ಕೆರೆಯ ನೀರನ್ನು ಕೆರೆಗೆ ಚೆಲ್ಲಿ

'ಕಿರಾತಕ' ಅಲ್ಲ 'ಭಗೀರಥ'

ನಾನು ನೋಡಿದ ಯಶ್ ಅಭಿನಯದ ಮೊದಲ ಚಿತ್ರ 'ಕಿರಾತಕ'. ಅನ್ವರ್ಥ ನಾಮಕ್ಕೆ ತಕ್ಕಂತೆ ಪಾತ್ರ ಆ ಚಿತ್ರದ ನಾಯಕನದ್ದು. ನಗೆಯಿಕ್ಕಿಸುವ ಸನ್ನಿವೇಶಗಳು, ಪಡ್ಡೆ ಹುಡುಗನ ತರಹೇವಾರಿ ವಿಚಾರಗಳು ಮತ್ತು ಅವುಗಳನ್ನು ಕಾರ್ಯರೂಪಕ್ಕೆ ತರುವ ವಿಧಾನಗಳನ್ನು ನೋಡಿ, ಈತ 'ಕಿರಾತಕ' ನೇ ಸರಿ ಅನ್ನಿಸಿದ್ದು ನಿಜ. ಆದರೆ ತೆರೆಯ ಮೇಲಷ್ಟೇ ನಾಯಕನಾಗಿ ಉಳಿಯದೆ, ಬತ್ತಿದ ಕೆರೆಗಳಿಗೆ ಪುನರುಜ್ಜೀವನ ಕೊಡುವ ಯೋಜನೆ ಕೈಗೊಂಡು ಅದರಲ್ಲಿ ಯಶಸ್ಸನ್ನು ಕಂಡ ಯಶ್ ರನ್ನು ಇಂದಿನ ಕಾಲದ 'ಭಗೀರಥ' ಎಂದು ಕರೆಯುವುದೇ ಸೂಕ್ತವಲ್ಲವೇ?



ಕೆರೆಯ ನೀರನ್ನು ಕೆರೆಗೆ ಚೆಲ್ಲಿ

 ತಲ್ಲೂರು ಕೆರೆ (ಚಿತ್ರ ಕೃಪೆ: ಪ್ರಜಾ ವಾಣಿ)

ಇಷ್ಟಕ್ಕೂ ಯಶ್ ದುಡ್ಡು ಮಾಡಿದ್ದು ಜನರಿಂದ ಮತ್ತು ಅವರು ಅದನ್ನು ಜನರಿಗೆ ಖರ್ಚು ಮಾಡಿದ್ದಾರೆ. ಕೆರೆಯ ನೀರನ್ನು ಕೆರೆಗೆ ಚೆಲ್ಲಿದ್ದಾರೆ ಎನ್ನುತ್ತೀರಾ? ಸರಿ, ನಾವು ದುಡ್ಡು ಕೊಟ್ಟಿದ್ದು ಚಿತ್ರ ವೀಕ್ಷಣೆಯ ಮನರಂಜನೆಗಾಗಿ ಅಲ್ಲವೇ? ಕೆರೆ ಕಟ್ಟಿ ಕೊಡಲಿಕ್ಕೆ ಅಲ್ಲವೇ ಅಲ್ಲ. ಇಷ್ಟಕ್ಕೂ ಬೇರೆ ಯಾವ ಚಿತ್ರ ನಟ ಇಂಥ ಸೃಜನ ಶೀಲತೆ ಮತ್ತು ದೂರ ದೃಷ್ಟಿ ಹೊಂದಿದ್ದಾರೆ? ಇಷ್ಟಕ್ಕೂ ನಮ್ಮ ಸುತ್ತ ಮುತ್ತಲಿನ ಕೆರೆ-ಭಾವಿಗಳ ಸಂರಕ್ಷಣೆಗೆ ಚಿತ್ರ ನಟರೇಕೆ ಬರಬೇಕು? ನಾವೇ ಆ ಆ ಭಾಗದ ಜನರು ಹಣ ಕೂಡಿಸಿಕೊಂಡು, ಸಹಕಾರಿ ಸಂಸ್ಥೆ ಕಟ್ಟಿಕೊಂಡು ಕೆರೆ-ಭಾವಿಗಳ ಪುನರುಜ್ಜೀವನಕ್ಕೆ ಕೈಲಾದ ಪ್ರಯತ್ನ ಮಾಡಬಾರದೇಕೆ? ಆ ಕೆಲಸ ನಿಮ್ಮಿಂದಾದರೇ, ನೀವೇ ನಿಮ್ಮೂರಿನ 'ರಾಜಾ ಹುಲಿ'.



ದಿನದ ಕೊನೆಗೆ ಉಳಿದದ್ದೆಷ್ಟು?

ನಾವೆಲ್ಲ ಲೆಕ್ಕ ಹಾಕುತ್ತೇವೆಲ್ಲ. ದಿನದ ಕೊನೆಗೆ ಅಥವಾ ತಿಂಗಳ ಕೊನೆಗೆ ಉಳಿದದ್ದೆಷ್ಟು? ಅದೇ ತರಹ ಆಣೆಕಟ್ಟುಗಳನ್ನು ಹೊರತು ಪಡಿಸಿ, ಮಳೆಗಾಲದ ಕೊನೆಗೆ ಉಳಿದದ್ದೆಷ್ಟು ನೀರು ಎನ್ನುವುದರ ಲೆಕ್ಕ ನಮಗೇಕೇ ಬೇಡ? ಹಾಗೆಯೇ ಜೀವನದ ಕೊನೆಗೆ ಉಳಿಯುವುದೇನು ಎನ್ನುವ ಪ್ರಶ್ನೆಗೆ ಯಶ್ ಉತ್ತರ ಕಂಡು ಕೊಂಡಿದ್ದಾರೆ ಎನಿಸುತ್ತದೆ. ಪ್ರಕೃತಿಯಿಂದ ಜೀವ ತಳೆಯುವ ಮಾನವ, ಜೀವ ಕುಲದ ಮುಂದುವರಿಕೆಗೆ ಅಗತ್ಯವಾದ ಜಲ ಸಂರಕ್ಷಣೆ ಮಾಡದೇ ಹೋದರೇ ಯಾವ ಉಪಯೋಗಕ್ಕೆ ಮನುಕುಲದ ಪ್ರಗತಿ?

Electric Cars are good for Indian Economy

There are discussions making rounds how good or bad are Electric Cars for Indian economy. I believe electric cars are going to be a game changer and will be good for Indian economy for the following reasons.


Reducing addiction to oil:
We are a trade deficit country. Oil the biggest bill in our import list. We maintain oil reserves to the tune of 15 to 45 days of the demand to ensure that country does not come to a halt if the oil supply is cut during a war or a geopolitical conflict. Think of a scenario where we reduce the oil import significantly as we commute through battery driven cars. Our import bills will be down. We will become a trade surplus country. Rupee will rise to below 50 Rupees levels against USD. And we do not have to maintain massive oil reserves for national security and we can ignore geopolitics.

CAD, USD/INR (Source: Tradingeconomics.com)

New investments & more jobs in power sector: As these electric cars need to be electrically charged, that will take the demand up for electric power supply. And it would mean new investments flowing into the entire power sector - coal fired power plants, hydro, wind and solar. This infra upgrade will create a huge number of long lasting jobs.

Consumer perspective: These electric cars are run by energy stored in batteries and do not need an engine (petrol or diesel). When engine is absent, you don’t need oil filter, air filter, fuel filter which are consumables and replaced during service now. You do not have to get your Engine oil or coolant oil changed as well. And there is no exhaust system and no emissions. Noise and vibration is reduced significantly and so is wear and tear. All these things mean your maintenance and repair bills come down sharply. So is the running cost per km too. That would pay for replacement of batteries every 4-5 years.

Good for environment: If we can charge the cars through renewable energy, we will be doing a great service to environment and to the future mankind. Reduced emissions lead to better air quality and limit damage to our lungs. Is not it good?

Negative on existing industry but why can’t they transform? The traditional automobile industry will see negative impact but why can’t they transform with the changing needs? And there will be ample time for it. Even if we assume few of them will have to close down, the net impact to economy would be still positive.

I am looking forward for these cars to become mainstream. And I need to research battery companies to make them part of my equity portfolio.

Feedback & Rating system for Schools and Doctors: Anyone thinking of it?

e-Commerce changed the way we buy things. We search and compare the price in the major portals and make sure we are paying the right price or getting the right discount. Competition and rivalry among retailers made things transparent for consumers. Benefits does not stop there as we tend to take a look at ratings provided by the previous buyers. Was it delivered in good condition? Did the product perform to the expectations? How quickly it was delivered? Many parameters and the whole country’s consumers are giving that feedback. Yeah, those feedbacks are better than just checking with our neighbors or inquiring a cousin before we make a buy decision. That really gives the prospective buyers a good sense of what product to buy, which seller to choose from.

Similarly, you book your travel on Redbus. Again here the travelers would have left the feedback on whether the bus came on time, was it clean and how was the overall experience and so on. Is not it helpful? For sure it helps us to avoid those operators with bad service. And you don’t have to give them a chance as the numerous passengers would have already made their opinions public and yours experience too is more likely to remain the same.

For the services consumed, feedback and consumer rating is a great way of alerting the prospective consumers and making the system to become more transparent and avoiding the possibilities of taking the consumers for a ride. But there are two sectors – education and healthcare, in which we consumers spend considerable portions of our incomes but rely on very limited ways of knowing what other consumers experiences were so we go ahead and take a chance. We don’t know what kind of experience we would go through when we put our kid to a school and visit a hospital in the wee hours. That gives the players in that sector an opportunity to mishandle many things. If there was a feedback and rating system available in the public domain for them too, would those schools and hospitals dare to mess with customers?

First of all to make such a system available for the public, all of them have to come on the same platform. Who would bring them together? And who will take the responsibility of keeping the feedback data not being massaged to favor a few? Is anyone thinking on those lines? If not soon, gradually consumers would get organized and it would become inevitable for those bad players and curb corrupt business practices followed by few of them.

Similarly, how about having a formal feedback and rating system for those whom we elected and those Govt. officials? When their job is to serve the society, why the society has to wait until the problems go out of hand? Facebook and Twitter are already acting as a feedback mechanism of public opinion to some extent but hope that trend leads to better solutions.

The world's happiest man

The label got my attention and I wanted to hear what he has to say and the experience was great. He is indeed a happy man and he surely teaches you how to be happy too. Happiness is a choice and if you have decided to be unhappy, it is a different case. Otherwise listen to him and increase your happiness.

https://www.ted.com/talks/matthieu_ricard_on_the_habits_of_happiness

Decoding the strength of Indian Rupee

USD/INR (Source: XE.com)

If you take a look at the Rupee performance against USD on a 10 year chart, you will notice that the last year’s performance was really a strong one. It stopped devaluating and even went against it to regain some of the value it had lost. How do we explain this? We just need two charts to decode it.

Shrinking Trade Deficit & offsetting it: How do we get the Dollars or other foreign currencies (inflow)? Through exports, remittances, FDI, Loans based in foreign currency etc. And how do we lose dollars? Through Imports mostly and other factors are not that significant. If we take a look at Trade balance (Export – Import), India has a deficit but that has come down significantly, thanks to what happened to Oil and Gold prices. Now it is in the range of $5B -$10B a month. Our FDI, remittances are to the tune of $5B+, so many months we should be able to offset the trade deficit with our forex inflow. In net, the pressure on Rupee is off.

India's Trade Deficit (Source: tradingeconomics.com)

Forex reserves with RBI: When RBI buys dollars from open market, it impacts the exchange rate. It weakens the Rupee. RBI keeps dollar reserves to safeguard India against external shocks and to prevent damage to Rupee when there are sudden outflows. In that case RBI would sell their reserves to avoid volatility. But how much reserves do you really need? It was $300B three years ago but now it is close to $400B. It is enough to take care of 40 months of trade deficit. If you think of equity/debt market exits from FII, they too are fought nicely with ever increasing of SIP of Mutual Funds and EPF pumping money into stock market. So in summary, threats to foreign investments are taken care to a larger extent and it means RBI need not keep on buying dollars. On another note, how RBI buys the dollars? It has to print new money to buy it. But there is so much liquidity now, it limits the need for our central bank to do that.

India's Forex Reserves (Source: tradingeconomics.com)

The takeaway is, dollar outflows are shrinking while inflows remain strong and the need for RBI to increase reserves is reducing, it all points to one thing – stable Rupee. So don’t bet against it.