Byapaar.com – The Indian Business Blog

Following post has been written by a guest blogger. So, the tone/flavor of this blog might not reflect in it. This blog also has no bindings with the guest blogger. All views expressed there is his/her own.

Raju ban gaya ….

It gives me no joy to make fun of some one facing adversity.

It is ironical indeed that the promoter of a company whose name truth has admitted of having committed massive fraud the result oriented culture has rejected the Gandhian philosophy ENDS ARE EQUALLY IMPORTANTthe attitude CHALTA HAI, any thing goes , has made people brazen once a person has committed adultery once the bohemian life style of bed hopping comes naturally what surprises is that a fraud of such magnitudes involving many persons at various levels remained hidden for so long.

Further it is also a question mark on the standards of audit! I am sure that another Arthur Anderson may happen. Having made fun of sub prime crisis India Inc has been presented with a equally audacious corporate scandal I wonder if there are skeletons in every cupboard having a mahogany exterior.

What if tomorrow Infosys or liver is accused of some thing similar ?

The need of the hour is that instead of lingering litigation of Harshad Mehta variety the scam is investigated promptly & in an objective & transparent manner the guilty (ies) not scapegoats are identified & are handed with deterrent punishment & assets are unlocked & put to productive uses.

I am sure the image of IT sector of India or India Inc per se has taken a severe beating & lots of efforts will be required to repair the gaping hole in our credibility

I wonder what happened to the quality control policy & peer review mechanism of audit profession

I am sure a case of rotation of audit firms or a system of joint auditors will to some extant work as a check

Also we need to have a real internal audit & an effective audit committee so that the criminal minds do not find it easy to have a band of followers to share the crumbs

I am sure the soul of Gandhiji will have many a sleep less nights

Hey Raam

Satyam is neither shiv nor sundar

Its election time folks. One can feel it in the air through out India. I too can feel it.

It has been quite long since I blogged on my favorite India business blog or my education blog which are so dear to me because they are my personal blogs and in no way commercial.

The UPA government led by Dr. Manmohan Singh just presented its last budget for the current five years term and it can only be known after elections if  people of India give them another chance or they vote for a change. Elections, whether local, regional or nationals are always the biggest events simply because India, the largest democracy in the world has a unique political system in the sense that hundreds of parties vie for election glory.

With elections, come populism. True, it is the norm for every government in the world to entice the electorate with popular measure on the eve of elections – but they pale in nature and magnitude when it comes to India. True to the style, the UPA government announced huge salary hike for its close to three million civil servants costing the exchequer nearly $8 billions. It also waived huge amount of agricultural loans to farmers costing around $15 bilions. On top of it the Mumbai horror caused the government to allocate more extra funds to the armed forces. In between came the global economic crisis that resulted in the government spending hundreds of billions to infuse the liquidity starved market with more cash.

But all these has not deterred political parties rulling different states of the country to announce populist measures ahead of the national election slated to be held form 2nd week of April. Just the other day, Uttar Pradesh government led by Bahujan Samaj Party chief Ms. Mayawati as Chief Minister announced employment of 26,000 teachers at a time when experts says $782 billion bail-out package of the USA government is not enough and 50 million people around the world are to loose jobs by end of 2009!!

Still, the Railway Minister of India, Mr. Lalu Prasad Jadav of Rastriya Janata Dal (RJD) (continue reading…)

Its not always good to write only about business all the time specially  when things are not going that good – isn’t?

So, I do some personal posting from time to time just to change some moods.

Before I indulge into some local ranting, let me just do some routine update on India business scene.

• Petrol prices are slated to come down by Rs. 5 anytime this week which is great news for us using petrol engines. Price of Gas and Diesel will also come down.
• Government and IT industry doing its best to recover from Satyam scandal.
• Pan-India license fee for 3G mobile to be doubled.

Well thats it in short. On a personal note, our state government is slated to raise our salaries by a good margin but it will still fall short on Central government employees by 30-33% depending on position of the employee. It has angered the employees to no end as our tiny state depends on central government for 90% of the state budget and center has already given written assurances to seven backward states including ours that it will provide full support if they implement the central pay-scale. Lets see what happens!

Now the main topic. Last week, local municipality organized a book fair on the central open compound of our small town which has a population of over 100,000 (very big town by western standard but its just a big village by Indian standard). I usually don’t like to visit any of the fairs held in our village but this time I had to go with a friend of mine who needed some books. Once there, I was really impressed by the size and magnitude of the fair. There were more than hundred stalls – big and small showcasing their publications and products. What amazed me more were presence of some very big publication houses from Kolkata who have come all this way to a tiny and remote place in a landlocked, backwater state. So we went around the galleries and looked for books he wanted.

While browsing through pavilion to pavilion I noticed stark contrast of qualities of books published by local publishers and those of Kolkata who also had some international books on their shelf.  Its not only the catalog printing that differentiates the books, but also contents. One just has to browse through local books for few minutes and see the so many misspelled words that he or she would rather leave the book alone. (continue reading…)

First of all, Happy and Prosperous New Year -2009 to all my readers and others. Hopefully, the New Year will bring much joy to all of us which were gone in 2008 due to economic downturn that occurred suddenly. And it seems governments are not sitting idle – indeed Indian government is trying its best to lessen the effect of global economic meltdown on Indians. Last Friday, the Prime Minister cum Finance Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh announced second round of packages meant to stimulate the economy and protect it from global slowdown. In the first package , the government mainly focused on releasing more funds in the market by way of reducing interest rates and thereby improving liquidity. It also offered soaps to exporters. It seems the first package was aimed at immediate goals whereas the second package is more fundamental and might go a long way in reviving the economy.

In the first place the government doubled the cap on foreign investors in bonds and made ways for states to raise around Rs. 300 billion market loans. Moreover, the new initiative has given special emphasis on the automobile industry that has gone back gear after the economic crisis started. A plan of depreciation of fifty percent on car finance has been announced to shore up demand for the beleaguer industry. Exporters have seen rollback of entitlement passbook scheme rates amidst negative export growth in experienced in November.

On the financial sector, The Reserve Bank of India has announced further reduction in REPO and reverse-REPO rates. Special vehicle has been announced for improving liquidity in the non-banking financial market that may raise up to 250 billion Rupees. Rs 200 billion has been earmarked for state owned banks over net two years.

The government says it is not possible for more stimulus packages within this financial year that ends on March 31^st due to political and electoral compulsions. Over all, the two packages announced will take the country’s fiscal deficit to 5-6 percent from a comfortable 2.5 percent now.

Industry has more or less welcomed the anticipated second round of package and the stock market gained more than around 3 percent. But as always, industry want more from the government and argues that these schemes are not enough to push industrial growth which has come down to 0.4 percent from 5 percent at this time last year.