In past couple of weeks, InvesTrekk team travelled through heartland of India - Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh. It certainly was the most interesting phase of our “Discover India” journey so far. However, before we share the key observations and conclusions with our readers in the coming days, we would like to share a key observation made during our interaction with people across gender, castes, religion, regions and age groups, i.e., “fixation with fixing”.
Across 11 states covered so far, we have found that a large
majority of people sincerely believe that everything in our socio-economic
milieu is “fixed”. We found that this belief is manifesting in three key
behavioral traits (a) deep and sometime total mistrust in the government and
political establishment; (b) insensitivity to corruption in public life and (c)
implicit desire to be part of some sort of ‘fixing syndicate’, un-fulfillment
of this desire was often seen reflecting in frustration and disillusionment.
A management guru in Rajasthan and an industrialist in
Indore offered interesting international alibi to this ‘fixation with fixing’
thesis - “When Libor that affected transactions worth trillions of dollars on
daily basis could be ‘fixed’; the international crude oil price involving
billions of dollars of daily trade could be ‘fixed’; China has kept its
currency ‘fixed’ for years; now BoJ wants to ‘fix’ its currency and inflation;
US fixed the UN security council to capture Iraqi oilfields – what are we
discussing here IPL spot fixing worth few million dollars! Who cares?”
The popular sentiments are so negative that people in
general see all welfare and development schemes of the government as “fixed”.
Though the perception is not completely unfounded as serious leakages do occur
in these schemes, the most unfortunate part was that youth in general was not
found revolting against this ‘fixing’. On the contrary, we found them fixated
to the idea of fixing and actively looking for the opportunities.
We found the following three examples of fixing most
intriguing:
(a)
Stuck at a railway crossing in UP we felt that
the “Phatak was shut down unusually
early before the train arrival and took much longer to open after the train had
passed. On enquiring we were told that the vendors selling fruits, tea, water
and snacks at the crossing pay the gateman to keep the Phatak close for longer so that they could sell more to the
travelers. Everyone seemed to know this – no one seemed bothered or seen
protesting.
(b)
We were in Raipur the day Maoists attacked a
political rally in Bastar. We did not see any panic amongst people. We did not
see anyone protesting. No peace march. No candle lightening. No tears. A senior
UP minister commented on national television that this attack is “fixed”. The
owner of the dhabha where we were having our meal not only concurred but also
took liberty to name few suspects.
(c)
A stock broker in Indore felt that the stock
market in India is “100% fixed”. He says Nifty close value everyday is like the
traditional “Matka” number. With over 85% daily volume now in Index options,
the fixing has now moved to NIFTY from mid and small caps. No insider trading.
No front running. No circular trading. Just “Index management”!
Thought for the day
“Opportunities are like sunrises. If you wait too long, you miss them. "
- William Arthur Ward (1921-1994)
- William Arthur Ward (1921-1994)
Word of the day
Isolato (n):
Person who is spiritually isolated from or out of sympathy with his or her times or society.
Person who is spiritually isolated from or out of sympathy with his or her times or society.
(Source: Dictionary.com)
Shri Nārada Uvāca (Teaser)
Some day in not so distant history, we would know what truly led Mr. NRN Murthy back to the helm at Infosys with his son in his arm!
The interesting thing would be to see Nandan also following Mr. Murthy to the stable.
The mute question is should we buy Infosys right now or wait till more details and some result emerge?
No comments:
Post a Comment