Writers as agents of social change

"Can writers bring in desired social change?"

Why did you ask that question? Oh, you forgot Charles Darwin and his work ‘The Origin of Species’. Don’t you accept Voltaire as French enlightenment writer? Do you remember that in the middle of Second World War, Stalin distributed ‘War and Peace’ to Soviet citizens to gird themselves against the invaders? Ah, what a price Hitler paid for not reading his Tolstoy. Rachel Carson could bring ban on DDT, a destructive chemical, with her ‘Silent Spring’. What else could one ask for?

Many leaders chose writing as a communication tool to bring in the desired societal change and writing was their only option when they were jailed, for Gandhi to Nehru and Martin Luther King to Nelson Mandela. If what they wrote were just self-expressions, why their works are in re-print for so long? How could Obama quote Gandhi or I would quote John Steinbeck (on this blog post), if we had not read and influenced by their writings?

Instead, you would have asked why all the writers were not equally successful at influencing the readers and triggering a change? For that, I would have quoted John Steinbeck again – “A book is like a man — clever and dull, brave and cowardly, beautiful and ugly”. Effective writing demands efficiency in the creator. Do your homework, present your best case and attempt to stand out. They may not notice you immediately. They may chose to ignore your change proposition first, laugh at it, criticize it and then ride the change!

I would have loved the question, if you had asked why the successful writers could not bring the desired change all the time and why only few of their works were celebrated and the rest were ignored. If your new book is not loved by your readers, it is your publisher is at risk, more than you, the celebrated writer. Well, this applies to all the professions and is not limited to writing. Amitabh Bachchan and Rajanikanth too had their share of flops. Being accepted by the society does not necessarily mean they take all you give. Change is embraced when the society is ready for it. And you cannot remain the change master forever and it could be time to make way for another writer.

If leaders are product of the times, then it is the awaiting social change provides the subject to the writers. Writers too are part of society and do not live away from it. They are part of the change the society goes through. Probably they see it first and have the ability to communicate and pass on the message to others. Societal change demands writing from writers and writers propagate the change. The change cycle continues and new writers are born to lead the new change.

Well, what is your next question? I liked discussing this with you.

[Written for Indispire Edition 35: Is there power in writing? Can writers bring social change & change the world?]

Opinion: Indian companies global ambitions: Value hunting or walking into a trap?

Yesterday Economic Times reported that Tata Steel is in talks to sell its steel business units in Europe. (Link: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/indl-goods/svs/steel/tata-steel-in-talks-to-sell-long-steel-business-in-europe/articleshow/44831550.cms). This is the same company which bought European steel maker Corus for an astonishing figure of $8B in 2007. It was the biggest foreign acquisition by an Indian company then. Optimistic times make the risks look smaller. Neither Tata Steel nor any other businessmen expected the business cycle to top out that year and they did not know either that that steel industry was set for a multi-year down slide. It took time for Tata Steel to come out of its optimism and finally wrote off $1.6B in 2013. (Link: http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/what-the-tata-steel-write-off-reveals-113052101267_1.html). Now it finds that its European business unit is a drag on the company, so it wants to sell off some of the units there and reduce its foot print in Europe.

All the companies make mistakes and all businessmen get few things wrong. Ratan Tata has so many achievements in his life committed to Tata businesses; one Corus deal going wrong would never undermine his business judgments. But yet it was a billion dollar mistake. Had this mistake been done by any other Indian company, it would have been suicidal. Take the case of Suzlon. It acquired REpower, a German wind turbine maker in 2007. Suzlon thought it is a prized deal and financed the acquisition by borrowing extensively. Times changed. Suzlon could not withstand the debt load. A multi-bagger stock turned into a penny stock over the time. If Tata Steel was not a well-established, asset-backed, cash flow rich company, it would have struggled to service its debts.

This does not mean one should avoid going abroad with an open purse. Take the successful story of Jaguar-Land Rover (JLR) deal which is doing wonders for Tata Motors. But looking into the sales figures reveal that it is the rising sales of Land Rovers in China bringing good returns to the company. If JLR was a region-specific business, it would have become another blow to Tata group.

It is not that only Indian companies struggle outside their home country. Daiichi Sankyo, a Japanese pharma business group, had ambitious plans when it acquired Ranbaxy in India. It could not manage Ranbaxy and sold it off to another Indian company Sun Pharma but lost multi-billions in the transaction. Big ticket acquisitions always come with integration risks. If the acquiring firm does not have appetite for those risks, deal turns out to be a death trap.

So next time when we hear about an Indian company buying a distressed foreign company, it should not be viewed with pride but caution. It will not be a cake walk going global for all. The proud moment can bring a distress later too.

Opinion: After Kedarnath and Kashmir, are there more natural disasters waiting to happen?

There were floods in Kedarnath last year and Kashmir this year. The triggers for both of these disasters, sequence of events and the learning are almost same. If we a take look back on both the events, it becomes clear they were not one time events and this may not be an end. Here is an effort to explore why it is so.

Sequence and reaction

This seems to be the sequence of events in both the cases.

Extensive rain causes floods ->   Water in low lying areas rise -> Transportation,  Electricity and Telecommunication are cut -> Rescue efforts seem inadequate and many a times cannot not reach in time ->  Causalities rise.

The typical reactions were as follows.

Army begins rescue efforts. Relatives of those affected pray the God. State Govt. start collecting relief funds. Newspapers blame weather forecast failure. TV channels run live shows focusing on victims and how their good life came to ruins in a short time. Opposition party blames ruling party for insufficient action. One research organization does root cause analysis which no one reads and recommendations do not get implemented.

Few months or years pass. One more natural disaster strikes in another place. And the history repeats.

Random pictures showing the impact of floods at Uttarakhand and Kashmir

Why Mother Nature became ultimate destroyer?

All the rainwater collected in the catchment area flows to the rivers also filling in water bodies, ponds, lakes on the way. Rivers act as a natural drain to the rain water. When the clouds burst and it rains for days, rivers see overflow, everything on its shores gets washed away, seams burst and the feeding channels to the rivers see the rise in water levels. Water reservoirs on the way hold more water giving it time to flow through channel. But during the dry years, there is encroachment on the route of the rain water flow. Civil constructions make those channels narrower. There is habitation built on the lake beds. People build their homes on low lying areas. They live in comfort only to risk their lives when the extensive rains come back.

Increase firefighting capacity or build better infra?

So what is the better solution for this recurring tragedy? Add more people in the emergency services to rescue who get struck or do better planning? For a country which has mastered rocket science and did Mangalyaan, town planning is not a challenge. But the devil is not in the planning but the economics of building infrastructure. Ever increasing population puts pressure on people to find new land to live on. It takes years before infrastructure gets built for them until the population reaches a mass to pay back the investments in infra. Mother Nature does not care for business cycles or wait until the man builds suitable infrastructure for himself. Ask your Meteorologist expert friend, he would say that the extensive rains in the catchment area are a recurring phenomenon and are sure to come back at least once or twice in a span of century though there could be a gap of decades in between them. So when the disaster strikes, it hits severely those living on its path. Thanks to low running bridges, poor quality roads, they flow with the water when the rain gods smile at them.

While there is no quick solution in place, both the Govt. and the civilians have to take certain precautions and steps forward toward disaster management. Efforts in understanding the monsoon dynamics needs to be intensified and thereby making the weather forecast more reliable. Ecology of the region and scientific challenges need to be understood thoroughly before building new dams and putting the civil infrastructure in place in the rain catchment areas. Habitation should not be encouraged on the lake beds and so on. Otherwise history keeps repeating until we learn from it.

Opinion: The rise and fall of Gold

Pricing of any commodity depends on supply and demand of it. But for gold it does not appear so, at least in last 8 years. And gold is no ordinary commodity. It is considered as ‘store of value’ for many centuries. When the fiat currencies fail to store value, gold comes to rescue and acts as an alternate currency. So the pricing of gold depends on what is happening with the currencies in circulation all over the world as well. And the biggest of them is USD. The Federal Reserve, central bank of US did few experiments with its monetary policy and gold had to respond to that.

Look at the following two charts. Gold had a fantastic run from 2008 to 2012. It appreciated from $800/troy ounce to $1800 which made many wonder if it will ever end its dream run. The Indian women (including grandmothers) who advocated buying gold all the time and at any price point appeared to possess more wisdom than anyone had thought. But gold too topped out and it saw price erosion despite few shouting ”It is a good time to buy” and now it is at 4 year’s low price.

Look at the other chart below it. It is the chart of US 10 year Bond Yield. It bottomed out when gold was at its top in 2012 and both reversed their directions from there on wards. So gold pricing was inversely proportional to bond yield in the last 8 years. And bond yield depended upon the demand and supply of the underlying currency, USD.

Rise and fall of gold

After the financial crisis in 2008, Fed announced Quantitative Easing (QE) a way of pumping to more dollars into the system by buying treasury bonds, a bull run in the gold had begun. Interest rates were kept to minimum to help trigger the economic growth. That means dollar supply was more than gold so one has to pay more dollars to buy the same quantity of gold. QE2 came during Nov 2010, quickening the rise in gold and reach an all-time high. QE3 began at the end of 2012 but it was intended to but only mortgaged securities unlike QE1 and QE2 which were aimed at buying treasury bonds. So it did not help gold to appreciate. As the speculation of QE tapering began in the early 2013, downward journey in gold prices started and by the time Fed confirmed its intentions to begin taper at the end of 2013, gold had given up most of its gains and bond yields which were suppressed were popping up again.

Outlook:

Expansion of balance sheet at Fed would stop from next month as bond buying program ends. So the focus is now shifted to the other policy measure Fed controls, interest rates. Fed has not yet revealed its plan and wants to keep rates low until US economy sees further revival but that time line may not be very far from here, probably 6 months to an year. And the rise in rates is expected to be slow and gradual as well. Until then gold prices are likely to remain in a range. So around the time rates begin to go up, gold may see its bottom and gradually begin to rise. Chart suggests it may not fall below $980 which may act as a strong support. For gold lovers, mid to end of 2015 might be the beginning of bargain buying opportunity.

Opinion: The king is no more; long live the Dasara

The town of Mysore never disappoints the travelers. It has enough interesting places to keep the tourists occupied for days. Closer proximity to many other places of interest bring many dedicated tourists to the town again and again, year after year.

The cultural capital of Karnataka celebrated its 404^th Dasara festival last week. It was first celebrated in the year of 1610 by Raja Wodeyar I, and its splendor has never diminished since then. But what was different this year was the absence of Royal Darbar of the Wodeyar scion, following the demise of Srikantadatta Wodeyar. The point of discussion now is whether the Mysore Kings were the prime reason behind the famous Dasara festivity which Mysore observes or were they the enablers of it while the festival was truly hailed by its citizens?

The Mysore kings were next to God for their citizens. The goddess Chamundeshwari was family deity of Wodeyar dynasty. While they worshiped her, they promoted Dasara as ‘Naada Habba’ (State festival). It was the kings who organized the festivities and gave it prominence as the grandest festival observed in the kingdom. A look into the history suggests ‘Dasara’ was a grand festival well before the time of Mysore kings and the Wodeyar dynasty made it grander.

The Mysore kings were not independent rulers in the beginning but viceroy to the Vijayanagara kings. And Dasara was the grand festival observed in the Vijayanagara kingdom until the fall of its empire in 1565. The beginning of Dasara celebrations in Mysore by Wodeyar’s in the early 16^th century was a reintroduction of the festival in an effort to rekindle the lost glory and might have been a way to win the hearts of commoners and gain wider acceptance in establishing their kingdom. Also the Mysore kings put their heart and passion into it and Dasara turned grander ever year passed under their rule.

Left: Goddess Durga slaying Mahishasura; Middle: Dasara procession during Mysore kings rule; Right: Modern procession

Though the effort of Mysore kings behind Dasara can never be undermined, the Navaratri festival is about worshiping the goddess Durga or Chamundeshwari. The goddess is worshiped since the time unknown and the legend has it that goddess Chamnudeshwari slayed a demon ‘Mahishasura’ whose name the modern name of the town is derived from. Another legend has it that the Banni tree (where the Dasara procession ends) was used by the Pandavas during their ‘Ajnatavasa’. Long before the Mysore region had its own ruler, goddess Chamndeshwari and Banni tree were worshiped. The kings, when in place, promoting the festival by worshiping the goddess Chamundeshwari and leading the Dasara procession that ends at Banni tree helped the popularity of the festival to reach its zenith.

After India gained its independence, the kingdoms fell apart. But the royal family of Mysore had a role to play in the Dasara festival while the State government was responsible for organizing the festival. This year Wodeyar dynasty lost its prince and no other family member is officially recognized as the head of the family yet. And the festival of Dasara could not wait for it. The king is no more, long live the Dasara.