Rahul Writes

A few years ago, I got too infuriated with the Times of India (TOI), due to the way it handled a news report. Some policemen had misbehaved with some women-protesters in Punjab, and the newspaper chose to show the face of the woman being harassed, her horrified friend’s face, but the camera angle made sure that policeman’s face would remain unclear and unidentified. It happened in both the two pictures it printed while reporting the news. That was a wretched show of journalism and my dislike of TOI reached a pinnacle with that incident (but many more cases had to follow). 

I look at this page which is from any normal day. 

Today is late Smt. Indira Gandhi’s 94th birthday. I come to know this through a news item displayed on google news. The news item also carries Indira Gandhi’s black and white portrait, with pallu of her printed saree covering her head. This reminded me of our childhood association with her.  

Indian democracy becomes a joke when we talk about equality of all castes and religions. What our politicians actually practice is “vote bank politics”. Any group, be it a caste, religion, or gang, can demand and get anything and everything, if they are united and ready to “vote en mass” for or against any political party or leader. Caste based reservations, or popularly called Quota, are an example of this.  

Caste based reservations were devised to benefit the poor. The rich, no matter belonging to which caste, are always protected in this world which runs on money. But just like the rich among all castes are basically “rich by caste” - they are another group altogether, their lobbying has resulted in a lot of manipulation of original policies to benefit the rich at the cost of the poor. Creamy layer was a system devised to counter this practice.  

Creamy layer system was created to pull out the rich and powerful people among the reserved castes, so that the actually deserving candidates who were very poor, could benefit. So far the limit was Rs 4.5 Lakh per annum, which itself was very high given the socio-economic condition prevailing in India. But now, our super efficient government (check which political party is in power) has raised this limit to Rs 12 Lakh p.a. in metro cities and Rs 9 Lakh p.a. in non-metros! 

Here is the news: 

OBC creamy layer ceiling raised 

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/obc-creamy-layer-ceiling-raised/articleshow/10762780.cms  

Another shocking reality is the timing of this decision. While the nation is busy fighting corruption and media highlight is on other issues, from the backdoor they have passed this rule thereby benefiting the rich and powerful among the OBC castes!  

In my opinion, caste-based reservations are totally against our democracy and it mocks the principles of equality which our constitution assures to provide. I believe any right minded Indian would oppose the systems like discrimination based on castes, which indeed this Quota system is!  

Long live our democracy! Let us remove all caste-based reservations and schemes! Let the poor come up and prosper!  

Taken from: http://myview-counts.blogspot.com/2011/11/obc-creamy-layer-ceiling-raised-to-rs.html

A few years back ULIPs were market’s favorite investment option. Everyone wanted to invest in ULIPs and ULIPs for income tax (IT) savings were quite popular. All financial experts used to recommend it and agents used to call unsolicited, selling ULIPs like hotcakes. They sold ULIPS in one city while sitting in another, using phone to communicate and courier to send and receive documents. Even I got a call from a salesperson selling Reliance Life plans and her promise was: you deposit Rs 30K for 3 years and at the end of the period, you will get back Rs 1.2L; apart from saving taxes! That was a very good return and I was anyway looking to invest some amount for tax-saving purpose, so I subscribed to the plan. When I received the document, the company had clearly mentioned that I could return back the policy/plan within 10 days if I didn’t like it after going through the detailed terms and conditions. I wanted to take a chance, so I went ahead. And today after 3 years, the net market value is no more than half the principle.  

The problem with ULIP was that there was a large initial allocation to economically wasteful accounts (for the investor), like to the broker, the agent, etc. Did the financial experts tell us about it? No. But by the time investors found out the hidden truth about ULIPs, the financial experts too became prudent and started speaking against ULIPs. Thanks to the government intervention which has taken the shine off from ULIPs. But till the time investors didn’t know about it, no financial expert thought it his or her duty to tell the fact in the open. 

And now, is it happening the same with the SIP? 

SIP, or the systematic investment plan, is being touted today as the best investment option. The logic is simple: since market goes up and down, it is safer to invest in small amounts over the long term rather than in bulk at one go. SIP has less risk, as they say. But the question is: will SIP give me higher returns? (Higher than other options available to me?)  

If SIP avoids the high risk associated with lump sum investment, doesn’t it also avoid the opportunity along with? For example if I know that the market would move between 16000 and 19000 and the market currently is at 16500. I would like to invest more at this point of time. 2 months afterwards when the market is at 19200, I would know that I am at the top of the curve and would like to sell and book profits and I won’t like to invest more. But through SIP, you would be forced to invest even at these high rates! And after one more month if the market comes down to 18000, all the profits you made while investing at lesser rate gets wiped out and adjusted by the losses made by investing at the time when the rates were high. Anything that is equity linked runs an exact risk like this in the long term. I don’t see the point in making 20K profit for the first 6 months of the year and then making 15K loss in the next.  

If market keeps growing, say for a period of 2 years, you shall make less money through SIP than through lump sum investment. Also, SIP doesn’t take our financial wisdom into account. If the market is too low, I would like to invest more. If the market is too high, I would like to invest less or none. But in SIP, you keep investing whether the market is high or low; it doesn’t give you the flexibility which could have been more financially rewarding for you.  

I think SIP is good for the finance and share marketing companies. It gives them a constant business, de-risking them from the ups and downs in the market. Even when the market is at sky’s top and everyone knows it will come down, there will be people putting money in, thanks to the SIP plans. SIP makes sure that the brokers and finance companies never get out of fashion. Also, the fixed elements of the cost when users place orders, like stamp duty or brokerage etc, would be higher if we place 100 small orders, when compared to place one big order.  

I think SIPs are not the best investment option available to us. It may be a structured and disciplined way to invest, but I think when it comes to money and finances, flexibility helps and a straight line rigid method harms our chances (of making more money). For a lot of investors RDs and FDs are still better option due to risk free growth and for those who can take up some risk, lump sum investment gives much better returns. SIP in my opinion needs better evaluation from the investor’s point of view while for the brokers and financial advisors, SIP would remain the best recommended option because of their own self interests. We need more number of honest evaluations to come out in the open whether SIPs are really the best option for the investors, or if these have been tagged so for milking more money out of investors, just like ULIPs.  

- Rahul

Note: The views expressed are entirely personal and don’t express the views of any person or organization associated with the author. The author has taken care to maintain the facts mentioned in the article to be true, but there can be non-deliberate errors and mistakes.

‘Mastering Business in Asia: Supply Chain Management’

By Bowon Kim

John Wiley & Sons (Asia) Pte Ltd

ISBN 0-470-82140-X 

‘Mastering Business in Asia: Supply Chain Management’ is a wonderful book on the interesting subject of supply chain management. Written in a comprehendible language and full of examples and some very useful charts, this book deals with hosts of some very relevant issues in global supply chain management.  

The book starts with a discussion on how in the modern challenging times, a lot of organizations have focused on the supply chain management (SCM) to create value for customers. Then author discusses the role of effective decision making in supply chain management and a chapter on “dynamic learning in SCM” has been a great value add. Some topics like strategic management of a supply chain and innovation in SCM field give a lot of fresh perspective. The concluding chapters are on “global SCM” and “SCM for sustainable competitive capability”.  

The book has been a wonderful read. And to top that, the readers get to go through some brilliant case studies in SCM. For example, one on the MP3 player industry and others on online bookstore industry and an auto parts industry are really enlightening.  

Highly recommended for all SCM lovers and practitioners.  

- Rahul

‘Recess: The Penguin Book of Schooldays’

Edited by: Palash Krishna Mehrotra

Penguin Books

ISBN 9780143100119 

Schooldays are something which can’t be compared with anything else in life. Those carefree days, with its own flavors and enigma, can’t be forgotten totally. Here is a refreshing read, taking us to those good old schooldays. It is a collection of memoires from the childhood and schooldays as shared by a diverse set of authors. The diverse set of authors bring with them a very diverse set of experiences; some beautiful and some bitter. We can connect with many of those, and at some others, we may feel good not having come across in our own.  

The set of authors include Rabindranath Tagore, Swami Dayananda Saraswati, Gandhiji, Premchand, Nehruji, Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Vijay Lakshmi Pandit, RK Narayan, Harivansh Rai Bachchan, Ismat Chugtai, Satyajit Ray, Vikram Seth, PT Usha, and a lot of known and not-so-known names. Swami Dayananda Saraswati’s episode from childhood tells about an incident in the Shiva temple where he witnessed a rat eating the sweets offered to the deity and wondered why the deity couldn’t protect its offerings? Lal Behari Dey talks about his school days in Calcutta and about Duff’s School where the principle was a radical Christian Missionary converting a lot of Bengali youth and how despite this fact, his father sent him in that school keeping “faith in fate”. Fakir Mohan Senapati’s account tells about the domination of Bengali over Oriya language. Rabindranath Tagore tells about his home tuitions. Krupabai Satthianadhan tells a very interesting “The Story of a Conversion”, about how an old teacher, a Christian Missionary, was trying to influence a young South Indian lad who decided to tolerate all because of willingness to learn English; but it couldn’t prevent him from feeling like giving it back to the “old fanatic”. Ismat Chugtai tells the inside story of a girls hostel. Gandhiji’s childhood part is taken from The Story of My Experiments with Truth and talks about the popular portion where he was accused of telling a lie, and on the importance of sports and learning Sanskrit. Premchand’s childhood was influenced by his Big Brother (elder brother) and the way he recollects the events, makes it such a hilarious account.  

The childhood stories are diverse and bring with them all sort of tastes. There are also some controversial ones. I feel if the editor had decided to keep the controversial and bitter ones out; the book would have been absolutely delightful. But like our childhood is full of good and bad experiences, I think the different shades of the stories give this book a unique depth and gravity.  

Highly recommended to all.  

- Rahul

While visiting temples, I think most of us would be dropping some money or some coins in the hundi or cash collection boxes. We would also offer some coins (dravya) as part of our offering during worshipping the deity. Bigger temples display written notices directing the devotees to drop money only at the designated places. I guess at some point of time all of us would have wondered if such donations to temples are worthwhile. Some of us might be thinking that it is a waste of money and it goes to the overfed priests. I think there can be a serious misconception and lack of awareness if our views are on these lines.  

Bigger Hindu temples carry out a lot of social welfare activities. For example, the list of social welfare work being done by the famous Tirupati Mandir consists of:  

·         Giving free medical treatment to the poor

·         Maintaining shelters for poor

·         Home for treatment of leprosy patients

·         Free boarding, lodging and education to orphans and destitute

·         Training center for handicapped people

·         Schemes to conserve underground water and rain water

·         Planting saplings and developing forests

·         Protection of cows

·         Preservation of temples and religious symbols 

References: [Link1] [Link2] [Link3] [Link4]  

Similarly, Mata Amritanandamayi Math carries out a host of social welfare activities including: 

·         Homes for the Homeless (Amrita Kuteeram project to build 100,000 homes for the poor)

·         Free monthly pension for the poor

·         Prisoner Welfare

·         Tribal Welfare programs

·         providing free legal services to the poor

·         Mass Marriages of impoverished couples

·         Free food and clothes to the poor

·         Care Homes for the Elderly

·         Running Orphanage

·         Vocational Training & Self Help Groups 

Reference: [Link1] 

While bigger temples carry out a lot of social work using the money received through donations, a lot of bigger Hindu temples are actually managed by the state governments. In such cases, the money collected in the temples is also spent on developing infrastructure of the cities and areas around it. For example, you can read about how Shirdi Sai Baba Temple funds are being used by the state government for infrastructure development projects like building roads, footpaths, and parking places. [Ref1] Although this is a controversial topic whether state governments should take temple donations to carry out work which they are supposed to do anyway. [Ref2] In my opinion, government’s control over Hindu temples is undesirable and it should be decontrolled over time. (Though the current trend is just the opposite.) Until the decontrol happens, even if the governments take a big portion of temple donations for other work, if there are lesser donations the actual money left with the temples to do social work would be lesser and hence our donations are needed to maintain the current running set of social welfare activities.  

Smaller temples depend hugely on donations to maintain themselves and to cover expenses like regular puja, cleanliness, security and infrastructure maintenance. In my opinion, we should donate more at smaller temples than at the bigger temples because of this reason.  

If we look at the historical account too, the need for funding our temples is very genuine. For centuries during the Islamic invasion of India, temples of all sizes were destroyed and desecrated by the barbaric forces. Somnath Temple is a classic case, but such cases are scattered all over India, especially the Northern part. Almost all major temples were attacked. The Ram Temple at Ayodhya is a recent example where the court had to rule out the inconvenient fact that there was indeed a Ram Temple at the site of the Babri Masjid. Over a thousand years of foreign rule left our temples in pitiful state. Therefore there was a severe need to start rebuilding our temples post our independence. There have been some extraordinary efforts in this area by the Birlas who built Birla Mandirs in all major cities and institutions like ISKCON who have built world class temple complexes. I think we need more number of grand temples of the scale of Akshardham or Somnath Temples. I think we should therefore definitely fund construction of any new big size temple.  

Apart from making new temples, there is a serious need to develop the infrastructure of existing temples. Every year we hear some stampede or calamity at the crowded ancient Temples which were not designed for so much rush. How else will they be able to make better arrangements, than by using our donations?  

Now coming to the question if such donations are charity? Why not? Charity is defined as “The voluntary giving of help, typically money, to those in need”, or “benevolence or generosity toward others”. I think without doubt our donations at Hindu temples can be counted as charity. It is a charity towards causes which are both noble and in dire need.  

Looking from all positions I think we should continue donating some money at the collection boxes of our temples. 

- Rahul

Oneness With All Life: Inspirational Selections from A New Earth

Treasury Edition

By Eckhart Tolle

Michael Joseph: an imprint of Penguin Books

ISBN: 978-0-718-15541-4 

Eckhart Tolle is a Canadian (born in Germany as Ulrich Tolle, in 1948) spiritual teacher and bestselling author. I have written about him and his book “The Power of Now” here [Link].  

This book titled “Oneness With Life” has been created with some passages picked from the original book A New Earth. These passages are inspirational and meditative in nature. The book is divided into chapters with some themes. Passages of varying length would appear one after the other, trying to give readers a lot of food for thought.  

Some random portions: 

There are no random events, nor are there events or things that exist by and for themselves, in isolation. The atoms that make up your body were once forged inside stars, and the causes of even the smallest event are virtually infinite and connected with the whole in incomprehensible ways. 

If you wanted to trace back the cause of any event, you would have to go back all the way to the beginning of creation.  

The ego’s greatest enemy is the present moment, which is to say, life itself. 

Most egos have conflicting wants. They want different things at different times or may not even know what they want except that they don’t want what is: the present moment.  

What is the relationship between awareness and thinking? Awareness is the space in which thoughts exist when that space has become conscious of itself. 

There are three words that convey the secret of the art of living, the secret of all success and happiness: One with life. Being one with life is being one with Now. You can then realize that you don’t live your life, but life lives you. Life is the dancer, and you are the dance.  

About his thoughts and philosophy, I would repeat what I said in my previous book review: After reading this book, I felt a curious connection to philosophies of Hinduism and Vedanta. When I searched about the author, I came to know that Tolle has been quoted as saying, “I feel actually that the work I do is a coming together of the teaching ’stream’, if you want to call it that, of J. Krishnamurti and Ramana Maharshi”. Tolle himself has mentioned texts such as the Tao Te Ching, the Bhagavad Gita and other Hindu scriptures, the Buddhist scriptures, etc, and after coming to know this I think the connection is more real.  

I believe reading the original book would be more beneficial for readers. Those who have read it can read this gradually to reflect on certain portions.  

- Rahul