Antim Pag

I walk into the hotel room and turn on the TV to know more about the singular event on which the relations on the largest & oldest democracies of the world depend on, at least upto a certain extent. Just guess what’s going on? I bet there isn’t a soul who doesn’t know about the event by now so I’d not go into those details. However if you’re a part of the unenlightened clan, its not too difficult to jump sides. Sort of things being said today have more or less a negative connotation. Why so? Was it supposed to be such a big secret that MPs are bought & sold? Or have a page or two been drawn from the “Melodramatics for Dummies” of Bollywood?

I’m watching NDTV LIVE and the discussion is just copying thoughts out of my mind. A gentleman says “I don’t think the people of this country are shocked, I think they’re having fun!” Indeed I am doing just that. In fact just now I was thinking about it writing the same thing down in the blog & quoting Frank Zappa saying “Government is the Entertainment Division of the military-industrial complex.”

Far from hitting a nadir, the Parliament has graduated today. It has mustered the audacity to admit what it’s incumbents have been doing all these years behind closed doors. It’s definitely a happy day for the Indian Political Scenario on the whole. I welcome it with all my heart. I do not say that such scenes should be repeated, because it is just another excuse for wasting more time, not mentioning walk-outs and adjournments; but there is certainly no reason to term the incident as unhappy. I guess the only ones who do that are the ones who see themselves into the matter directly or indirectly.

While I desperately wait to see what happens to the vote today, which as I expected has been postponed and the house adjourned; it seems to be highly paradoxical & risible comment to end on the note I am thinking of ending it on: “Long Live Indian Democracy! Jai Hind!!!”

Hasmukh :)

Acclivity

And once more, the Dr. Vikram Sarabhai founded Indian Space Research Organization has done it. On April 28, 2008; I was watching the Loksabha Channel (due to lack of entertainment avenues), waiting for the Question Hour (for those Indians who don’t know, kindly surrender your passports).

The session began with the speaker of the house (Mr. Somnath Chatterjee) addressing the house of the proud achievement which our country accomplished. I am surprised that any major newspaper has not covered it in a big way. Apparently, they were all too busy covering Harbhajan & Sreesanth and the controversy that surrounds.

This fateful day, ISRO executed another satellite launch. Just that this time it was the first of its kind in the world. With the PSLV C-9, the launch vehicle put in orbit a group of 10 satellites simultaneously. Quite something, huh!?

I know some wouldn’t share my pride, but I’ll do what I’ve managed to do almost always: Damn All. And if you don’t want to be damned, you might as well bask in the glory of being an Indian.

Hasmukh :)

__________

P.S.: I see some of the newspapers have reported it, but then tell me honestly; how many of you do read them, eh!?

TaleSpin

Here is trying to make some sense out of sensex. Read it & you thought, “Big deal, just remove the ‘x’”! Well, I too wish it were that simple…but then I wouldn’t get paid for that! The point is to just see how things have changed in the recent past.

Have you ever thought why do engineers make some of the biggest investment big-shots? Because they understand the Laws of Physics very well and they know, "What goes up, has to come down!"

The entire financial community is crying about the sub-prime crisis hitting all the markets everywhere in the world. Yesterday, India joined the bandwagon fulltime. Though there were a few ups & downs time and again, this was something which was not expected. After the crisis hit, the BSE Sensex had crossed the magical 20,000 figure a number of times and managed to stay there for a while too, but the ultimate logic won yesterday. To simplify it and put it in nursery rhymes’ fashion (…after all, I'm still in a school; so what if they call it a 'B-School' eh?):

Dow came down and broke its crown,

And we (Sensex) came tumbling after!

Just yesterday, an unlucky bunch of MBAs who were studying portfolio management (imagine doing that after getting placed and it being the last semester, haven't they got guts??) discussing about the fall of the markets and were saying "That's it, it can't go beyond 17,000". As per the breaking news, Sensex closed today at 16,729.94!

Just then, I thought of having some fun with these numbers. After all, I’ve done my majors in Finance/Banking and these numbers have been the things that quite a few of my nights have revolved around... (Don't imagine me doing 'it' to a zero, they were those infernal assignments...) So I just thought about having some fun with them for a change & came up with something interesting:

The closing value of BSE Sensex as on 27-Aug-97 (about 11 years ago from today) was 4,097.56; the fall in Sensex in the last bear trend starting from 11-Jan-08 (which has completed 11 days today) is 4,097.51!!!

All data collected from http://finance.yahoo.com/;

All the values considered are adjusted closing quotes of the day;

Today's Sensex closing quote being 16,729.94.

And it doesn't end here, instead it keeps getting better (or worse?)! What do you think the market regulators can do about this?? There were times, just in not-so-distant-past, that a statement from the government's inner circles could considerably increase the subscription percentage of IPOs. And Mr. Arun Shourie would be quoted in papers the next day saying, “A frown from the market regulator is enough to pep up the market!" with a deadly style only a moustache bearer clad in a safari suit can wield...

(visit http://inhome.rediff.com/money/2004/feb/27ipo.htm)

I bet that today Mr. Reddy, Mr. Damodaran and all their allies would be frowning a million times and still not help a thing; I wonder where have their powers gone since Liberalisation took place!? Are they in the coat pocket of Mr. Ben Bernanke which is being dry-cleaned by close associates of Mr. Mervyn King in a posh laundry in Paris? Or has it been bangalored to money-launderers back home???

Think about it...

Hasmukh :)