Why We Are Not An Economic Superpower- Part 2

In the first part of this article, I touched upon some facets of the Indian economy, which according to me is going through a rough phase and unfortunately, our policy makers are doing virtually nothing to make the ride smooth. As I mentioned in the first part, the high rate of inflation is eating out our growth rate but the Government was busy involved in manipulating the statistical data to hide its inaction. Now the finance minister is saying that the inflation would down to 6-7% till March 2012, but if it happens, it would be only due to the base effect. So on paper, you would be seeing inflation down but in reality the prices of food or non-food items would remain on higher side.

 And, isn’t it strange that despite the record productions of various food grains, the prices of agri-commodities are still high? In 2009-10, our food grains production was 218 million tones and in next year it became 242 tones. To put things into perspective, our food grains productions increased by about 11 percent but irony is that despite this increment, our food inflation increased by about 10%. So it was nothing but the sheer mismanagement and wrong policies of the government which is responsible for this inflation and nothing else. And no need to say that it shows the apathy on the part of the government to solve the problem of the common man. And we are dreaming of being an superpower when a third of our population is living on single meal a day.

Last time I also talked about various signs which indicates the slowdown in our economic growth rate. One more indicator is the demand for money used in transactions. According to the RBI data,  In September 2011, the growth of money has fallen to 4% from 18% in March 2010. In economic jargon this growth of money is called M1 and is defined as the sum of currency held by the public and businesses and their current account deposits. In common man’s language, this reflects the cash in your hand and is the indirect proxy for economic health of the country. When you have less cash in hand, it means you do not expect to do too many economic transactions in the near future and this is similar with the companies who are not keen to invest or stock up on inventory in the belief that demand will be weak. So they would park their money in long term deposits and the fact that demand deposits (or short term money held in banks in savings and current accounts) shrank by 6% in September this year from a year ago.

Moreover our depreciating rupee is worsening the situation as it hits even the common man very hard. Look at this scenario. You know it very well that more than three-fourth of our fuel requirements is met by imports and eroding rupee makes it more expensive. So it becomes very hard for our oil companies to sell them at government regulated price (in case of diesel, LPG, Kerosene) and they force government to raise the price. If the government does this, the spiral effect of it is felt on the prices of essential commodities. And, if the government doesn’t raise the price, the burden of subsidies increases which adds to the fiscal deficit. To cover the fiscal deficit, government borrows from market in form of bonds and it sucks the liquidity from the system thereby increasing the pressure on the interest rate to go up. And it is again negative news for the corporates.

Also due to the erosion in value of rupee, our foreign exchange reserves shrank by $12 billion, according to the RBI data as on November 18. On October 28, the reserves stood at $320 billion but it is now only $308 billion. How alarming is the situation, you can understand by this fact that our forex reserves has seen steepest fall since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008. What is more alarming is that this reserve is sufficient for hardly eight months’ import bill and there is the possibility of increment in import bill as the rupee is going down day by day. Due to this the trade deficit and current account deficit of the government are set to increase.

So there is no relief from anywhere neither for the common man nor for the government and in this gloomy economic scenario, it would be foolish to think of getting the GDP growth rate more than 7%. In the first quarter of the current financial year the GDP growth rate was 7.7% and the macro- economic environments have deteriorated since June 2011. Various national and international agencies have been predicting the growth rate to remain between 7.5-8% but this growth rate is not sufficient for us to be super power.

And last but not the least, I must mention here the opinion of one of my best friends which I am agree with. There is little unanimity in the government and its agencies, there is a lot of pettiness. There is little will to serve and perform, there is a lot of will to claim credit. Perhaps the question to ask is “Will we ever be an economic super power?” The answer to that is possibly- only if others continue to mess up more than we do. 

Why We Are Not An Economic Superpower- Part 1

Many of us tends to be happy to think that India has become an economic superpower and swear of its GDP growth at the rate of around 10%. But here are some reasons why I think that we are nowhere near becoming an economic superpower. Don’t give me the argument that due to size of our middle class and burgeoning population we have the capacity to drive our economy on our own. It must be remembered that only domestic consumption can’t bring you so far to achieve the double digit growth which we have claiming to achieve very soon. I am of the contrarian view as I find many gaps in our policies and holes in our systems which would deter us to go where we want to.

First thing first and which is related with all of us i.e. inflation. The headline inflation is near 10% and it is a big challenge for the policy makers to contain it. Various measures (mostly monetary) have been taken in last one year but still the inflation is above danger mark. How it affects the growth of the economy, let’s see. To rein in high inflation the Reserve Bank of India has increased the interest rate and made the lending expensive. But this expensive lending is a burden for the manufacturers as for upgradation or expansion they need the fund and to borrow at high cost does not suit them. It reflects in the lower output in industrial production which leads to the slowdown of the GDP growth. In recent months we have seen the index of industrial production going southwards, which shows the current state of our industries. Also, despite the attempts of RBI, inflation couldn’t be controlled as there was lack of fiscal or administrative steps needed to aid the fiscal ones in order to contain inflation.

It was said time and again the inflation is due to the supply side problems but in last two year hardly we see any attempt on the part of the government to tackle it. The government was busy in manipulation of statistical data and trying to show that everything was under control. So consumers have to bear the burden of high inflation and due to it the demand of many goods and services started to decline. If the things become costly and your income remains same, obviously you would have to cut down your expenses. Once again it leads to the overall slowdown in various sectors of the economy which we are seeing now.  And if you are finding me at fault, I must tell you that even the government’s chief economic advisor Kaushik Basu accepted that the picture was not looking rosy. He was talking about not only inflation but the whole economy.

Now we can talk about the dual challenge which government is facing today on account of its fiscal discipline. I am talking about the existence of fiscal deficit of 4.6% of GDP(which may cross even 5%) and current account deficit of 2.6% of GDP in 2012 and there is no solution visible. The high inflation, expensive lending, low industrial output, low tax collection, falling share market, record low level of rupee, diminishing forex reserve and poor global economic environment have made a vicious circle for the government and the economy and it seems almost impossible to come out of it. Due to the low industrial output the government has not been able to collect tax as per its target and there are real threat of crossing the set limit of fiscal deficit. Also due to the poor market conditions, the government has not been able to execute its divestment plan so there are very few measures left to it to generate resources.

So far current account deficit is concerned, it is more than 2.5% of GDP and there are chances that it crosses the comfort limit for the government as due to the poor global conditions, the exports are not at satisfactory levels. It is to be mentioned here that the current account deficit mainly consists of the trade deficit which is burgeoning in India’s case. In October 2011, this was the highest in last 17 years as it touches 19.6 billion dollar. In October, the import was 39.5 billion dollar while the export was merely 19.9 billion dollar. It must also be remembered that the trade deficit for the first seven months of the current financial year was $93.7 billion and with this rate, it may breach the $150 billion mark at the end of this fiscal.

This is not all, but there are many more things to be discussed about the situations which are interlinked with above mentioned problems of Indian economy. How these trade deficit, fiscal deficit and falling rupee adding woe to our future growth, in next part of this article. But what I discussed so far should convince you not to boast of on our economy. 

LESS THAN LIFE ITSELF

"Zindagi pe tera mera kisi ka na zor hai, hum sochte hain kuchh yeh saali sochti kuchh aur hai..." These lines from the songs of the film may be true for real life but at least these are true for Sudhir Mishra's new film Ye Saali Zindagi. I feel that what he initially thought to make was much different from the end product which is before us as a film. It happens very rarely that you like the acting in the film but overall the film disappoints you. YSZ is one of those films which looks promising and lively in promos but when you go to theatre, you find your expectations shattered. Sudhir Mishra is counted amongst the sensible and serious film makers whose films are not typical bollywood masala movies. But only having some good actors and let the film loose at all ends can not make a great movie and this is the case with YSZ. No doubt, the potential of a great movie was there in the story but the narrative is not catchy enough to let you stick with your seats in theatre. 

                                          These days its becoming fashionable to use cuss words and raw language in dialogue to give the film a reality touch as we have seen recently in No One Killed Jessica. But if you find abuses in every second dialogue without any need, you don't find those saucy but they irritate you. There are some really good dialogues in the movie but I can not buy the argument that for making a real life drama you need to have dialogues full with GAALIAN. The main protagonist of the film Irrfan loves sexy and charming club singer Chitrangada and due to this love how he makes his life complicated is the main story of the film. The film has many more characters who come across during various events occurred in the movie but the narrative becomes so complex in the beginning that you get a bit confused. Arunodaya and Aditi Rao have shown good acting skills and Saurabh Shukla is fabulous as always. Rest of the artists who are part of the film have done justice with their role and definitely can get a thumbs up for that. But due to the weak script and screenplay their efforts have been in waste, I think.

                                          Sudhir tried to maintain the pace of the film but it seems that many a times things go out of his hands. Though never in the film, none of the characters of the film preach you about morality and ethics which brings the film near to the realities of life, but during your stay in the theatre, you hardly identify with any of the characters and this is the biggest weakness of YSZ. There are some comical moments and sometimes you think that Sudhir has tried to make a dark comedy. But when the film ends, you feel as if you have come off a roller coaster ride! (Was there a need for this, I don't know). The music as well as the background score is better than average, cinematography and editing is ok but overall the film does not leave indelible mark on your mind which you expect when you see the promos of the film on your TV sets. So, what more to say, if you miss it, believe me you are not in a loss. 

Intricacy of Relationships

These days many film makers are coming forward to produce films with difference, either based on real incidents or showing the intricacies of relationships which they present in innovative style. Kiran Rao's directorial debut Dhobi Ghat is one of those beautiful made films which you can watch more than once. The film presents the layers of relationships through four different protagonists from different backgrounds but the connecting factor amongst them is our very own maximum city Mumbai. Kiran wanted to project the film as the tales of Mumbai and hence she called the movie Mumbai Diaries but according to me the tales of the Dhobi Ghat can be set up in any metro. (one of my closest friends is of the opinion that the film can be set in any small city as well though I differ with him). The beauty of the film lies in the fact that none of the characters in the film bores you and you want to know what next or what now throughout the film. Though the film is not very long but there was no need to stretch it either as the film achieves its purpose clearly. 

                             Dhobi Ghat is a landmark in the Mumbai city but the name doesn't tell you much about the film. Rather, if the film's name would be anything else, it won't matter. Film revolves around four characters Yasmin, Arun, Sai and Munna, three of whom come across each other to form complicated, intense, sensitive and tender relationships. All of them are from different background, different social status and different areas of the country but choose Mumbai for their respective dreams. Their desires play very important roles in their lives and the interpretation of relationships. The film presents a self claimed loner who doesn't want to go into any serious relationship and is happy changing homes at the interval of every eleven months, hailed from a small town youth washerman whose dream is to become an actor, an investment banker from New York who comes to Mumbai on a sabbatical and in search of the 'fresh air' and last but not the least a newly wed woman from a small town who seek happiness in every aspect of life in a city like Mumbai. 

                        In the movie through Yasmin's hand held video camera and her voice over you know the story of her life, her idea of happiness, her rendition of biography of Mumbai and what she get in the end. She is the character which gives you smiles, touches your heart by her sensitivities and connects with you in every scene where her impression is present. Her story through video tapes acts as a subject for Arun for his new painting and during this period, he tries to live his life through Yasmin's small treasure. Sai likes Arun but he is not ready to move into the relationship and it creates stress between both of them till the end. And finally Munna finds his mentor in Sai, befriends her, starts liking her and in the end reality strikes him to act mature. The climax of the movie compels you not only to think but to see around yourself and you admit the existence of those characters in your know. 

                       The acting of all the new actors are good, they are quite natural and the truth is that Amir looks a little non-convincing before other three actors. Praeik as Munna shows his mettle, Monica Dogra as Sai presents herself with at ease and Kriti Malhotra as Yasmin spellbinds you. Background score by Gustavo Santaolalla never let you feel the absence of songs in the movie. Excellent camera work by Tushar Kanti Ray mesmerizes you and it becomes more important when you know that all the main characters in the film are related with art somewhere. An aspiring actor, a painter, a professional photographer and an amateur videographer characters demand a very skillful camera work which not only can catch but also let the viewers feel the beauty of the art depicted in the movie. Kiran Rao's strong scripting and direction make Dhobi Ghat a movie to watch for. In the last I would like to add that Kiran has portrayed her idea of complexity of relationships aptly through Dhobi Ghat. Simply go for it for having a nice and serious experience.

Good Effort But Not So Good Impact

Most of you must know about the details of Jessica Lal case, but perhaps none of you would know about what happened behind the scene. The film No One Killed Jessica is an attempt to make you aware about not only the case, but also about the loopholes in the system, which can be misused by mighty people to be benefited. NOKJ tries to tell you how power makes you mindless, money makes you senseless and fear makes you worthless. The country in which we live in is full of ironies. Here you can see the dual faces of persons simultaneously and in the movie, you find many a reflections of those faces. On the one hand NOKJ reveals the crude reality of our era, where you are only concerned about your own self, but on the other hand depicts the trend which shows the power of powerless, the outcry of voiceless and the might of helpless people when united for a cause.


The story of NOKJ is simple and in a one line I can tell you that. Jessica Lal is murdered, her sister tries very hard and doesn't get justice in first hand, the media come forward and help her to fulfill the promise to her slain sister. I must praise director Rajkumar Gupta and producer UTV for making this film happen because on such a subject making a film is a big risk. There are chances that either you end up to make a documentary on a particular case or if you are trying your hands in feature film, there is more drama and less reality. So if you see the film like NOKJ you find a fine balance between doucumentation and dramatization. Rajkumar Gupta has shown his caliber in his first film Aamir and so there was no doubt about being the film watchable. But you wish more from Gupta as he is not a candyfloss film maker. And in a serious subject like Jessica murder, which was not only a case but proved to be a sort of revolution which ignited the minds of the whole nation, the things become a bit more sensitive. And here I found Gupta floundering at many places in the movie.


The script contains some pitfalls which could have been easily avoided and the film would have added more authenticity to it. During first half you stick to the films but after interval you feel the pace of the film gone. The film makes you feel angry, sad, bitter, frustrated and it is ok but when you feel to laugh in the movie in some scenes, it defeats the purpose of making such a film. According to me there was no need to use any comical scene in the movie as it breaks the tandem. Casting of the film could have been much better as except Vidya Balan and Rajesh Sharma (the police inspector), no one is able to imprint the mark on your mind. Vidya has been consistent and exemplary in the movie and she alone has given the soul to the movie with her body language, silent expression and acute dialogue delivery. Rani in her Meera Gaity avatar irritates you more than impress you. In the whole film she shouts, abuses, overdo each and every thing and you feel the need for a break. In the role of a uselessly cuss word spewing star news anchor of a TV channel, Rani never looks convincing. Myra as Jessica had nothing much to do and whatever she was given, she did it beautifully. Her freshness can bag her few roles in the industry, I believe. Rajesh Sharma as the corrupt but helpful police inspector did good work and certainly we will see him in more films to come.


Media portrayal in the film is too loud, extreme and unreal and here Rajkumar disappoints me as you find the super woman star anchor Meera quite annoying and rest of the media guys in the film just victims of her tantrums. In the second half, you find duplicates of Abdul Kalam, Manmohan Singh and Sheila Dixit and suddenly it brings the film to a low level. There was no need to do this. So far music is concerned, Amit Trivedi once again steals your heart with his spunky, apt and different scores. I must say the film is not as bad as not to watch for but not as good as expected. My take...go for it so that you don't miss Vidya's memorable act and Amit's excellent background music.

There is a bit of celebrity in everybody's life

It may sound familiar line but I have tweaked it a bit for my convenience. In my last article "We are a confused lot", I have got some off the record remarks that the article is not deep enough to convince any reader to agree with my arguments. I accept that the article just touched many facets of our today's life only and did not give any concrete examples as well. So I thought to write the follow up of that article with some of my new ideas about our generation's life and style. When I say that there is a bit of celebrity in everybody's life, it means that all of us are celebrities in some way or the other. Our universe of fan and followers may be small, but it exists and that's why we continuously try to expand our universe to become bigger and bigger. I would strengthen my point by presenting some facts which inadvertently are part of our life. 

                                                   Almost all of us are part of at least one social networking sites these days and we try to add as many friends as possible. Hardly we give it a thought that to whom we are going to add as our friend, is s/he is really our friend or not. And the result is that our friend list becomes longer and longer but we don't keep in touch with more than 95 percent of the 'Friends' even on the social networking sites. A very small percentage of our virtual friends continue to talk, mail, chat or communicate with us. In this process, you must have noticed that when you search for the people to whom you can talk anytime, you find that those are counted on your finger tips. And mind it that in most of the cases those people are your friends to whom you meet regularly in blood and flesh. Here your social networking sites doesn't play any role. Then why we tempt to add more and more people in our friend list? 

                                                In the answer of the above question lies the truth that we want to become celebrity in our current status and add 'friends' less as the friends and more as the fans. For that we give our updated status message, post our blogs, videos or any work which we want to show to the world. As our status is not as big as real celebrities, we show our works to our social network friends and wish appreciation from them. And it is natural that if your network is big, your chances to become big celebrity are higher. You would agree that for this, we add many seniors and reputed names in our friends' list so that they can look at our work, though there may be that those reputed friends hardly visit your pages. But in our yearning to attain the celebrity status, we ignore this fact. 

                                               One more thing may add weight to my point. We become ever ready to let the people peep in our personal lives through our status messages, personal photos and videos. That's why whenever we party, go for picnic, go to any hill station or any xyz place, we post our photographs on social sites. We just don't want to show our photography skills to our friends, but we make them acquainted with our strength and weakness as well. We give them chances to be intimate with us and breach our privacy (and later complaint that privacy should be protected even on the social sites). This is a trait of celebrity and we love to follow that trait whether knowingly or unknowingly. Don't forget that for most of the time we enjoy our small celebrity status but when we become bore of it, we start cursing that. 

                                              In my last article too, I have asked why can't we satiate ourselves by leading a normal, happy and peaceful life rather than to follow the false status? A very strange thing is that during most of our times, we run for collecting money, name and fame and when we are tired of the thing, we go to an Ashram to find peace (and for that again we spend money). Why can't we balance our life so that there are less confusion, less complication and more satisfaction? I would seek the answers from you guys only but before that I would tell you a story which some days ago, one of my good friends told me. 

                                              Once a rich man from a metro city went to spend vacations to countryside to take a break from his hectic lifestyle. There he met with a fisherman and asked him to boat the river there. During conversation rich man asked fisherman," how do you run your livelihood in this small village"? Fisherman replied," by fishing and boating". Rich man asked." why don't you take a big boat so that you can catch more fishes"? Fisherman said" what would happen after that"? Rich man said," you would have more money, gradually you can buy more boats, you can do business with the city businessmen and when you become big you don't need to live here, you can live in city in a big house and employ people to catch fishes here". Fisherman again asked" what would happen after that"? Rich man said," you would earn name and fame, you would be able to live with modern amenities and whenever you wish, you can come here to enjoy this beautiful nature". And fisherman replied," THE SAME THING I AM DOING RIGHT NOW". 

                                             Need I to say anything more now???? 

We Are A Confused Lot

I would start from the lines which I read recently in an article that there is a strange comfort in unseating icons. For when an idol is discovered to have feet of clay, the pressure on the rest of us lessens  to  a  great degree.  I completely agree with this analysis of ourselves but I would add here that this problem has been aggravated by our existing generation. Its not that in the past you didn’t come across incidents of fallen heroes, but in our period, such incidents have been on rise. There is no rocket science involved to know about the reasons of these things. It is well known fact that any society is made by the people live in it and as the time changes, the dynamics and values of the society change as well.

            What we are seeing today in the form of Radiagates (the term coined by media) is simply a mirror image of what we are today. Most of us have the inclination towards earning name, fame and money as soon as possible and many a times, we not only compromise on our values, but sacrifice our ethics as well.  But when a Neera Radia appears before us, we criticise it because we want to show that we are not like Neera. But is it so? Are we really as honest as we show? You know the answer better.

                          First we start to worship blindly any achiever, give him or her the status of demi-gods and follow him or her everywhere. But in this whole thing, we forget that those achievers are human beings like us, they are not Gods, they do have emotions and weaknesses as we have and they are as vulnerable to harsh situations as we are. And when any of the achievers does any sort of mistake or error, we start hating him as the filthy animal. His or her celebrity status is grounded and then we start searching another face to worship. Is this not hypocrisy?

                       At the same time our current generation is confused about what to do or not? Each member of this generation wants to be extra ordinary as s/he is not happy about the current status of an ordinary person. And for this stardom s/he is ready to pay any price and follow the icons blindly. But this following has an interesting aspect; when the icons are destroyed, we enjoy the lost of his/her celebrity status as that gives us false impression that our feet can be fit in his/her shoes. It may seem a bit strange to hear but this is the reality, you can feel it if you think about yourself honestly. All of us are continuously on the lookout for opportunities to grasp our own celeb moments and that’s why seeing any celeb losing its status give us sadistic pleasure.

                      I would finish with the questions from the same article which I have mentioned above. Isn’t it far better to live an ordinary life well, minus the pressures and insecurity of celebrityhood? Here I remember famous quote from an unknown writer that Celebrity is the person who works hard for a good measure of his life to attain the status and then wears the black goggles so that people may not recognise him.