Music – Is it dying?

People keep saying that music is dying and the current era of music is no match to the golden era of 60s & 70s. While there is truth to an extent to this, importantly, for me music will never die. Let me state, before I write further, I am no expert in music and these are purely personal opinion based on my experience and what I have seen & heard.

Earlier, music used to be played only at certain locations (concerts/cinemas/radios) and hence, viewers could get to listen only in parts and that too infrequently when they get chance. Now, public has plenty of choices, they can store the same music in their mobile/Ipods/laptops/pen drives/CDs and can hear it any number of times in a single day. From personal experience, I have the same song in my mobile, laptop & pen drive, and play it as per convenience. If viewers could hear a song once a week earlier (50 times a year), now they can play the song in loop and hear it 50 times in a single day.

Because of infrequent hearing, the longevity of a song was longer earlier and it has definitely shrunk now. Also, the purity of music now is not the same as earlier, lot of copying (imbibing as some would say), mixing n matching music without bothering whether it improves the quality or not are also having negative impact.

These points apply to films also. Earlier films used to run for 175+ days (golden jubilee/diamond jubilee etc), but if a film runs for 25 days now, it is declared hit. Again this is due to frequent viewing, large scale release etc., which are the same with music too.

Having said that, good music will live long. People who look for purity, quality and lovers of karnatic music still throng the December music festival. So much that, there is demand for passes and good singers/musicians are booked in advance (some time the previous year itself).

Music is like the river – It will keep flowing and will take the shape & colour through which it passes. If it was all about classical music earlier, it is all about westernization, imbibing the rock & pop culture now. If we heard only classical music earlier, now we get to hear and enjoy wide range of music.

As they say, we Indians need music in some form for every occasion – be it birth or marriage or death and this will not change for years/decades to come.

BEST services in Mumbai

Happened to travel through BEST bus through one of the busiest roads in Mumbai – LBS Road and it left me wondering, how difficult it must be for its drivers.

Some of the challenges to the BEST bus driver that I noticed during my travel were – Autos driving all around with no signals for left/right turns, pedestrians crossing the road anywhere it pleases them, traffic jams at all times and for hours together, and the drivers still using the same route knowing very well that they will get stuck in traffic for hours, braving engine heat in hot summers and sitting in the seat for 6-7 hours, taking over 2 hours to travel 10+ Kms distance (origin to destination), commuters complain about buses being late, not stopping at bus stops… The list goes on…

Also while talking to one of the driver, got to know that they make just one round trip per day, which itself takes over 6 hours. And then, there are complaints that there are not enough buses and are not maintained properly.

Should we then call it BEST or WORST?

Online Freedom – is it declining?

Over the past decade, the influence of internet as a means to spread information and challenge existing media controls has rapidly expanded. Being online these days is not only about emails, it also includes all modes of communication – Facebook, Whatsapp, BBM, Twitter, Nimbus, Yahoo Messengers, Google Talk, Wechat, Viber, Youtube, blogs… the mode is huge and widespread.

As events in the Middle East in 2011 demonstrated, the internet has also emerged as a crucial medium through which citizens can mobilize and advocate for political, social, and economic reform, sometimes for positive development and sometimes to spread rumour and hatred. Fearing the power of new technologies, authoritarian states have devised subtle and not-so-subtle ways to filter, monitor, and otherwise obstruct or manipulate the openness of the internet. Even a number of democratic states have considered or implemented various restrictions in response to the potential legal, economic, and security challenges raised by new media.

10 MOST COMMONLY USED TYPES OF INTERNET CONTROL 

1. Blocking and filtering
2. Cyber-attacks against regime critics
3. New laws and arrests
4. Paid pro-government commentators
5. Physical attacks and murder
6. Surveillance - electronic
7. Takedown illegal content and deletion requests
8. Blocking social media and communications apps
9. Intermediary (like Internet Service Providers, Hosting services, Webmasters) liability
10. Throttling or shutting down service

Though India was largely liberal on this till couple of years ago, the case has turned around with Government resorting to all type of controls of online freedom for varying reasons.

• In Aug 2012, Indian Government blacklisted social media accounts, for causing spread of rumours and calm simmering sectarian tensions between indigenous Bodo community and Muslim settlers in Assam, which apparently led to mass exodus from cities like Mumbai, Pune & Bangalore.
• In 2012, Government authorities placed a ban on sending bulk SMS messages, so as to avoid spreading of rumours.
• Also in Nov 2012, Mumbai police arrested a woman for complaining on Facebook about widespread traffic and service disruptions in Palghar to mark the death of Bal Thackerey. The woman’s friend, who “liked” the comment, was also arrested.

Media reports now state that India is showing the biggest decline when it comes to Internet freedom. All along, people were getting comfortable to air their views and follow leaders on internet. And now, with these clamps & restrictions, this is seriously getting impacted. Of course, internet freedom does not give right to abuse others, parody accounts and hiding behind some nameless/faceless and attacking others. But any sort of restrictions should not take away the liberty and bring down the medium that is helping in bringing closer people across geographies and improve ties.

India Vs China - Sustainability of Growth

India and China have both been recognized for rapid economic growth. But India’s growth pattern is dramatically different. China has a global reputation for exporting manufactured goods. It has experienced a manufacturing-led growth. India has side-stepped the manufacturing sector, and made the big leap straight from agriculture into services. Their differences in growth patterns are striking. They raise big questions in development economics. Can developing countries jump straight from agriculture into services? Can services be as dynamic as manufacturing? Can late-comers to development take advantage of the globalization of service? Can services be a driver of sustained growth, job creation, and poverty reduction?

India’s growth pattern in the 21st century is remarkable because it contradicts a seemingly iron law of development that has held true for almost two hundred years since the start of the Industrial Revolution. This law – which is now conventional wisdom – says that industrialization is the only route to rapid economic development for developing countries.

China and India: The race to growth

First it was China. The rest of the world looked on in disbelief, then awe, as Chinese economy began to take off in 1980s at what seemed like lightning speed and the country positioned itself as a global economic power. GDP growth, driven largely by manufacturing, rose to 9.9 percent in 2010 after reaching 8.7 percent in 2009. China used its vast reservoirs of domestic savings to build an impressive infrastructure and sucked in huge amounts of foreign money to build factories and to acquire the expertise it needed. It continues to receive large amount of foreign direct investment – more than any other country in quite a few years.

India began its economic transformation almost a decade after China did but has grabbed just as much attention by early 2000s, prompted largely by the number of jobs transferred to it from the West. At the same time, the country rapidly created world-class businesses in knowledge-based industries such as software, IT services, and pharmaceuticals. These companies, which emerged with little government assistance, helped propel the economy: GDP growth stood at 10.1 percent in 2010, up from 7.4 percent in 2009. But India's level of foreign direct investment is a fraction of China's.

Both countries still have serious problems: India has poor roads and insufficient water and electricity supplies, policy paralysis all of which could thwart its development; China has massive bad bank loans that will have to be accounted for. The contrasting ways in which China and India are developing, manufacturing vs services, prompt debate about whether one country has a better approach to economic development and will eventually emerge as the stronger.

But can service-led growth be sustained?

Service-led growth is sustainable because the globalization of services is just the tip of the iceberg. Services are the largest sector in the world, accounting for more than 70% of global output. The service revolution has altered the characteristics of services. Services can now be produced and exported at low cost. The old idea of services being non-transportable, non-tradable, and non-scalable no longer holds for a range of modern impersonal services. Developing countries can sustain service-led growth as there is a huge room for catch up and convergence.

The Services Revolution could upset three long-held tenets of economic development. First, services have long been thought to be driven by domestic demand. They could not by themselves drive growth, but instead followed growth. In the classical treatment of services, any attempt to expand the volume of services production beyond the limits of domestic demand would quickly lead to deterioration in the price of services, hence a reduction in profitability, and hence the impulse towards expanded production would be choked off.

Second, services in developing countries were considered to have lower productivity and lower productivity growth than industry. As economies became more service oriented, their growth would slow. For rich countries, with high demand for various services, the slowdown in growth was an acceptable consequence of the higher welfare that could be achieved by a switch towards services. But for developing countries such a trade-off was thought to be inappropriate.

Third, services jobs in developing countries were thought of as menial, and for the most part poorly paid, especially for low skilled workers. As such, service jobs could not be an effective pathway out of poverty.

Future Prospects

India’s development experience offers hope to late-comers to development in Africa as of now. The marginalization of Africa during a period when China and other East Asian countries grew rapidly has led some to wonder if late-comers to development like Africa are doomed to failure. The process of globalization in the late 20th century led to a strong divergence of incomes between those who industrialized and broke into global markets. It seemed as if the bottom billion would have to wait their turn for development, until the giant industrialisers like China became rich and uncompetitive in labour-intensive manufacturing.

While both countries have grown in different ways, future prospects wise, China stands better as manufacturing is a capital intensive and is not easily replaceable & is time consuming.

In comparison, services sector on which India’s growth has been primarily dependent and is comparatively easily replaceable. Also, the primary reason for growth of services sector in India is due to availability of:

• Cheap labour
• Skilled labour & knowledge
• Large scale operations

However, these are not limitations and can be manageable. And with internal issues within developed countries against outsourcing and also other third world countries like Taiwan, Vietnam also growing and offering cheaper options than India, it shall be a struggle for India to sustain its growth. The earlier India realizes this and works towards alternatives for growth and not relying overtly on developed countries for its growth, the better it shall be.

Why - Who - What - Where ?

This blog contains many questions that I have been asking myself for long. I am sure, there will be many who might know answers to this, and there will be many who might have similar questions as well...

To start with...

Who are we all? Where do we come from and where do we go? Are we coming or going? And what is all that we do in between?

What is honesty, what are values?

Why is that values are not the same everywhere? Is it really so easy for us to hurt someone without a thought? What is this separation in the name of religion? Aren't we cultivating hatred? Caste, Creed, Community…

You wake up in the morning, breathe the air around you, what are we going to do during the day? Are we going to make someone happy that they know us, or make them curse us with all their might with what we do to them? Why is jealousy and hatred all around? Are we truly achieving anything – millions have existed before us & millions will be born after us – all anonymously. We do not remember our forefathers; our memory goes back only till our grandfather & we do not know much of great-grandfather & great-great-grandfathers... Then what we are feeling as our achievement and how long will it take for others to forget us?

When I look at someone, I usually wonder what is going on in their minds, about me. And I wonder if I had to stand apart and look at myself, how would I look? How am I? What do I seem like and do others like me? What is the impression that I am giving? Do I look stupid?

What are we here for? What are we expected to do? And is growing up (or growing old) is all that we are doing, while we pursue some goals that excites us currently, and becomes meaningless after a while.

And why is that there are not too many of us who are comfortable staying alone (and I do not refer to families here)? Is it because we cannot be alone with ourselves because we are too scary and we hate ourselves, even more than others do? Can we be happy in a room all by ourselves and with no one to converse with?

Some more Q’s:

What do we think of?

Can we put thoughts on hold?

Can I bottle my thoughts and re-read them later on?

Is the thought-less state tough to reach?

I read somewhere that to get there, we should first let our thoughts whoosh by and look at them dispassionately. And then there are gaps between thoughts. Those are the gaps which will slowly become bigger and lead to the thought-less state. But, how do I know where I have reached, and where I have reached is where I wanted to be, and not the mind wandering aimlessly?

The power of the mind – its so written about, spoken about.. still the mind cannot be pinpointed on the anatomy.

Psychology & science does not acknowledge the presence of 'mind'. Is it the brain or is it the heart? Or is it the conscience? Or is it a stream? Does wish fulfillment exist? Some say natural disasters are manifestations of wish fulfillment.. Is it true? Or as they say, is it god’s creation & he destroys them when he does not like its outcome?

Sometimes when I stand in front of the mirror, not to satisfy my vanity, but to maybe find out, who is this person looking back at me? Is he me or someone else? Can I morph into someone?

Who am I ? Am I you? Or am I someone else? Are you me? Are we all one? Are we all pieces of a whole? Then why is that we are happy at someone else's downfall? What is the society? What is the environment if we aren't the one creating, maintaining, shredding, piecing it again? Isn't everything around us the way WE want it to be? Then why are we always unhappy? And when do I get the answers to the Why? And sometimes, Why should Why exist?

I hope, I will get answers to my questions, if not now, atleast sometime in future, though I am living with these questions for as long as I remember. Or does this make me a saint? Do saints have answers or questions then?

Population Growth leads to Corruption Growth?

Population & Economic Growth

Since Independence of India, population has grown from 361.1 million in 1951 to 1210.2 million in 2011, an absolute increase by 849 million during the last 60 years. The net addition in population during this period has been increasing consistently, with over 2% increase per annum since 1951. Population is further expected to 1370 million by 2021, an increase of 160 million during the decade. Similarly, density of India was as low as 117 persons per sq. kilometre and this steadily increased from one decade to another to reach 382 in 2011. The persons living per sq. km. has increased by 216 per cent in the last sixty years.

This is a matter of great concern as it puts immense pressure on India’s natural resources (water, power, food, education, housing etc.) in general. It also adversely affects the quality of life of people as well as governance.

India's growth rate especially during the first 40 years after independence was low by standards of developing countries. In 1947, the average annual income in India was $439, compared with $619 for China and $770 for South Korea. By 2010, the respective numbers were $2,960, $6,020 and $28,120.

With the growing population, more persons per sq. kilometer is causing population explosion and break down of governance. Police per one lakh population is 137 at national level and 52.4 per 100 sq. km.

In addition, urbanization of population is causing additional stress – from 17% urban population in 1951 to 28% in 2001 (30% + in 2011). Due to this, we see population explosion in cities & urban towns.

Case for Corruption

As a result, the vast numbers of people competing for all kinds of services, leading to demand hugely outstripping supply, coupled with people's ignorance and therefore lack of power, enables corruption to flourish in India. Providers of any service can demand bribes for just doing their job, and the public are willing to pay "extra" to get that elusive service.

Additionally, people at lower spectrum do not bother about the law & order (be it crossing of roads, waiting for signals in crossing, following queues in public places etc), as they are too lowly in economic strata and Government do not have the wherewithal to enforce governance or take care of them. Many cases of thefts (small/big – pick pockets, chain snatching), ragging, molestations, rapes, murders do not get caught as police is too busy following up big cases & scams and do not have the time to follow through on these cases, which are petty in the scheme of things. This leads to law & order being partial and where there are chances, corruption (bribe) grows. Simply speaking, many of these cases do not even get registered and law of land is enforced (that is, for traffic signal breaking, traffic police shall pocket Rs.100/200 and close the case on spot, as against seizing license/vehicle and taking the case to mobile courts for normal justice of fine).

As they say, corruption breeds corruption. And one corrupt individual will lead to corrupting 100 additional persons. While some cases are supposedly petty in nature (like traffic policemen pocking few money), other cases are big and when explodes, becomes scams. In a society that is poor, unaware and divided, politicians can afford to launch all kinds of huge public projects, steal staggeringly large amounts of money, and leave the projects incomplete.

Stopping, or at the least curbing, corruption is important, but there are many ways to work towards that effort. Now, there are politicians, economists and bureaucrats who have gone on record to say corruption exists and should be legalized, which is like saying, murder is acceptable.

Path for redemption

This has the cascading effect of preventing economic and social development, with money meant for development gets pocketed by people in power and pittance are thrown for the actual development. When there is not enough grass root development – growth of infrastructure, education, health & sanitary in the country, this leads to further issue of investment drying up, with investors not keen to invest in India.

Economists have recognized important linkages between population and socio-economic development. Yet, the attention given to these linkages in current development thinking in India is not very clear. This is because one can argue that it is not rapid population growth but rather weak government, corruption and social injustices that are preventing economic and social development. The counter argument is that rapid population growth exacerbates the problems of weak government, corruption and social injustice. However, one has to recognize that population is an important factor in development, especially when it is growing seemingly out of control.

Having said all this, population growth cannot be reversed in short run and will have to be used as a factor for development. Also, other points of having strong government committed to growth of nation, reversing urbanization, ensure grass root development, improve infrastructure needs to be prioritized if India as a nation believes in being a developing nation and sees itself as being strong economically & fundamentally in long run.

Rupee fall - where did India go wrong

Though, some part of this blog has been copied from another blog, this has my views to large extent.

Is India looking for the reasons for the rupee fall for external factors rather than looking for reasons internally? Our well ready economists & knowledgeable sources explain the problem, attributing to changes in Fed rates in the US and a revival in the US economy etc., this is a very shallow explanation. Just because Indonesian Rupiah, South African Rand and Brazilian Real have been competing with rupee in depreciating against the US dollar, there is no reason to wish away our problems and blame external factors completely.

The only way to save the rupee and to prevent its free fall is to start practicing swadeshi all over again, that is, cut requirement of dollars, foreign currency for our day-to-day expenses. Yes, you read it correctly. As a nation we are living beyond our means and you can’t continue doing so unless we want India to crash (and not the rupee alone). That is exactly what is happening: the crash of the rupee is a symptom of the problems that ail the economy. Many of our learned friends will not agree to this, and many others who are used to flash foreign brands and products will not agree either, but the truth of the matter, we are living on borrowings and not self generated wealth.

Next time you bite corn produced in Australia, oranges raised in California, kiwi fruit from NZ, and apples from god knows where, think deeply whether as a nation we can afford this. Maybe middle class and upper middle class consumers can afford these imported fruits at an individual level, but certainly not as a nation. When India’s foreign exchange earnings are not enough to cover our imports, it is a no-brainer that we cannot continue to consume such goods. Stopping such imports and also of other edibles like cheese is not going to make any one worse off. The question that we should ask ourselves is: cannot good quality fruits be grown in the country that we have to spend precious foreign exchange to import them? Similar thoughts applies to much bigger products that we import and consume.

In the good old days, students used to travel abroad for higher studies after they completed their post graduation to take admission in PhD and other such professional programs in top universities. The learning in these top universities would be far superior to what could be had in high institutions in the country. But things have changed in the last two decades: these days you can find  parents sending their children abroad to do their undergraduate degrees. Why? This is possibly because it has become a fad to send children abroad and/or considered a status symbol. It is not that every parent who is sending their children have the money to send, invariably many parents take education loans and send their children abroad. This further adds to economic issue, and as a nation we cannot afford precious foreign exchange to spend on children studying at the undergraduate level and doing basic technical courses. A pertinent question to ask is whether the education infrastructure is so poor that we do not have good colleges in country any more. So the issue is why this fad for a foreign education?

However you would not have seen any economist or politicians addressing these points. Most of their conversation revolves around tight monetary policy of RBI and decline in growth impetus, etc. This misses the real issue. The fact of the matter is that the process of liberalization that was kick-started in 1991 was so lopsided that it promoted culture of consumption without any controls & balance. True, before liberalization the economy was in shackles and consumption in country was artificially restricted. This was by way of import curbs and by the process of licensing (license raj). Thus things like washing machines & air conditioners were treated as luxuries, although in reality it was a great boon for families especially those with working women.

Liberalization provided a great opportunity to break the shackles and set up a modern, efficient manufacturing base in India. Well that really did not happen adequately. Had that happened India would have become a major exporter of manufactured goods that would have been enough to take care of India’s import requirements. But India focused on export of service goods (software/BPOs/Call centers etc) based on existing educational / literacy skills of mass population, and these were easily replaceable and continued to be an exporter of raw material. For example till the ban in exports of iron ore, the country was exporting iron ore to China. A country which is focused on its growth (like China is) would have instead tried to manufacture steel from this iron ore which could have been exported instead. This would have resulted in more foreign exchange earnings. But India had no such strategy in place.

Instead of exporting manufactured goods, India has become an importer of raw materials. A good example is coal that is imported into the country for fueling thermal power stations. This is in spite of the fact that India sits on reserves of billions of tons of coal reserves in its bed. India spent $18 billion in coal imports in the last fiscal year 2012-13. This is by no account a small sum and especially when foreign reserves are its low.

But while exports did not go up during this period, imports of not only coal and petroleum products (valued at $169.25 billion in the last fiscal year), but other consumer goods also went up.

World class manufacturing facilities did not come up in India due to many reasons. But primarily the culprit is the policy paralysis in country for many years that resulted in inadequate infrastructural facilities whether it was electricity generation, port facilities or proper roads & transportation. Bureaucratic hassles, delays in approvals and widespread corruption in granting permissions played a none-too-insignificant role in this process. 

Entrepreneurs finding a bleak scenario soon realized that realty was a booming sector where large profits could be made without much hassles and was considered to be recession proof. As a result entrepreneurs of all hues and colors turned to realty. Even many IT companies started dabbling in real estate. With politicians joining in the game, realty became the name of the game. Thus the high growth evidenced in the country in period 2000-2009 and especially between the years 2005-2008, is nothing but an indication of the rapid growth in the real estate sector that led to burgeoning cities (never mind poor infrastructure and inadequate planning). But the increase in growth of realty sector is an artificial growth that may add to national income yet doing nothing to increase India’s exports or foreign exchange. A huge middle class, which has earned moolah through direct speculation in realty or by working in companies whose profits had soared due to their investments in real estate, started feeling empowered. And this empowerment was reflected through increased consumption. This has led to spiralling imports. It may not be out of place to mention that India’s savings rate has plummeted in the last five years. From 36.9 per cent in fiscal year 2007-08, it tumbled to 30.8 in 2012-13 and is expected to go down to 30 per cent by the end of fiscal year 2013-14, which largely reflects the increased consumption by the middle class, which was the bone of savings rate till then.

The rupee may have tumbled in the last two weeks, but the signals were there for anybody to see for the last few months. In the last fiscal year India’s imports of gold soared to $50 billion. This was not due to the proclivity of Indian consumers to own the yellow metal or sudden spurt in demand. Rather it was a signal from the market that the rupee could not be trusted to hold its value. Gold was being imported, because people preferred to hold their savings in the form of the yellow metal than in the form of Indian rupee in banks or investments.

Whether it is an individual, household or a nation, nobody can live beyond their means. Thus there is no other way for India and as Indians we have to learn to live within our means. The time has come to reduce to zero the imports of inessentials and restrict imports to the essentials. Though this will lead to lot of unhappiness who want to import and sport international brands (cars/watches/TVs/refrigerators & what not), this is the way to go forward if we want to get any better of the current situation and get out of the sticky situation the nation has got itself into.

From 1991 to 2013, the pendulum has swung from one extreme to the other. It is time to restore balance in our lives, think in terms of age old concepts like import substitution and check the rampant spread of this consumerist culture. Otherwise doomsday is not far away and we could be in far worse situation than where we are currently.