level, the exit route is easy, even with the residential sector). Currently, statistics and market reports show that the PE investment proportion is heavily skewed towards residential projects; because as an asset class, the residential sector is seen to be self liquidating, while commercial and retail have exit related issues primarily due to non-availability of REIT and REMF (real estate investment trust and real estate mutual funds) vehicles.



          
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Friday, July 20, 2012

The Sarah Palin Quiz!

If you Answer even One Question correctly, You’re qualified to run in The US Presidential Elections... Er, almost...

Sarah Palin’s branding is ubiquitous – none expects her to have much general knowledge (Africa=country; a Palin copyright); yet, everybody expects her to run for the US Presidential elections. We decided to pit you against Palin in this war of geographical knowledge. If you get even one right, you’ve beaten her.

1) Puerto Rico belongs to which nation?
2) Greenland is a part of Denmark. So which continent is Greenland in?
3) Is Greenland a country, state or city?
4) Who is the head of Canada?
5) Sultan of Brunei is known for his oil dollars. Where is Brunei located – Middle East, South Asia, Eurasia?
6) Which is America’s largest border sharing neighbour in terms of geographical size?
So are you better than dame Palin? Here are the answers:

1) Believe it or not, Puerto Rico is a commonwealth of the United States, ceded after the Spanish American War in 1898.
2) Surprise surprise. Greenland belongs to the Kingdom of Denmark, but is geographically located in North America to the north east of Canada.
3) You’ll chew your head off when you hear this. Greenland is an autonomous country on its own. It’s also the world’s largest island, astoundingly with another island named Greenland ensconced within it.
4) The head of State of Canada is Her Majesty, the Queen of Britain. And we bet you never knew that!
5) Yes, the Sultan has many Rolls Royce beasts, and might smell of the Mid-East, but Brunei is in reality located in the island of Borneo in South China Sea in Southeast Asia, flanked by Indonesia and Malaysia.
6) America’s largest geographic neighbour is actually Russia, which shares its border in its north east with Alaska, America’s biggest state (which was in turn purchased from Russia in 1867).


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Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Poor sporting spirit!

Sporting events come heavily on the marginalised population

The upcoming FIFA World cup 2010 in South Africa is seen as a major breakthrough in sporting history. Not only because it’s after a long struggle that an African nation succeeded in grabbing the opportunity of hosting such a mega sporting event, but also as it is expected to refurbish South Africa’s economy. Amidst South Africa’s preparation to make this event a major success, the poorest citizens of the country are being largely neglected. In order to bring up world standard stadiums, the government has ordered massive eviction. In simple words, to make space for stadium and games infrastructure, the South African government has evicted low income housing areas and informal traders. More than 70,000 workers employed on World Cup projects have raised their voices for better wages and conditions. In contrast to 500,000 jobs promises, only 22,000 jobs have been created with occupational health and safety survey giving negative rating to 52 per cent of World Cup construction sites.

The construction of N2 Gateway housing project (construction of rental housing for the 2010 World Cup) led to the removal of over 20,000 residents from the Joe Slovo settlement. The government has also came up with the Elimination & Prevention of Re-Emergence of Slums Act to eliminate slums and put homeless shack dwellers in transit camps during the games. Without any apprehension, this mega sporting event would not only will help the country to upgrade their infrastructure but would also help them tap economic gains. But then, the major pie of the profit will eventually go to big business houses and to FIFA.

This is not for the first time that a mega sporting event would create major hurdles for the underprivileged population of the nation. During 1988 Olympic Games, more than 15 per cent of the population of Seoul, Republic of Korea, was evicted and 48,000 buildings were reduced to ruins to accommodate game’s infrastructure. Similarly in 1996 Olympic, around 1,500 social housing units for the poor were destroyed in Atlanta, in 1992 in Barcelona, 200 families were evicted, in Beijing mass evictions were executed, 6000 were made homeless in Sydney in the run-up to the Olympics and similar eviction is predicted to happen in Rio de Janeiro for the 2016 Olympic Games.

Besides direct impact such as mass eviction and trade bans, indirect displacement due to gentrification and escalating housing costs can also be led to social crisis. After Olympics, prices of houses rose by 28 per cent in Seoul, by 131 per cent in Barcelona, by 500 per cent in Sydney — to name a few incidents. Many governments went to an extent of criminalising the homeless and marginalised pockets of populations. In Seoul, local authorities created a list of places where homeless people were banned and in Atlanta, homelessness was made illegal. Recently, to address such inhuman issue and rush to the rescue of marganised people, the UN has asked the games organiser to properly scrutinise the host cities and introduce housing provisions in hosting agreements. These nations and host countries should learn from their counterparts like Los Angeles, who uplifted the local economy and permanent housing and an Olympic village.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009


An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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Friday, June 04, 2010

Split wide open

Chandrasekhar Bhattacharjee looks at the possible permutations and combinations as 81 civic bodies go to polls in West Bengal.

The Left Front had scored a landslide victory in the 2006 Assembly elections, bagging 235 out of the 294 seats in West Bengal. Data shows the Front secured 50.18 per cent of the total votes polled. In this the leading constituent, Communist Party of India's (Marxist) [CPI(M)’s] share was 37.13 per cent, Forward Bloc got 5.66 per cent, Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) secured 3.71 per cent and the Communist Party of India (CPI) managed only 1.91 per cent of the votes. The rest of the votes were divided among smaller partners such as DSP, WBSP and MFB.

The All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the Indian National Congress (INC) fought separately to bag 35 and 30 seats respectively. Their vote share was 28.77 per cent and 15.41 per cent respectively. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) fought alone and got only 1.93 per cent of the vote share. Besides, the Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI) won two seats. Polls to 81 civic bodies were held in 2005, just a year before the last Assembly elections. The Left Front had secured 51 per cent of the votes, the TMC bagged 21 per cent while the Congress got 26 per cent of the votes. Of the 81 civic bodies, the Left Front won 55 municipalities and municipal corporations. The TMC, INC and others bagged 36 — in some cases as a combine.

In other words, if the TMC and the INC had fought the elections together, their vote share could not have been less than 47 per cent. Figures also show that despite bagging 235 seats in the 2006 Assembly elections, the CPI (M)’s vote share dipped from 43 per cent in 2005 to 37.13 per cent in 2006.

Things started changing since the Singur-Nandigram days. The spontaneous movements launched by people and the TMC leadership’s calculated association with them translated into a rich harvest for the TMC in the Lok Sabha elections of 2009. This time around, the TMC-INC alliance pushed the CPI (M)’s vote down to 33.09 per cent — a 10 per cent decline compared to the 2006 Assembly polls.

The Left Front as a whole got 43.29 per cent of the polled votes, while the Trinamool Congress secured 31.19 per cent and the INC got 13.46 per cent (together they got 44.65 per cent). The SUCI, too, as a partner of the coalition, got a sizeable chunk of the votes.
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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009


An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Mix and match

The subcontinent was partitioned 63 years ago. Even among the third post-Partition generation, it isn’t uncommon for families to give away their daughters in marriage to men from across the border. Relations between India and Pakistan are strained but nuptial vows continue to transcend the divide.

Take the case Zohra, who married a Pakistani in 1979. Now a grandmother, she misses India. “After living in Pakistan for 31 years I still find it a strange country,” she says. “Even today I cannot move around alone in Pakistan. I am always accompanied by my husband or my sons. But when I am in India I don’t need anyone. Delhi has changed a lot but I face no problems in moving around here.”

Zohra, the eldest of six children who went to a government school of Old Delhi, is married to Arshad Usmani of Hyderabad (Pakistan). She leads a happy life in Pakistan but is totally against the idea of marrying her children in India. Pointing out the flip side of a cross-border marriage, she says: “When my father died I was in Islamabad to get a visa. When I got the news of his death there were so many people around but none from my family. I missed my mother, brothers and sisters badly at that time. Similarly, last year when my mother passed away in Pakistan while visiting me I felt sorry for my brothers and sisters who were unable to attend the last rites.”

Zohra’s husband, who works in Habib Bank of Pakistan, says: “It is because of the peculiar kind of relations which the two countries have that the people of both sides suffer.” Zohra and her husband have made up their minds that they will not marry their children in India come what may.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009


An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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Friday, April 23, 2010

“Can a case be filed thrice?”

My family was completely ruined by my daughter-in-law. My son, an engineer, is wandering here and there like a mad man. I am living with my 70-year-old husband in a dharmshala. My daughter-in-law has confiscated our house. She and my son moved out of our house after three years of marriage but she continued harassing him. Moreover, she filed a case under Section 498A thrice against us. However, we came out clean twice after police investigation but we were not so lucky the third time. My son was arrested and my daughter-in-law ousted us from our house. My husband was admitted to the hospital for many days. She has been ordered to vacate the house by the Deputy Inspector General but she has not followed the order yet. We are still living in a dharmshala.

My house is situated on Talkatora road in Lucknow and is worth crores. The Supreme Court order says that my daughter-in-law is not entitled to this house but the police is not helping us. How much injustice we have suffered is difficult to describe. I don't know about the Dowry Act but want to ask a simple question: Can this case be filed thrice on a person if he is twice found innocent?

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009


An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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Friday, March 26, 2010

“Public Enemies” star stabbed!

French actress Marion Cotillard was recently bestowed with one of France’s highest cultural honours – a knighthood in the Order of the Arts and Letters. The proud moment, however, is now becoming famous as when Marion was ‘stabbed’ by France’s culture minister Frederic Mitterand! For as he tried to pin the medallion to her blouse, he, accidentally, jabbed her on her torso! Both were seen gasping, and then breaking into laughter! In the same ceremony, director Tim Burton was made an officer in France’s National Order of Arts and Letters. Thankfully, the French minister did not injure him too.
For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009


An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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Outlook Magazine money editor quits
Don't trust the Indian Media!
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