Uttar Pradesh : Developments after Yogi ji...

Some statistics, before I start writing on the subject:

2014: General elections with BJP winning 51.9% seats (securing 31% of total winning votes in country) sets the precedent of a full fledged government at Centre.

2017: UP state elections with BJP winning 77.4% seats (securing 41.35% of total winning votes in state), sets the precedents of a full fledged government in India's largest State.

With power, comes responsibilities. With position, comes enemies and hence the growth path becomes difficult. Difficulty level increases when your opposition (say enemy!) is a veteran in Politics, and who has ruled the country over 60 years and knows every thick and thin of political skin.

With this input, I'd start my blog, on Uttar Pradesh and more specifically on Yogi ji. The 'Japanese Fever' has made him come in lime light again, albeit in negative. UP & Bihar has always been close to me. Bihar has given me birth and reason to live. UP where I studied my engineering, and surprisingly, my Sasural (I happen to be daamad ji of Yogi ji's constituency)

In my recent trip to Gorakhpur, I read the 13 point agenda set-up by Yogi ji, for UP. I'll give my input against most points, that I could witness in my 3 day stay at GKP.

1. Ease of Doing Business. : Government intent is yet to be seen. The sugarcane research Institute has been shifted to accomodate AIIMS. Till date, only 10% of boundary of AIIMS campus is complete, there are still land used for agriculture!

I am yet to see any development on Professional Airport at Kushinagar. I doubt if it shall be operational by 2021-22, with this rate of speed.

2. Promoting employment of SC/ST/Women/BPL/Differently abled persons. : I found people crying for jobs, but I understand it takes time to recruit and place people at right jobs.

3. Power for All. Gorakhpur has 16-18 hours of power which is a good sign. More to go, but consistency of power in all locations, is a good start.

4. Towards better healthcare. The Japanese fever has opened the worm box. You had been MP since last 5 times (25 years!), well aware of this epidemic, however did only lip talk? Your first priority post taking position would have been to give Siddharth Nath Singh the top assignment of no casualty this year, due to Japanese Fever. Alas, we'll had to wait for 500+ of kids in/around Gorakhpur to wake up and do the cover ups. Still awaiting the right diagnostics and total care of this disease and protection to kids.

Also, may I request you to kindly instruct Doctors (private practitioners!) to treat patients and take diseases as challenge, and not patients and his/her relatives pocket as challenge. There are large pool of doctors who are making fortune with patients monies, but patient doesn't get cured completely.

5. Relief to farmers. You announced a big fat package. Hope it has reached to ground level. I could not meet any farmer to cross check.

6. Taking care of education. Still to see if any development has happened. Kejriwal is more close to perfecting better education for all. He has started acquiring private schools under his ambit to teach each kid (personally!) with no financial load on parents.

7. Industrialization. Directly related to point-1.

8. Efficient and Fast transportation. Lucknow was also cramped and crowded. I could not drive the car on 3rd gear in Gorakhpur. Driving in 4th gear (70+ is a dream that may come true in my this life!)

No. of autos have increased a lot, for private ferrying. Ola has come to Gorakhpur, for my rescue, at least. Buses, continue to be in pathetic shape. Hope your "Bhagwaa bus" brings some relaxation.

9. Transparency in Administration. I could not get a chance to interact with any government official. So I may not comment. But, I'd request you to put right guy on right job. Performers should be on field and boot lickers should be in secretariat, doing what they do best.

10. Rule of Law. Interesting one, I found at least 6-7 policemen on Mahua mor, looking for licence and helmet of bikers. First I thought, they are trying to educate people and after moral talks, may be releasing them. But after careful examination I realized 2 guys were holding the "Paauti" and threatening all guy.. and matter was getting 'solved' anything between 100-500 bucks. Including other policemen, were a Sr. Inspector (3* batch on shoulder). Similar to the cases in Mumbai, where matters are 'settled' between 1000 - 2000 bucks (Mumbai is rich, you know!)

May be it was evening time, and they wanted to buy Chicken/Mutton for families, and had no monies to buy the same, hence they may have decided to raid.

A lot to do Yogi ji. Corruption is in the blood and flows in veins of every official. Unless you remove the blood out of body, it would be impossible to curb it. Try your best.

11. Women empowerment. Indirectly related to above points, specifically 2, 4, 6, 7 and may be 1 also, in case you encourage small scale industries of home made businesses. Yet to see light.

Evening and Nights are still painful for ladies/women in Gorakhpur area, if they want to travel alone.

12. Benefiting Pilgrims. The whole world is waiting for Ram Mandir. Please do it. Moreover, please ensure cleanliness of temples and Good priests. I hate pundits asking for money for Pooja or Darshan.

Also, if you can, remove small road side encroachments, in the name of Temples, Dargah and Ritual Places.

13. People friendly policies. It is as ambiguous as Indian Weathermen forecasting Rains and climate conditions. May I request your concerned Ministry to be more specific and action oriented activities to ensure application of friendly policies at grass root level.

Yogi ji, Lucknow is in centre of Uttar Pradesh. I shall be measuring the effectiveness of these 13 points from farthest locations from Lucknow, may be Gorakhpur/Kushi Nagar, Shahganj/Renukoot, Mauranipur, Lalitpur, Pali, Sadhumal. Your good works must reach these locations. 

Well, needless to say kindly also take care of Rampur, and Rai Bareli. People have lot of hope from you and your governance. Let people not be feel cheated again.

Shree Arvind Kejriwal – a successful entrepreneur?

I always wanted to write about ‘Sri Sri 1008 Yugpurush Baba’ since long. But due to paucity of time, I couldn’t gather much information. It so occurred to me that though he is a ‘nautanki’ and the U turn specialist, what is in him that makes him visible, non ignorable. The MBA lecture on ‘Creating New Ventures’ by Prof. M Suresh Rao came for my rescue and inputs on being entrepreneur, penning down for Him. 

Walter Kuemmerle, Professor of Harvard Business School analyzed over 50 start-ups in twenty countries and across industries. His analysis brought following characteristics to be a successful entrepreneurs:

1.       Are you comfortable stretching rules? : Kejriwal makes rules, Kejriwal break rules. He does what 'he thinks' best for common man (Aam aadmi!). He is least worried of what actually a common man thinks.

2.       Are you prepared to make powerful enemies? : Clashing directly with powerful enemies, like Chief Minister and her cabinet in Delhi, the ruling Government (initially Congress, later BJP, and eventually Narendra Modi) made him popular in short run. He dared to show them eyes when it was desired. They also successfully managed to change his enemy and make frenimies.

3.       Do you have patience to start small? : His target remaining fixed, he started with missionaries, social services, India against Corruption, sleeping with homeless, poor and farmers made him do his ground work, and test the patience to wait for right time.

4.       Are you willing to change strategy quickly? : I call him chameleon for obvious reasons. The same rule has different meaning for him, when it comes to different people. Take extensive support of media when desired. Throw them out of office, when they are not desired. Cry foul and bring some paid media to show to the world that they are not heard when media doesn’t give due footage to his tantrums. Set up 'Throwing Chappal on self", Wearing bathroom slippers in public events, crumbled shirts when delivering speeches (where media is!), other wise remain in best of attires with family.

5.       Do you know how to close a deal? : An expert is finding a middle path, which gains him better profit. He has taken no action against anyone he was firing canon while starting his party. Make noise so high that the whole world listens. Re-direct the discussion to other topics to avoid mis-actions, non-actions to some other tangent. It’s my way or highway for him.

This brings to further analyzing the Muffler man on the 10 principles of setting-up a start-up, which are:

1.            Come to work each day willing to be fired
2.            Circumvent any orders aimed at stopping your dream
3.            Do any job needed to make your project work, regardless of Job Description
4.            Find People to help you
5.            Follow your intuition about people you choose, and work only with the best.
6.           Work underground, as long as you can, publicity triggers the corporate immune mechanism
7.           Never bet on race, unless you are running in it
8.           Remember, it is easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission
9.          Be true to your goals, but be realistic about the ways to achieve them.
10.          Honor your sponsors.

Think of his actions and initiatives, he'll give sufficient examples of above 10 points.

Passion-Conviction-Tenacity – without these three traits only few entrepreneurs could endure the challenges, the setbacks, the twists in the road that lie between their often path-breaking ideas – opportunities, as they call them – and the fulfillment of their entrepreneurial dream. Muffler man has all these three traits making him a successful entrepreneur and his start-up “India Against Corruption” to culminate into full grown organization “Aam Aadmi Party”.

I’ll close the discussion with these lines of William P Egan-II: You may have capital and a talented management team, but if you are fundamentally in a lousy business, you won’t get the kind of results you would in a good business. All businesses aren’t created equal. 

He started his organization with A-grade team, but the desire to remain the 'only powerful man', only king and king-maker made him kill his opponents and rivals who were part of A-team, including Anna Hazare, Kiran Bedi, Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav, made him create and run the show with B-team.

He has proven himself as a successful entrepreneur but his mettle to be a successful leader and new generation Politician is it to be proven. Only time shall tell if he shall become another common cadre people in the list of CM’s/PM’s or shall emerge out a true nationalist, shaping country in a forward direction. Currently, he seems to be lost in the hunger of Power and Political ambitions.

With all craps in his cabinet, and ample blots on his career, it looks very likely that he'll revive. But let's see.

Did falling crude oil prices really help Petrochem Industries in making windfall gains...

Did falling crude oil prices really help Petrochemical Industries in making windfall gains, or they kept struggling to get their numbers for survival?

An RTI by some Mr. Harinder Dhingra of D4A/7, Ph-1, DLF Gurugram, Haryana vide letter number P-20032/149/2016-PP led Mr. Rohit Dawar (PIO, Addl. Director, D&ES) to provide the information on International Crude prices and Diesel rate in Delhi. I have further worked on the data, and tried comparing the individual Profit Before Tax (PBT) and Profit After Tax (PAT) of some major Public Sector Units (PSUs) into Oil and Gas who majorly use crude oil.

This RTI image popped into my whatsapp for more than 8 times, all by believers of some special party and its God. These made me do some desktop research and write this blog.

In a lay man language PBT is the total profit after deducting all expenses made in production and sales of coils, including promotions etc. PAT is the total profit available to PSUs for planning/ expansion/ investment for next year. It can also give an indication of their risk taking ability, if the market slips due to some unforeseen situations.

I have highlighted columns in BPCL, HPCL and MRPL. ONGC is going strong, over these years, and impact is minimal, probably due to their capability to extract crude oil from deep sea. They are also into other businesses that are equally profitable, so may be impact on one has been absorbed by other.

In totality, the profits did not see any jump of astronomical number post BJP era, or even when crude prices are low and oil companies are charging hefty sum from customers. Argument may be they are playing with their balance sheet, but then SEBI, Excise Dept, Audit department of Government of India is there with their vulture’s eyes. At the peak of crude oil prices, oil Industries made good fortunes in 2011, but started sliding to a rock bottom in 2013. They are under recovery mode, I’d say at this juncture, but far behind of their 2010 and before numbers.

The graph is actually surprising. Increase in diesel prices was steep before 2014, despite a stable crude oil prices in international market. NDA government did nothing about it. It let the oil companies decide the market price. The yellow line speaks its movement pattern before 2014 and post 2014.

Once I understood that falling crude oil prices and not reducing the diesel / petrol prices with similar ratio, companies actually did not made windfall profits, and these lines were/are just political gimmick by some opposition strategists to defame government, using layman digestible language (accepted by common man, in a negative way!), I tried to look into India's external debt and bank surplus situation. Here is the graph for better understanding.

Try reading the slope of the curve. One can find higher steepness in pre-2014 era than post 2014 era. I am not saying that government has done miracles in 2 years, but it has definitely reduced the debt load on them, which is a good thing going forward. Still 50,000 million USD is a big loan on us. Can anyone imagine! I am barely surviving with a home loan on my head.! Buying crude oils from international market bloats a big hole and increases on international debt, if country is not self sufficient in generating revenues. If imports are more than exports, country has to buy dollars. If exports are more than imports, country earn dollars, and hence in a better position.

The bank surplus data is also equally surprising. This is with understanding of fact that RBI has become more liberal post Modi era and 'repo rate' has been declining giving soaps to common man, and a hole to bank's revenue.

RBI continues to post a growth in revenue, despite weak exports, no international demand. That is a commendable thing, one must appreciate. Please note these values are pre-demonetization period figures. One can easily imagine the figure of 2016, post demonetization, the surplus received by all banks shall give a steep increase on the number mentioned here.

In all probability, RBI shall further reduce the repo rate, giving more soaps to common man and Industries. I could understand that government is doing its job in good spirits, but people in opposition are in no mood to accept the change, accept the development, and hence they coin really cool phrases, words and sentences to confuse and instill fear among common man.

It is for us to analyse the charts available in public domain and make judgement. Decisions on hearsay and some whatsapp/social media chat should be avoided by educated society.