Last Thursday, I visited Sector 14 after a gap of almost seven years. The place used to be the Connaught Place of Gurgaon till the malls came in. It still has its charm though, and if you are not too keen on brand-focused shopping, but want to have some great street food instead, Sec-14 beats Ambience Mall hands down. To my MDI friends, the update goes as follows:
1. Raju tea stall is still there! This must be longest tenure in the "chai-wala on a movable cart" category. He seems to be doing brisk business, even though the chap has shifted behind Mother Dairy, probably to take advantage of lower rents (these guys must be paying something to the police, wouldn't they?). For the unacquainted, Raju served the best tea within a 2km radius of MDI, especially in the winters, when you could enjoy adrak-elaichi chai lazing on the fence.
2. Om Sweets continues to prosper. The shop is still expensive for students, unless you are hell-bent on having mineral water golgappas.
3. The Calcutta roll shops have multiplied like rabbits, and most of them are also offering burgers now. The roll was okay, but I didn't try the burger, although a robust demand for the snack seemed to exist.
4. The Mallu Gang and Ramanarayana, you were born a little too early. A shop called the "South Store" has commenced operations where you used to get Amritsari Kulchas, and I can tell you, the stuff he doles out is as good as what you would get in Bangalore (It is no Saravana Bhawan though). The owner is an authentic South Indian - I could guess that from his "Sarrr, please have a seat".
5. Chinese corner is still there, but his prices have hit the roof. The American Chopsuey now sells for Rs 85 as compared to Rs 20 in 2002. If I adjust my salary to Chinese-corner-derived-inflation, I have not made much progress. I would rather use the prices of McDonald's Soft-Serve cone to map that. The price of this product is now Rs 10 as against Rs 7 in the year 2000. That translates into a CAGR of 3.6%! I won't be surprised if Sharad Pawar is caught saying "If they can't buy bread, why don't they have Soft-Serve cones instead?"
6. Like most of Gurgaon, there are a lot of Momo shops in Sec-14 now. Considering that half a plate of Momos just cost Rs 15, non-vegetarian students have a cause for celebration now. A little more calculation shows that the price of one momo is just Rs 3 (plate of 5 for Rs 15), which makes them cheaper than golgappas (plate of 6 for Rs 20). By Jove, chicken is cheaper than water now! On another note, you get the best golgappas in Sector-40, where the chap boasts of five different kinds of golgappa pani (information courtesy Ankit Jain). For the best momos, head to Vyaapar Kendra near the Marriot Courtyard (information courtesy Deepak Jotwani).
In case you have explored Sec-14 further, please let me know!
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Mosquito Magnet
While going through the April 2011 issue of HBR, I came across this ingenious product called the Mosquito Magnet. Since mosquitoes use the carbon dioxide, heat and chemicals generated from our body to track us down, the product fools the insects by generating the three artificially, and lures the pests down to the machine, where a vacuum pump sucks them in and leaves them to die from dehydration. Quite clever, if you ask me, because there are no harmful chemicals involved, except the minor amounts of CO2 added to the environment. As to its efficacy, the story goes that when the US Coast Guard Station in the Bahamas became uninhabitable because of the mosquito population in the area, six Mosquito Magnets were deployed. The product managed to capture 1.5 million mosquitoes in six days, which eventually led to the collapse of the colony (by disrupting the insect's life-cycle) and the soldiers lived happily ever after.
Sadly, the device is meant for outdoor use, and is exorbitantly priced at $300 for the cheapest version. I say exorbitantly because of the customer's willingness to pay. I would say its still cheap because one unit can manage an area up to 1 acre, and politicians who are willing to distribute free televisions in their electorates should distribute Mosquito Magnet instead. Five units would suffice for a small village, which would make it malaria, dengue, yellow fever and you-know-the-rest free. In a country where 2 million people suffer from malaria alone every
Age standardised DALY from malaria - India fares poorly among the BRICS countries in terms of losing healthy years from the disease. Image via Wikipedia year, and about 200,000 die from it, it is a small price to pay. A good article on the country's malaria situation can be found here, and this one discusses the cost of the disease to the nation.
In any case, gated communities and buildings for the affluent can easily afford the product, and I estimate the per family cost at less than Rs 100 per year. Hmm...let me get in touch with Woodstream, sounds like a decent business idea. The only issue is the supply of propane, which the machine uses to generate its plume of CO2. It would be a great idea if a homegrown genius comes up with a cheaper version that is easier to maintain. In a country where malaria is endemic and dengue is catching up fast, the man would be doing a great social service. Also, as far as the 'outdoor use' problem is concerned, my guess is that most mosquitoes are bred outdoors and land up inside our homes for their meals. If the breeding cycle is disrupted outdoors, there won't be many outside to form a meaningful threat.
This great product, however, teaches us a tragic management lesson. Mosquito Magnet was the brainchild of a company called American Biophysics, and sold like hotcakes on its launch (which coincided with the outbreak of the West Nile virus in the US). The company, unfortunately, was not able to ramp up its production, and when they outsourced it to China, quality dropped drastically. Eventually, the company that was generating $70mn in revenues per annum, was sold to Woodstream for a mere $6mn.
Sadly, the device is meant for outdoor use, and is exorbitantly priced at $300 for the cheapest version. I say exorbitantly because of the customer's willingness to pay. I would say its still cheap because one unit can manage an area up to 1 acre, and politicians who are willing to distribute free televisions in their electorates should distribute Mosquito Magnet instead. Five units would suffice for a small village, which would make it malaria, dengue, yellow fever and you-know-the-rest free. In a country where 2 million people suffer from malaria alone every
Age standardised DALY from malaria - India fares poorly among the BRICS countries in terms of losing healthy years from the disease. Image via Wikipedia year, and about 200,000 die from it, it is a small price to pay. A good article on the country's malaria situation can be found here, and this one discusses the cost of the disease to the nation.In any case, gated communities and buildings for the affluent can easily afford the product, and I estimate the per family cost at less than Rs 100 per year. Hmm...let me get in touch with Woodstream, sounds like a decent business idea. The only issue is the supply of propane, which the machine uses to generate its plume of CO2. It would be a great idea if a homegrown genius comes up with a cheaper version that is easier to maintain. In a country where malaria is endemic and dengue is catching up fast, the man would be doing a great social service. Also, as far as the 'outdoor use' problem is concerned, my guess is that most mosquitoes are bred outdoors and land up inside our homes for their meals. If the breeding cycle is disrupted outdoors, there won't be many outside to form a meaningful threat.
This great product, however, teaches us a tragic management lesson. Mosquito Magnet was the brainchild of a company called American Biophysics, and sold like hotcakes on its launch (which coincided with the outbreak of the West Nile virus in the US). The company, unfortunately, was not able to ramp up its production, and when they outsourced it to China, quality dropped drastically. Eventually, the company that was generating $70mn in revenues per annum, was sold to Woodstream for a mere $6mn.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Why the US needs socialism
Joseph Stiglitz, in a recent article in Vanity Fair, has expressed dismay over the fact that 1% of Americans control 40% of the nation's wealth. While the top 1% has seen its income increase by 18% in the last decade, the rest of America has seen an erosion. United States has long been the global champion for capitalism, so it should not come as a surprise that inequality has only increased over the years, and that in terms of income equality, it fares much poorer than the European countries. But that it ranks at par with Iran and a decadent Russia might raise a few eyebrows.
One wonders if America has evolved into a plutocracy in the last ten years, with the State failing to take any meaningful action against Wall Street, despite its obvious role in precipitating the credit crisis. The explanation is forthcoming from Stiglitz:
"Virtually all U.S. senators, and most of the representatives in the House, are members of the top 1 percent when they arrive, are kept in office by money from the top 1 percent..."
Now, if you think about it, this scenario is improbable in the long run. If 99% of the people are unhappy with the current scheme of things, then they should simply stop voting for the 1%. In a democracy, they can always ask their representatives to change the policy. But this has not happened in the US.
One explanation that I can think of is the country's obsession with "free-market". You take any step against big business and it can stoke age-old fears of socialism. The proponents of free market are quick to come up with doomsday scenarios, stating that any interference by the State would halt all business in the US, which would pull the country into another Great Depression. Then, they talk about the obvious benefits of the 'trickle down effect', which has been succinctly described by Galbraith as "If you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows".
However, with youth unemployment hovering around 20%, I am not sure if the 1% would be able to sustain the lies for long. What US needs, more than GDP growth, is job creation, even if it means lower profits for Corporate America. It is the price they need to pay for a stable social system.
One wonders if America has evolved into a plutocracy in the last ten years, with the State failing to take any meaningful action against Wall Street, despite its obvious role in precipitating the credit crisis. The explanation is forthcoming from Stiglitz:
"Virtually all U.S. senators, and most of the representatives in the House, are members of the top 1 percent when they arrive, are kept in office by money from the top 1 percent..."
Now, if you think about it, this scenario is improbable in the long run. If 99% of the people are unhappy with the current scheme of things, then they should simply stop voting for the 1%. In a democracy, they can always ask their representatives to change the policy. But this has not happened in the US.
One explanation that I can think of is the country's obsession with "free-market". You take any step against big business and it can stoke age-old fears of socialism. The proponents of free market are quick to come up with doomsday scenarios, stating that any interference by the State would halt all business in the US, which would pull the country into another Great Depression. Then, they talk about the obvious benefits of the 'trickle down effect', which has been succinctly described by Galbraith as "If you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows".
However, with youth unemployment hovering around 20%, I am not sure if the 1% would be able to sustain the lies for long. What US needs, more than GDP growth, is job creation, even if it means lower profits for Corporate America. It is the price they need to pay for a stable social system.
My experience with Economics
In economics, the majority is always wrong – John Kenneth Galbraith
The first time I opened an Economics book, I had to put it down after reading the first two pages. This was when I was preparing for my CA Foundation exam, and Economics was notorious for bringing the most brilliant of students down on their knees (part of this can be blamed on the CA Institute itself, who has drafted such a drab module that even Amartya Sen would be challenged). Anyway, the next time I picked up the module was on the eve of the examination. Half an hour after grappling with it, I decided to call a friend of mine who topped the subject in school. He heard my problem and gave the usual smirk of the man who knows it all. The chap then proceeded to give a lecture on state finances and the forces of the market, the pros and cons of indirect taxation, and the various kinds of deficits and remedies for the same. “I give up”, I told him after fifteen minutes of patient listening on the other side of the phone. He found this funny, and told me to do it my way then. “It is not an easy subject”, he said, “but don’t give up”.
I had almost resigned to my fate, when I tried to read through what Micro Economics had to offer. The first 3-4 pages of the module were about the origin of the word, and how people had contributed to the body of knowledge over the years. Nothing interesting so far. Then, Micro economics proposed that if you raise the price of a commodity, there would be less demand for it. So, if you are selling 8 oranges for Rs 10 each, you would sell only 8 if you raise the price to Rs 12. That such a thing should be called a law, and taught to a person after he has walked the earth for twenty years seemed heresy to me. Somebody actually got world fame for this?
The next thing they had to say was something more subtle. If you increase the price of a commodity, its supply would increase. In the next few pages, the demand curves were moved up
Image via Wikipediaand down, sometimes the supply curve was superimposed on them, and sometimes they used it to calculate what they call price elasticity. Now price elasticity is nothing but how does the demand for a commodity change with respect to changes in price. To any man who has studied mathematics, this is simply dy/dx. I realised that people often earn a lot of money and fame in this world just by presenting simple facts in a complex manner. And if you can apply mathematics to any body of knowledge, you can go very far.
The next few pages talked about the Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility. You can go anywhere in India, and an Economics professor with always explain this by stating that the second Rasgulla/Gulabjamun that you consume, does not give as much pleasure as the first. This is all there is to this law. You can derive the corollaries intuitively. The final thing that Micro Economics had to offer was Law of Diminishing Marginal Returns. This, I agree, was something original, although partly derived from the Rasgulla law (the summary of the law is that as after a point, as you go on increasing an input (out of several) in a production process, the output per unit of input would go on decreasing progressively. So, say after 5 hours of work, every additional hour that a labourer puts in would yield lower returns, maybe because he’s getting tired. This law partly explains why Economics is called the dismal science, as after a point of time, the production of everything would reach its peak, while population would go on exploding.)
Anyway, I had a good understanding by now, and I managed to attempt about 60 marks out of 100 in the examination. I got 40-odd marks eventually, just close to passing. Later on in life, I had my encounter with Economics again, and I managed to get two A’s and one C. Very volatile I agree, but the C was in macro economics, which continues to be my Achilles Heel. The only comforting factor being that even Ben Bernanke does not seem to have got it correctly.
The first time I opened an Economics book, I had to put it down after reading the first two pages. This was when I was preparing for my CA Foundation exam, and Economics was notorious for bringing the most brilliant of students down on their knees (part of this can be blamed on the CA Institute itself, who has drafted such a drab module that even Amartya Sen would be challenged). Anyway, the next time I picked up the module was on the eve of the examination. Half an hour after grappling with it, I decided to call a friend of mine who topped the subject in school. He heard my problem and gave the usual smirk of the man who knows it all. The chap then proceeded to give a lecture on state finances and the forces of the market, the pros and cons of indirect taxation, and the various kinds of deficits and remedies for the same. “I give up”, I told him after fifteen minutes of patient listening on the other side of the phone. He found this funny, and told me to do it my way then. “It is not an easy subject”, he said, “but don’t give up”.
I had almost resigned to my fate, when I tried to read through what Micro Economics had to offer. The first 3-4 pages of the module were about the origin of the word, and how people had contributed to the body of knowledge over the years. Nothing interesting so far. Then, Micro economics proposed that if you raise the price of a commodity, there would be less demand for it. So, if you are selling 8 oranges for Rs 10 each, you would sell only 8 if you raise the price to Rs 12. That such a thing should be called a law, and taught to a person after he has walked the earth for twenty years seemed heresy to me. Somebody actually got world fame for this?
The next thing they had to say was something more subtle. If you increase the price of a commodity, its supply would increase. In the next few pages, the demand curves were moved up
Image via Wikipediaand down, sometimes the supply curve was superimposed on them, and sometimes they used it to calculate what they call price elasticity. Now price elasticity is nothing but how does the demand for a commodity change with respect to changes in price. To any man who has studied mathematics, this is simply dy/dx. I realised that people often earn a lot of money and fame in this world just by presenting simple facts in a complex manner. And if you can apply mathematics to any body of knowledge, you can go very far.The next few pages talked about the Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility. You can go anywhere in India, and an Economics professor with always explain this by stating that the second Rasgulla/Gulabjamun that you consume, does not give as much pleasure as the first. This is all there is to this law. You can derive the corollaries intuitively. The final thing that Micro Economics had to offer was Law of Diminishing Marginal Returns. This, I agree, was something original, although partly derived from the Rasgulla law (the summary of the law is that as after a point, as you go on increasing an input (out of several) in a production process, the output per unit of input would go on decreasing progressively. So, say after 5 hours of work, every additional hour that a labourer puts in would yield lower returns, maybe because he’s getting tired. This law partly explains why Economics is called the dismal science, as after a point of time, the production of everything would reach its peak, while population would go on exploding.)
Anyway, I had a good understanding by now, and I managed to attempt about 60 marks out of 100 in the examination. I got 40-odd marks eventually, just close to passing. Later on in life, I had my encounter with Economics again, and I managed to get two A’s and one C. Very volatile I agree, but the C was in macro economics, which continues to be my Achilles Heel. The only comforting factor being that even Ben Bernanke does not seem to have got it correctly.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Will kill for food
The world is just one poor harvest away from chaos
- Lester Brown, Earth Policy Institute
Some time ago on this blog I had mentioned that World War IV might be fought for food. Things have not come to such yet, but civil upheavals due to food shortages have already been witnessed in Tunisia, Egypt and a host of other countries in Africa and West Asia.
Food riots, however, are not a new phenomenon in the region, and 2008 itself saw food riots in 25 countries, most of which were in Africa. In the 1960s, the governments in the African region had bought peace by subsidising food prices, but the system collapsed in 1980s, after these countries were forced to adopt market policies laid down by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The decontrol of prices back then had led to "bread riots" in Algeria and Jordan, which eventually forced the Algerian government to introduce multiparty democracy in 1988. The situation is incendiary once more after 20 years, with incidents of food driven immolation reported from Algeria, Eqypt and Mauritania. The governments have responded to the current situation by increasing subsidies on wheat and reduction of taxes on food, but the peace might not last long.
The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has said that sugar and wheat prices are at their highest levels since documentation of the prices started in 1990. Global wheat output has been badly hit by flooding in Australia and Pakistan, and even countries like Russia and China are thinking of importing large quantities of food-grain. This may not leave much on the table for poorer countries of West Asia and Africa, or they might be able to buy too less with their weak finances.
We might see food prices softening for brief periods, but the long term trend clearly points upwards, as yields are scarcely catching up with population growth. Global warming is not helping things either, as every one-degree rise in normal temperature causes a 10 per cent decline in yields. Weather extremes caused by warming, such as the flooding in Australia, might pose an even greater risk in the future, when the global food supply and demand is precariously balanced.
I see three scenarios emerging in the future. One scenario could be where the rich of the world (including governments) dole out free food to the poor as a bargain for security. Another when there is absolute anarchy, when man is reduced to the state of an animal, going out to scavenge for food at the dawn of every new day. The third could be where the militarily powerful nations take control of the food baskets of the world. Or worse, we could see the army break into factions, with millions of "food mercenaries" for sale. People who will kill for food.
- Lester Brown, Earth Policy Institute
Some time ago on this blog I had mentioned that World War IV might be fought for food. Things have not come to such yet, but civil upheavals due to food shortages have already been witnessed in Tunisia, Egypt and a host of other countries in Africa and West Asia.
Food riots, however, are not a new phenomenon in the region, and 2008 itself saw food riots in 25 countries, most of which were in Africa. In the 1960s, the governments in the African region had bought peace by subsidising food prices, but the system collapsed in 1980s, after these countries were forced to adopt market policies laid down by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The decontrol of prices back then had led to "bread riots" in Algeria and Jordan, which eventually forced the Algerian government to introduce multiparty democracy in 1988. The situation is incendiary once more after 20 years, with incidents of food driven immolation reported from Algeria, Eqypt and Mauritania. The governments have responded to the current situation by increasing subsidies on wheat and reduction of taxes on food, but the peace might not last long.
The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has said that sugar and wheat prices are at their highest levels since documentation of the prices started in 1990. Global wheat output has been badly hit by flooding in Australia and Pakistan, and even countries like Russia and China are thinking of importing large quantities of food-grain. This may not leave much on the table for poorer countries of West Asia and Africa, or they might be able to buy too less with their weak finances.
We might see food prices softening for brief periods, but the long term trend clearly points upwards, as yields are scarcely catching up with population growth. Global warming is not helping things either, as every one-degree rise in normal temperature causes a 10 per cent decline in yields. Weather extremes caused by warming, such as the flooding in Australia, might pose an even greater risk in the future, when the global food supply and demand is precariously balanced.
I see three scenarios emerging in the future. One scenario could be where the rich of the world (including governments) dole out free food to the poor as a bargain for security. Another when there is absolute anarchy, when man is reduced to the state of an animal, going out to scavenge for food at the dawn of every new day. The third could be where the militarily powerful nations take control of the food baskets of the world. Or worse, we could see the army break into factions, with millions of "food mercenaries" for sale. People who will kill for food.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
The costliest man in the world
While the Americans have burst into celebrations after the assassination of Osama (what is a better word than assassination?), few people seem to have realised that USD 1.2 trillion has been spent in finding a man who would have been dead anyway in another ten years. Now, to put things in perspective, the annual GDP (2009) of the US, and its external debt is close to $14 trillion. So, you could have effectively used the $3900 that every American citizen has shelled out for catching hold of Osama to repay 10% of the country's external debt, or its entire current account deficit. However, I do agree that most Americans would be more than happy to donate this amount for the 'War on terror', considering that they can always print more money to take care of the rest. Not many Indians would be ready to partake of about Rs 2 lakhs per person to find and kill Dawood Ibrahim.
For Indians, even if you consider 1% of the amount being directly allocated to Osama's head, the man was worth Rs 54,000 crores. Had I been Osama, I would have made a dozen or so video tapes deploring US, each with a little makeup showing me little older, then popped a box of sleeping pills, and asked my close followers to burn my dead body. The videos would have been broadcast every two years on Al-Jazeera in serial order, and the current generation of the US Army would have spent its entire life combing the desolate regions of Afghanistan, looking for a man long dead and gone.
For Indians, even if you consider 1% of the amount being directly allocated to Osama's head, the man was worth Rs 54,000 crores. Had I been Osama, I would have made a dozen or so video tapes deploring US, each with a little makeup showing me little older, then popped a box of sleeping pills, and asked my close followers to burn my dead body. The videos would have been broadcast every two years on Al-Jazeera in serial order, and the current generation of the US Army would have spent its entire life combing the desolate regions of Afghanistan, looking for a man long dead and gone.
Summer Vacations
Finally people have got it right. Tisca Chopra was on TV the other day, promoting a program targeted for children. The first thing she said was “I miss my school days”. Before I could counter with my usual objection, she added “Not the school days, but the vacations actually.” That’s right. That is what we miss the most. The summer vacations that seemed to stretch for years, and yet always felt inadequate when they ended, and the winter vacations, which though short, provided the invaluable freedom of venturing outside at any time of the day. The vacations after the first term exams were a big disappointment, except for cousins from the East, who benefited from the fortnight long Durga Puja holidays.
If the idea of summer vacations was applicable throughout life, then at this time, I would have been resting in my home, sipping a chilled glass of ‘Panna’. I still do find children coming out of their homes in droves by five in the evening (by when it is still quite hot by adult standards), and proceeding to play in the sports area. Sadly, the quaint games of ‘Oonch neech’ and ‘Thallam thalli’ seem to be dead now (the latter being my favourite). But when I think of it, these were our last resort, when we ran short of the quorum required for a cricket or football match, with the girls coming to our rescue. The girls were masters in these fabricated-at-home games, and usually came up with lesser known rules when they ended up on the losing side. We had our revenge when we promptly abandoned them as soon as we had enough numbers to start a cricket match. The other threat to cricket came from boys who owned the cricket bat, and they generally ended up batting twice or thrice, depending on how hard they could push the bargain. The threat was even greater when these blue-eyed boys ended up in the team of a habitual ‘cheater-cock’, and assumed gigantic proportions when such a team ended up batting first. In the latter case, the match rested on a heap of gunpowder, and served as an early lesson in Gandhian thought for us – to withstand the harshest of behaviour with a smile. What surprises me is that we never had enough money to own more than one bat among the ten-odd boys who were regular contenders for cricket. As a result, the lone bat used to be treated something like a much-awaited male child in a family of landowners.
The other thing that surprises me is that we used to venture out into the sun when the mercury was well over forty, and there was never a case of dehydration reported from our fraternity, as far as I can recall. What is more surprising is that despite filling ourselves up from the ramshackle water tank, nobody ever fell ill. On another thought, I do not think contaminated water can put people down who have been bred on ‘chuski’ topped with bright-coloured syrup that looks like radioactive waste. The most dreaded disease was malaria, and if you caught it at the beginning of the vacations, you could bid the rest of the period goodbye. By the time you were healthy enough to run in a field, you found yourselves strapped with the school bag. Luckily, the north Indian summer roasted most of the mosquitoes by June.
Fortunately, during our childhood, the DD people were sufficiently lazy and Rupert Murdoch was busy in other corners of the world. The only afternoon TV show that I remember was Spiderman, and probably “Hum Chaar” on Saturday. I will write more about it some other day.
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