"The best way to keep
your friends is not to give them away."
—Wilson Mizner (American,
1876-1933)
Word for the day
Embonpoint (n)
Excessive plumpness;
stoutness.
Malice towards none
Priyanka Chopra could
possibly be the first truly global star from Bollywood.
Raj Kapoor, Big B, Rajanikanth,
and Khan trio, etc. have been hugely popular, but entirely on the basis of
their work in India.
Three cheers for PC!!!
First random thought this morning
In past one year, gold has been one of the best performing asset
class. Recently, many experts and analysts have opined that gold might rise
40-50% from the current levels in next 2-3years. Accordingly they have advised
higher allocation to this asset class.
I have not understood their rationale completely, but I am
inclined to strongly disagree with them on this. I feel gold is a secular sell
for next few decades.
Still trying to make money from politics? - Part 4
The political debate post the recently concluded assembly
elections is focused on two things:
(a) BJP is growing
exclusively at the expense of Congress Party, as it is doing well only in the
states where it is in direct contest with the Congress Party. The states where
it contests against one or more regional parties, it's performance is no great.
(b) Regional parties are
becoming stronger with each passing election and a coalition of these parties
could pose a strong challenge to the surging BJP.
I find both these narratives suffering from a high degree of
prejudice and bit shortsighted.
Firstly, the swell in the ranks of BJP should be judged from the
recent context, which is very different from the context of early 1990s.
Regardless of the media projections, BJP is no longer a extreme right wing
ultra nationalist party. It is as close to the center of the ideological
spectrum as Congress has traditionally been. The only difference could perhaps
be that the Congress approached the center from the left side and BJP is
approaching the center from the right side.
So in effect BJP has acquired the substantial undertaking of the
Congress Party. Terming BJP's rise as rise of Hindu nationalism, or outcome of
the consolidation of votes on religious lines, to my mind, is preposterous.
The rise of BJP is purely due to learning from the mistakes of
Congress Party and transforming itself it into a cleansed form of the Congress.
For example consider the following:
(a) BJP promoted strong
regional leaderships which Congress did not do in past four decades. Shivraj
Singh, Raman Singh, Narendra Modi, Manohar Parrikar, Rajnath Singh, Vasundhra
Raje etc. are some example. So in effect there are many strong regional outfits
within BJP.
(b) Wherever, it did not
have enough regional strength it has forged alliances with regional parties,
like SAD, PDP, SS, AGP, TDP, JMM, JDU, INLD etc. But unlike Congress, it did
not stop just at forging alliances. It continued to strengthen its position to
outdo the alliance partner. SS, JMM and AGP are already junior partners of BJP.
INLD and JDU are not much stronger either. SAD may face the heat next.
(c) BJP projected
successfully itself as a party where all have equal chance of rising to the
top. Modi, Fadnavis, Khattar, Sonawal are examples. This has motivated lot of
youth to join the party. No one has any motivation to join Congress today.
(d) BJP has not tried to
change the economic agenda set by the Congress party in early 1990s and
followed by all successive governments. It is just focusing on the execution,
something UPA governments failed at.
...to continue next week
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