Epic saga

Just came back from a nostalgic journey called “Harry Potter 7 – 2”. To confess, I never read even the synopsis of the J. K. Rowling books, but I am a huge fan of her storytelling skills. That lady has stretched our imagination to witness the concoction of a magical utopia. You know it is fiction, yet it is as real & palpable as anything. What makes this epic saga such a great success is not only the imagination of it narrator, but also the artists like Chris Columbus, Alfonso Cuarón, Mike Newell & last but certainly not the least David Yates. These visionaries tried to put the imagination into as much reality as humanly possible. Hats off to all of them!

Take nothing away from the ones who portrayed these characters

Maggie Smith as Minerva McGonagall,
Warwick Davis as Filius Flitwick,
Brendan Gleeson as Alastor Moody,
Richard Griffiths as Vernon Dursley,
Jason Isaacs as Lucius Malfoy,
Fiona Shaw as Petunia Dursley,
Timothy Spall as Peter Pettigrew,
Emma Thompson as Sybill Trelawney,
David Thewlis as Remus Lupin,
Julie Walters as Molly Weasley,
Mark Williams as Arthur Weasley.
Robbie Coltrane as Rubeus Hagrid,

Outstanding performances by

Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange,
Tom Felton as Draco Malfoy,
Gary Oldman as Sirius Black,
Ralph Fiennes as Lord Voldemort,
Alan Rickman as Severus Snape,
Richard Harris & the great Michael Gambon as Professor Albus Dumbledore,

And the most importantly

Emma Watson as Hermione Granger,
Rupert Grint, as Ron Weasley,
and Daniel Radcliffe as the boy who lived ‘Harry Potter’

(Cast list: Courtesy Wikipedia)

The thing that is really moving is that all three youngsters always lived up to their characters for 10+ years. They had the money & fame to get blown away, yet we heard of no misdemeanours from any of them. You really can't imagine what if we had to replace one of them. This series has not only given us a new fairy tale of our age but also some larger than life real-life characters. Why I call this epic saga a fairy tale is because it also gives us all the values that all others do too. I thank these all for making it such a memorable pleasant experience.

I for one certainly cherish my time watching this saga in the making. It will be remembered for a long time to come, I am sure. But, there’s no next episode coming. I will badly miss it.

My most important relation

I have been saying & thinking that my life partner has to perform multiple roles in my life. I recently had an awesome experience of the roller-coaster the most important relation my life is going to be with my one & only life partner.

A day before she was my mother, even I can say my granny; telling me how I should be behaving with my dad at home. What I can & cannot expect from him & how I should be responding to his irritating behavior. And last evening she became my daughter, the one that hasn't seen the difficult part of life. But like a caring father I have to let her face the world. Face the troubles of life to be a better person. To withstand the pressures & responsibilities that the life has to offer, come out with flying colours. I have to trust her for her abilities, for the very reason that she's me!

I am beginning to enjoy this part of convergence of two lives into one! I am thrilled!

'Inception' of food for thought

It’s been a long time since I wanted to blog this, but somehow couldn’t happen. I watched ‘Inception’ about a month back. Another Christopher Nolan masterpiece! Damn, he goes deeper than you think you can ever think of.

How do you implant an idea into someone’s mind? What could be the impact of that? Is that science? Is that philosophy? Is that introspection? Made me think a lot after the movie was over. I came in hangover of thoughts after the movie was over & haven’t been able to recover yet from that. I wanted to see that again but couldn’t find any company. Although irony is that I watched it the first time all by myself, alone! Yeah, I do that sometimes. I watch the movies that I consider a piece of art & every art should get its due share of respect. At least you should be able to understand the motive of the creator, if not all the thoughts in his/her mind. Watching movies is not just a pass time for me; in fact it is not a pass time for me at all.

The best part of Christopher Nolan’s movies is the climax; he leaves it for you to think about it. Remember ‘Memento’? Not to mention the screenplays & the way he weaves the story a.k.a. ‘The Prestige’, ‘Insomnia’ & ‘The Dark Knight’. He’s carrying his legacy to ‘Inception’. How deep can you go once you got yourself into something? How deep is your worst fear & how far can you go to conquer it? Or before you give in to it? And finally, how well can you accept something called reality & how you deal with it? Answers to all these questions will determine how your life will be. You think ‘Inception’ was supposed to be a science fiction; and I’m talking all about philosophy. But there is no science beyond human mind; right from what exactly is the MIND? Where it exists? How does it function? I love this food for thought. I’m always hungry for something like this, but alas very few people like Christopher Nolan, Martin Scorsese can feed me on it.

It has been a long time since ‘The Departed’ that I got to watch something as good as this. There was something like ‘Burn After Reading’ but it didn’t come close. I am really looking forward for some more food to satiate my hunger, so if you know about something, please suggest me.

Union Budget 2010-11

Finally this non-event has brought me to ad nauseam boredom & I decided not to follow it so rigorously anymore. Just one bit of good news for the working class is the new tax structure proposed

Income	Tax %
0-160000	0%
160001-500000	10%
500001-800000	20%
800001-above	30%

One angle to look at this is if you earned more, it’s more beneficial to you. Just look at table below. You tell me qui bono?

Income Rs.	Previous tax	New Tax	You save
350000	24000	19000	5000
500000	54000	34000	20000
750000	129000	104000	25000
1100000	234000	114000	120000

And this came at a time when the consumer is pissed off with the level on food item inflation. This is 4^th year I have been crying out loud that the government is playing plain dumb. We have so called “some of the best economists” sitting at the top viz. Manmohan Singh, P. Chidambaram, Montek Singh Ahaluwalia. And yet the government is not able to understand a simple problem for years, that we are not making any moves to tackle the supply side problems. That’s the main reason of the inflation. If you studied economics even for a year in your curriculum, you’d understand what I’m taking about. And these people have been in the field of economic for years & yet they do not seem to heed for this.

This whole façade is simply ridiculous & there seems no sense in making a hue & cry about it. So I better shut up & leave the country for the able leaders to ruin. I better spend my time in getting self-exiled like our dear old artist M. F. Hussain.

Union Budget 2009-10

Congress & UPA may have changed the Finance Minister but they haven’t changed the policy of the budget being a ‘non-event’ (a word personified by previous FM P Chidambaram) & the only concern the budget carries is ‘Inclusive Growth’ (Something the market has got fed up of since the Nehruvian Socialist India – the concept that still hasn’t quite worked; to UPA’s credit NREGA has got some favourable results including winning the election with clear mandate for Congress & UPA, without a pejorative external support of the Leftist, Communist parties). So in all, the budget had all the ingredients to make a rotten stew & that is what it made. Here’s the list of the ingredients & a small procedure of how to spoil the party.

The basic plan of this government is keep the wheels of growth spinning fast enough so that the wobble created by global financial turmoil does not derail the engine of growth. So the basic target is to maintain the GDP growth above 9% for the whole term, which includes maintaining the Agricultural growth above 4%. There has been lot of ruckus between the state & Central government regarding the collection & utilization of taxes since the introduction of VAT. So the FM has proposed the annual dialogue between the State Finance Ministers & the central government for resolving this issue & to ensure that the state government do no fall short of necessary funds.

Some significant points in expenditure for this year are as follows,

• The budget estimate for expenditure is set to cross the RS. 10 lakh crore for the first time. Total BE is Rs.10,21,000 crore out if which Rs.3,75,000 crore is planned expenditure.
• There is a proposal to set IIFCL as SPV for infrastructure growth.
• The Central Government to refinance 60% infra projects in critical infra sectors, amount estimated for the same is Rs.1,00,000 crore
• Funds allocated for JNNURM to be increased by 87% over last year.
• Also there is 23% increase in funds allocated for NHDP/NHAI.
• There is proposal of providing the farmers with loans up to Rs. 3,00,000 with special low interest of 7%. & further 1% reduction in interest rate to 6% for farmers who repay their loans on time.
• There is emphasis on irrigation with 75% increase in funds allocated.
• Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises are given a boost of 4000 crore for refinancing loans given by banks to these industries.
• A great positive as expected by market for the Petroleum Producing & Marketing industries is that the new mechanism to be introduced for Petroleum pricing policy which will try to decontrol the petroleum prices & put more in line with global crude prices to minimise losses of these industries & also it is bound to reduce the deficit burden on the government.
• To extend the Public involvement in the growth story of India Inc. there is proposal to expand Non promoter shareholding, as currently many of the listed companies have 10 – 15% general public (retail) holding only.
• An amount of Rs.39,100 crore for NREGA in this budget which is astounding 144% higher than last year due to the success witnessed in last year.
• Allocation for Bharat Nirman is up 45% from last year.
• Indira Awas Yojana is given 63% more funds than last year.
• Allocation of Rs.7000 crore for rural electrification.
• FM also proposed a plan of bringing the Employment exchange online to facilitate the jobseekers get into the right jobs & also to create a pool of talent for the India Inc. to choose from.
• There is boost for ex servicemen by increasing the Pension paid to them.
• The all centre of attention UID scheme which is now lead by Nandan Nilekani will be allotted Rs.120 crore & expected to be completed within 12 – 18 months.

Now something about the receipts

• The total Revenue Deficit for this year is set to be 4.8% of GDP.
• The Fiscal Deficit is revised to 6.8% of GDP but FM promised to bring it back within FRBM range at the earliest possible.
• The total Tax receipt for the year are budgeted to be Rs.6,42,000 crore
• Tax to GDP ratio is 11.5%.
• The only positive surprise in the budget that no one expected is that the GST is set to be introduced on previous target of April 1, 2010 without any delays.
• FM proposed to make the returns filing process simple yet again so the Saral 2 forms will be introduced soon.
• There will be New direct tax code prepared within 45 days
• Biggest negative that spooked market was that there was no change in Corporate tax. India Inc. was hoping for some reduction on that front.
• The individual tax exemption limits are changed to

• Senior citizen Rs.2,40,000
• Women Rs.1,90,000
• All others Rs.1,60,000

• Exemption under section 80DD Rs.100000
• Surcharge eliminated.
• Exemption under sections 10A 10B will be extended till FY09-10 end.
• One boost for the working class & a little to Corporates is the FBT is abolished as expected.
• Disappointment on individual level is the maximum deduction allowed under section 24(b) for the interest on borrowed capital for the purpose of purchase of home should have been increased to Rs.2,00,000 or even more sensible Rs.2,50,000, which was left unchanged to Rs.1,50,000.
• Another expected change is the STPI tax holidays are extended by 1 year.
• Tax holiday for exporters extended till FY10-11 end.
• All capital expenditure for the Corporates is allowed for deduction.
• Commodities Transaction Tax is abolished.
• MAT is raised to 15% from 10 %. This is supposed to cover up for the Surcharge & FBT abolition. In return to that the period to carry the loss for MAT is increased to 10 years from current 7 years.
• STT is tweaked to boost retail involvement.
• Exemption under section 80G will be 100% from current 50%.
• Exemption under 80E will be extended to all fields of education including vocational courses.
• Exemption under Section 80IB extended to natural gas
• Section 2(15) extended to organizations that work on improving environment.

Indirect taxes were left largely untouched. Few of the significant changes are as follows.

• Electronic sector customs duty benefits
• Set top box will attract duty of 5%.
• Duty on Wind mill magnets is cut to 5% from 7.5%.

I don’t need to say it differently than the overall market that this budget was disgusting & again a lost opportunity just to keep the promise of letting it be a ‘non-event’. I have been saying it for last 3 years now, since I started blogging this non-event that the Congress & UPA government have just not got the fundamentals of Economics right. This is astonishing & more disgusting because the best economist in the country is the PM. The reason I am saying it because for last 3 years there has been nearly no attention to the supply side of the economy, same is the case this year. All the efforts are targeted towards reviving & pushing the demand side up & thereby driving the growth. Should I remind you that similar thing was attempted by the great Alan Greenspan when he was heading Federal Bank & we all know where it ended. I fear we are just walking down the same path blindly & not ready to learn from the mistakes of predecessors. This is the same reason we witnessed the sky high inflation to the tune of 12.7% & my bet is it will be back again until the supply side is addressed on priority. The biggest thumb down was given to this budget because there was no roadmap for the all talked about & rather necessary reforms for the economy viz. disinvestment, financial reforms, view on FDI & FII. The uncertainty was maintained on it & market hates uncertainty. See where Nifty & Sensex are going, I need not say anything more.

MJ

MJ – two letters are enough to bring the whole picture of the legend in one’s head. The ‘King of pop’ will not perform again in this world. He was scheduled to perform ‘50 comeback concerts’ in London O2 Arena from July 13, 2009 till March 6, 2010. It would have been single highest earning & most popular event in the music would, which now will never take place.

He was no doubt one of the most popular persons of all times. To some he was known for his heart thumping music, to some he was known for the all the controversy came under the title of child molestation, but the one reason he should be known & remembered forever is the message he tried to convey to the whole world for more than half of his 50 year life – Peace. He dedicated very large part of his work & a lot of time for the one noble cause – to make this world a better place for the next generation.

Yes, I do like the most popular singles of his viz. Thriller, Bad, Dangerous; but the ones I really venerate the legend for are The Earth Song, We are the world, Heal the world, Have you seen my childhood, Gone too soon – just to name a few. If you ever had any doubt about the greatness of the legendary artist or his message, I’d suggest you listen to the songs, even better just watch the videos. If you don’t have tears in your eyes after watching each one of these then you can doubt your humanity.

I really think it was curtains on the one of few angels of peace too soon. His work here was not done. He’s ‘Gone too soon’. Of course the Legend that was MJ will live on eternally through his singles but I still wonder, will he rise back from his tomb to complete his work like in ‘Thriller’ or will this day reverse to take us to the glorious past like ‘The Earth song’. For most of the world the news has still not sunk in to make the effect. Many of them are wishing for his soul to Rest In Peace. But there is one thing we really need to do so that he could really RIP – each one of us has to vow that we would do all it takes the to do what he preached for, to make the world a better place for the generations to come – ‘Heal the World’

May we always remember the eternal Legend of ‘King of pop’ for all the right reasons & may he keep doing his ‘Moonwalks’ in the heavens as he’d be doing in the hearts of his fans – amen!

Disgusted by Investment Bankers

I am finance professional with aspiration to become a significant investment banker in the global market. So with the same motive I do keep a close watch on capital markets & respected Investment Bankers of India & world. Rakesh Jhunjhunwala is considered to be Indian version of Warren Buffet & a highly respectable Investment Banker, or so I used to think before today.

The reason the title of the article reads the way it is is that I watched his interview on CNBC TV18 today. Refer this link to get a brief of what he said. I should make a disclosure before I say anything further, I Really used to adore him till today. But in this interview all he was doing is to show that he knows how to count & he knows the technical levels of Nifty. He uttered all possible numbers in the span of 10 minutes or so. Thank god he stopped short of saying that Nifty could see a level of 1500 or may be say 8000 this year.

He said one of the scenarios could be that Nifty hits 6100 or higher then comes back to 3300-3500 & consolidates for 3-4 years at that level. Again in another question to him, he said he is really sure about the GDP growth in India & we could see a double digit GDP growth number in coming years. So now can anyone tell me if he is so sure about economy, then how on earth the scenario he mentioned is possible? To hit double digit GDP growth numbers the Nifty constituents have to grow at least by 20% y-o-y, which justifies a P/E ratio for Nifty of about 20-22 at least. Nifty current earnings are about Rs. 210 for the FY08-09. There is no negative growth in earning of Nifty as a whole. So assume 5% growth on Nifty which is the most pessimistic figure I can come to as of now. This still gives earnings for Nifty of about Rs. 221 for FY09-10 & range for Nifty would be 4400-4800 going by the history. Remember this is my most pessimistic target! So how could you justify a double digit growth for GDP from now on & still reaching levels of 3300-3500 & consolidate there for 3-4 years. There is only one sane explanation for the prediction; India would need to go through one of the worst recessions since 1991. Then may the god help us!

The only conclusion I could reach after watching the interview is that either Rakesh Jhunjhunwala has no clue where the markets would be heading (which I think is highly unlikely) or he is just trying to fool the viewers in the bright sunshine. In both cases I sincerely feel he should not be appearing on TV & expressing his opinions. Because the all the Investment bankers on Wall Street have earned very bad name for themselves in the downfall of Investment Banking as we used to know, & he should not add to the bad reputation. This is really detrimental for the people like yours truly, who aspire to be an Investment Banker & I sincerely do no wish to stand in the line of a breed that becomes most despicable after the politicians of course. So my earnest requests to Rakesh Jhunjhunwala is either guide people to right direction or just say, “I have no clue where market is heading.” or “I would not like to tell you & lose my opportunity to make money from it.”

The end result is I have lost one of my most venerable deities to cheapest level of lying & obfuscating hapless investors who are already floundering in darkness.