Do it yourself

India’s real GDP grew by 5.4% yoy during 2QFY25 (July-Sep); the slowest growth rate recorded since 3QFY23. The Reserve Bank of India had forecasted a growth of 7%, just a month ago, while the market consensus was less sanguine at ~6.5%.

For the argument’s sake, some of the slowdown in 2QFY25 could be attributed to a high base (2QFY24 GDP grew at 8.1%). However, it is tough to deny that the Indian economy has been growing below potential in most of the post global financial crisis (GFC-2009) period. In fact, it will not be totally perverse to argue that in the past one decade or so, the potential growth curve itself has moved lower.

For record, the Indian economy has grown at an average rate of 5.8% during the past decade (FY15-FY24). Even normalizing for the Covid-19 lockdown impact, the Indian economy has grown at an average rate of 6.0%, much below the estimated potential growth rate of over 8%. The real GDP had grown at an average rate of 7.8% during the preceding decade (FY05-FY14).

The slowdown in 2QFY25 has been led by the industrial sector, especially, manufacturing and core sector (e.g., mining and electricity) – a sector that has been the highest priority area for the incumbent government in the past decade. Agriculture (3.5% growth) sector did well on the back of a bountiful monsoon; and services also grew at a decent 7.1% led by public administration. On demand side, investments contracted for the fourth consecutive quarter, belying the promise of a massive jump in allocation for capex in the union budgets for FY24 and FY25. Private consumption grew 6% yoy on a low base of 2.6%, but declined qoq, despite the higher DBT.

The fiscal data for April-October 2024 period shows that contrary to its commitment in the union budget, the government has sacrificed capital expenditure in favor of direct cash transfer (DBT) to households. Ahead of key state elections, the government transferred an advance installment of tax devolution to states to meet revenue expense obligations. The central government capex (including on defense) was much lower than the budget targets. The disbursement of the promised capex loans to the states was also lower. Revenue expenditure on education, drinking water and sanitation were restrained to increase DBT allocation.

The popular narrative after the announcement of 2QFY25 GDP data appears to be that high effective rate of taxes and higher interest rates are hurting the growth and fiscal and monetary stimulus may lead to a course correction. I sincerely beg to differ from this hypothesis.

I have often highlighted that the obstacles to the acceleration in India’s growth rate are structural and not cyclical. Inability to adequately exploit our most valuable resources – the human capital and the largest pool of arable land in the world – is the principal reason for below potential growth. Consistent misallocation of capital, adhocism in policy making, lack of a conceptual growth framework, a distorted federal political structure, blatant pursuit of crony socialism, and lack of a long-term socio-economic growth plan.

In this context, it might be pertinent to note the OECD has projected a gradual deceleration in the potential growth rate of the Indian economy in the next four decades, as the marginal productivity of capital declines and contribution from technological progresses diminishes. (Table 1). The potential rate declines, even if in a blue-sky scenario, where India is able to take fuller advantage of its demography and is able to achieve a much higher rate of capital accumulation and employment (Table 2). (see full report here)

Reportedly, Israel and Hezbollah (Lebanon) have successfully negotiated a 60 days ceasefire to the latest round of hostilities which started with Israeli forces invading Lebanon on the 1^st October 2024. The deal involves withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon and deployment of a UN peacekeeping mission and establishment of a US led international monitoring group.

This is an important development in global geopolitics. The Hezbollah group was overtly supported by the Iranian government. Israeli invasion into Lebanon had evoked a direct military response from Iran; threatening a much wider escalation of a hitherto localized Israel-Palestine conflict. The ceasefire deal, which has been welcomed by Iran, diminishes the probability of an immediate wider escalation of the Israel-Palestine conflict. However, since the deal does not cover the ongoing Israeli attacks in Gaza Strip, it does not offer any durable mitigation of the threat.

If the outgoing president Biden could pursue Ukrainian president Zelensky to also negotiate a similar ceasefire deal with Russia, it would be considered a great parting gift for the president-elect Trump.

From the economics viewpoint, presence of the UN peacekeepers on the ground and direct involvement of the US in the region may temporarily help in restoring normalcy in the Red Sea marine traffic, thus normalizing the global trade to a certain extent; and the volatility in oil prices may also subside. A restrained approach from both sides would provide a durable solution.

This is definitely good news for India. An uncertain and volatile oil price environment, higher logistic cost due to disruption in the Red Sea, and a conflict involving Israel (supported by the US) and Iran (supported by Russia and China) are investors and policymakers’ nightmares.

Another thing that may be of immense interest to the Indian investors presently is Scott Bessent’s (Trump’s designated treasury secretary) views on USD and US treasury yields. As a hedge fund manager, Scott has preferred a weaker USD strategy, against raising tariff barriers, for the US manufacturing renaissance. Scott believes “tariffs are inflationary and in turn would strengthen USD. On the other hand, a weaker USD would make US manufacturing competitive. A weak dollar and plentiful, cheap energy could power a boom. A stronger USD should emerge only at a later stage if the US reshoring effort is successful”.

It may not be great news for the global hedge fund managers who are overwhelmingly long USD. As per the recent survey, presently, long USD is the most crowded trade globally.

If Scott sticks to his extant views, we may see USD weakening, US yields falling and US energy production & exports rising in 2025. This trifecta may delight Indian markets and our emerging market peers.

One question that begs the answer is “against what USD will weaken?” The US Fed is not keen to cut rates materially from the current levels. EUR cannot afford any strength, especially when German and French economies are tethering. Both China and Japan have shown no inclination to leave their currencies to the market forces. Strength in emerging currencies, including INR, is like a tiny insect bite for an elephant like USD; makes no difference. A peaceful middle east and Europe and cheap energy may take much of the shine out of gold.

I would be pleased to hear the views of readers on what would USD weaken against, if it does?

The benchmark Nifty50 has rallied over 3% in the past three trading sessions. This rise in Nifty50 has come after a fall of ~11% in the preceding eight weeks. Most market participants have attributed this rally to the assembly election results of Maharashtra. The incumbent alliance (Mahayuti) has registered a sweeping victory, with BJP winning ~90% of the seats it contested.

The popular narrative is that the overwhelming victory in the Maharashtra election would strengthen the Prime Minister led union government and reinvigorate the development agenda, especially the infrastructure capex. I find this narrative counterintuitive and mostly speculative. There is absolutely no substantive evidence to support these assumptions. To the contrary, there are some indications of slowdown in infra capex in FY26, as fiscal consolidation gets higher priority. In this context, I take note of the following:

·         Mahayuti alliance was running a stable majority government in the state of Maharashtra for the past three years. Many key infrastructure projects like coastal road, metro rail, Sewri-Panvel link bridge (Atal Setu) etc. have been completed in these three years. Nifty50 made an all time high of 26216 in September 2024, when the opinion polls were indicating a loss or thin majority for the incumbent government. These election results change absolutely nothing (except perhaps the Chief Minister).

·         In the 1HFY25, the government capex has contracted 15.4% yoy, against a target of 17% increase. There are indications that the overall FY25 capex may fall short of the FY25 budget target of Rs11 trilion. It is estimated that the government may not provide a material hike in capex budget for FY26, as in a volatile global environment, it may prioritize fiscal consolidation over capex. (see here)

·         Reportedly, a lot of government contractors are facing delays in payments from the state and central government. This is adversely affecting their working capital cycle operating cash flows. Elections are cited as one of the primary reasons for these delays, however anecdotal evidence indicates that there may be a trend in delayed payments. Favoring infrastructure builders facing delayed payments (affecting execution) and slowing order flows might not be a great investment strategy, in my view. (also see here)

·         The primary reason for the ~11% correction in Nifty50 was the declining earnings growth trajectory. Maharashtra election result, or any other datapoint that emerged in the past one week, do not change anything about the earnings prospects of the Indian companies. There are indications that RBI may continue in pause mode; pollution related restriction may impact demand in NCR region; consumption recovery may be back-ended in FY26; and new tax code may not offer any material relief to the individual taxpayers. It would therefore be prudent to wait for another 3-4 months before jumping into the markets.

Trivia: International gold prices have corrected ~3% in the past one month. Some recent reports (see here) suggest that “Israel nearing a ceasefire with Hezbollah, coupled with Trump's nomination of Scott Bessent as the U.S. Treasury Secretary soured the precious metal's safe-haven appeal. If you are also one of the investors who allocated 10% to gold in view of the rising geopolitical threat or Trump related uncertainties, you need to seriously review your investment strategy. Protecting 10% portfolio from war or eccentricities, while keeping 90% fully exposed to it, may not be a great strategy, after all.

President elect of the US, Donald Trump has already designated key members of his team. Based on his election agenda, speeches and rhetoric and personal views of his designated team members, market participants are speculating about the likely policy framework of Trump 2.0 administration, and its implications for the global trade and markets.

In the past four days, my e-mailbox, WhatsApp message box and social media timelines have been inundated with copies of an Asia Pacific strategy report of a global brokerage. So far, I have received 127 digital copies of the 21 pages (5MB) report, with a rather Tharoorish title – “Pouncing Tiger, prevaricating Dragon”. (I needed to use a dictionary to find out the meaning of prevaricating). I am not sure how many of those sharing the report have actually read it. Most of them appear to have just forwarded it in the spirit of Diwali – just like Soan Papdi boxes exchanged on Diwali, which are never opened and tasted by intended recipients.

The strategy report makes two points that may be of any interest to the Indian investors – (i) Initiation of “Overweight China” trade in the month of September 2024 by some global brokerages was an error of judgement and needs correction; and (ii) the cut in India overweight from 20% to 10% was not warranted and is being restored.

It is important to note that brokerages remained overweight or equal weight on India, while leaning a bit towards China. This report is more about correction in China strategy and less about India. As of this morning no data is available as to how much selling the clients of this particular brokerage actually did in India since September 2024, and how much they would be buying in next few weeks to adhere to the brokerage’s strategy.

The reason cited for the change in strategy are:

a)    Trump will herald Sino-US trade war escalation. Chinese NPC stimulus is not reflationary. Elevated US yields and inflationary expectations would prevent the Fed from cutting further, thus limiting the scope for further stimulus by PBoC.

b)    India is amongst the least exposed regional markets to Trump’s adverse trade policy. FPIs are underexposed to the Indian equities and looking for buying opportunities. Valuations are now more palatable.

In my view, the brokerage might have committed another mistake to correct an earlier error. We still have two months before Trump’s inauguration and perhaps a few more months to see what his trade policies are going to look like, regardless of the election rhetoric. Six weeks may be too early to assess the impact of the Chinese stimulus. The latest earnings estimates used to derive the valuations of Indian equities might change in the next couple of quarters, if inflation does not ease and growth estimates are downgraded. There is no evidence that FPIs have remitted the dollars out of India in the past few months. The net FPIs flows have been positive (see here). FPIs may not rush to India with fresh bags full of dollars in the next few months. They may want to see how EM debt and currencies behave in 1H2025 in the wake of Trump and Fed policies.

In this context, I note the following, which makes me ambivalent about the impact of the change in heart of few global brokerages.

·         Trump has spoken extensively about onshoring manufacturing to the US. This forms the fulcrum of his trade policies towards China and other countries that run trade surplus with the US.

In this context, it is pertinent to note that the US is home to countless unskilled, obese, and unwilling workers asking for a raise in US$18-20/day minimum wage. Trump’s choice for health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is exactly not promising a program to make this workforce fit enough to work 50hrs/week. It is not clear how President Trump would propose to compete with US$350/month wage Chinese workers who are regimented, skilled and healthy enough to work 70hr/week.

·         In the year 2018, Trump imposed restrictions on export of high-end semiconductors to China. The Chinese government responded to this by investing massively in the high-end technology sector. Massive flows of capital were directed towards the industrial sector from real estate. Consequently, China is now close to attaining self-sufficiency in semiconductors. China has leapfrogged the US in several areas requiring high-end technology.

The point is that protectionist trade policies of the US may now help some of American businesses; but these policies may not hurt China in any significant way. China is even more geared now to export deflation to the western world, than before. The protectionist policies may impede India's interests noticeably.

·         Naseem Nicholas Taleb, regarded as a visionary by many market participants, has recently warned Elon Musk in no uncertain words. He wrote on X (formerly Twitter) “Business people want to make things function; bureaucrats like to perpetuate dysfunction. I fear for @Elon as he is stepping harder and harder on the interests of the Deep State. I will light a candle for him at the Monastery of Hamatoura.”

Obviously, there are reasonable doubts about the success of Team Trump in implementing their election promises, especially those concerning the bureaucratic reforms in the US.

·         The latest portfolio disclosures of Michael Burry, the legendary US trader/investor, suggest that recently he has been loading up on Chinese equities.

With the conclusion of the US elections, most of the noteworthy events for the current year 2024 are over. Though some traders may be looking forward to 23^rd November (Assembly election results), 6^th December (RBI’s MPC policy statement) and 18^th December (FOMC policy statement), these events are not expected to make any material change in the market sentiments.

·         In the absence of any foreseeable major event, the markets are in maintenance mode for the past couple of weeks.

·         Benchmark indices are consolidating in a narrow range, just keeping the day traders busy.

·         Broader markets are carrying out the process of clearance: the stocks that crossed the red line and strayed into bubble territory are being punished and dragged back to their right place.

·         The stocks that have been underperforming (or are likely to underperform) due to macro conditions, are being assigned lower weights and stocks performing (or likely to perform) strong are being promoted to top order.

·         Traders and investors who became greedy and traded beyond their financial capacity, are being taught some important lessons. They are learning how to balance the sentiments of greed and fear, manage risk and reign return expectations.

The current state of affairs of the Indian markets could be summarized as follows:

Nifty YTD2024: Decent performance, but lags alternatives

Indian stocks have delivered a decent performance YTD2024. The benchmark Nifty50 has gained over 11%; whereas Nifty500 (16.4%), Nifty Smallcap100 (21.1%) and Nifty Midcap100 (21.2%) have delivered much better returns. Media (-6%), FMCG (0.7%), Private Banks (+1.7%) are the sectors that have underperformed the benchmark indices. Pharma (33.6%), Auto (+26.5%), Realty (+25%) are some of the notable outperformers.

However, if we compare the YTD2024 returns yielded by Gilt funds (~10%) or Gold Funds (~20%), Nifty50 returns appear disappointing.

Globally, Nifty50 has been one of the best performing emerging market indices, though it lagged the major markets like the US (S&P 500 +26%), Japan (Nikkei +18%), China (+16%). Nifty50 outperformed Europe (STOXX600 7%), Indonesia (0.5%) Brazil (-3%), and South Korea (-5%), etc.

Foreign investors trim equity stakes to the lowest since GFC

Net YTD2024 FPI inflows in the Indian markets is over Rs one trillion. However, they have been net sellers in equities to the tune of Rs190.6bn.

What has bothered most of the market participants is the net selling in secondary equity markets to the tune of Rs 1.06 trn. Out of this Rs876bn worth of sale occurred in the month of October alone.

With this selling, FPIs have reduced their stake in Indian equities below 17%, from a high of over 20% in pre Covid period. The current stake of FPIs in the Indian equities is the lowest since the global financial crisis (2008-09).

 

Market breadth worsening

Despite the sharp outperformance of the broader market indices, overall market breadth has been dismal YTD2024. In particular, the breadth has been worsening consistently since June 2024.

 

Volumes shrinking

The level of activity in the Indian stock markets has declined in the recent months. The traded value and the quantity of shares traded have declined much below average. This may imply the participation of non-institutional investors/traders in the cash equity market has declined.

 

Market cap at 136% of GDP

The market capitalization of India crossed the US$5 trn mark in 2024. Presently, India market capitalization contributes ~4.25% of the global market capitalization, the highest ever level. For context, in the past two decades, on an average India’s share in the global market capitalization has been close to 2.5%. At the present level, India’s market capitalization is over 135% of the FY2025e GDP, against a 10 year average of 85%.

1HFY25 Earnings growth for Nifty50 companies has been one of the worst in several quarters. As per some brokerages, about two third of sectors are trading at a premium to their historical valuations.

Orderly weakening of USDINR, bonds stable

USDINR weakened 1.5% YDT2024 to its lowest ever level of Rs84.4/USD. The decline has been orderly and well managed. The INR resilience has been remarkable considering that the RBI has been accumulating USD and also buying Gold; CAD has started to worsen, inflation has been sticky and fiscal deficit has remained elevated.

The benchmark bond yields have also eased 6-7% YTD2024, in tandem with the global trends. The bond markets have been very stable and have not shown any sign of jitteriness during general elections, escalation in the Middle East Asia, and recent sharp rise in the US benchmark yields.

Overall, the markets appear stable with no sign of panic or turbulence. The ongoing corrective phase might last for a few more months and add to the inherent strength of the Indian markets, as the excesses of the past get erased and valuations normalize. 

The year 2024 is proving to be one of the worst years for political soothsayers. After a debacle in the Indian general elections last summer, psephologists have failed in the US presidential elections. The challenger Donald Trump emerged a winner, gaining popular votes to occupy the White House for four years with a clear majority in the US Congress and Senate. This kind of decisive mandate has been a rarity in US politics in the past four decades. Most of the media, political commentators, psephologists, and other experts completely failed to read the peoples’ mind and anticipated a victory for Kamala Harris.

After the conclusion of the recent Haryana Assembly elections, a lot of people, including some of the senior most political analysts & observers, wondered why the Congress party lost the election, contrary to the popular perception. The ruling party was witnessing serious anti-incumbency issues. The Congress party, being the principal opposition party, had raised all the pertinent issues concerning the common people. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi carried an effective campaign. Almost every poll projected a clear lead for the Congress Party.

At a gathering last evening someone asked me “how do you explain the repeated poor performance of the Congress Party, despite the rising popularity of its main leader?” My answer was simple, “Congress leaders are telling people what problems (inflation, unemployment, nepotism etc.) they are facing, as if people are not aware of their problems. Congress leaders, however, do not offer a solution for any of the peoples’ problems. That is why they lose elections.”

Yesterday, I ended my note highlighting a potential problem for investors (see here). Some readers suggested, “it would have been better if I offered some solutions also, lest it is a meaningless exercise”.

So, here are my two cents for augmenting the government fiscal balance. Of course, as usual, some of the readers may find these utopian. Notwithstanding, in my view these are practicable, effective, and worth sharing for generating a wider discussion.

Go back to villages

Since independence the government has focused on development of industrial and urban infrastructure in the country. It has actively participated in the endeavor through a large number of public sector enterprises; besides offering a myriad of tax and other concessions to the private entrepreneurs. Now, the country has a reasonably strong industrial base. Many of our industries are globally competitive. We have a strong set of entrepreneurs and risk takers. It is therefore high time when the government should reset its priorities and turn its primary focus on agriculture. To meet this end, the government may consider:

Exiting all industrial and banking activities and actively undertaking agricultural activities. It should develop barren lands; develop water bodies and irrigation facilities; develop and use technology for enhancing productivity; give employment to landless farmers; take risk with new technologies & crops; partner with marginal farmers in consolidating their land and do farming on that land - just the way it undertook industrial activities immediately after independence.

Undertake, on mission basis, the task to re-skill the underemployed farmers and farm labor. The farmers and their family members may be trained as dairy workers, domestic help, nurses, tourist guides, artisans, etc. Expecting the construction sector to absorb all surplus farm labor is a bad idea.

Develop at least 5 very large special agri export zones in rocky and desert areas of central and western India and undertake export of farm produce as a commercial activity. These zones may be developed in public, private or joint sectors. Besides, it may acquire farm assets, especially rice farms, overseas to reduce water intensity of Indian agriculture.

Encourage various states to make bilateral or multilateral agreements for procurement, processing and trading of farm produce and movement of labor within states.

Nationalize all rivers. Develop a national water grid. Set up a national water regulator, who shall work out a water sharing formula for all states and union territories every three year and maintain adequate provisions for managing droughts. The idea should be to ensure that not a drop of river water flows into sea from India. Develop a water distribution grid on the models of roads and power grids on a mission basis.

The aim should be to grow agriculture and allied sectors to become at least 40% of the economy. This only can assure sustainable employment for Indian youth, and orderly urbanization of India to promote services, (especially tourism) and rapid industrialization.

It has taken more than seven decades for Indian industries to reach a stage where the government may consider fully exiting the industrial activities. It may take 2-3 decades for Indian agriculture to reach a stage where the government will be able to exit farming activities completely. I am definitely not suggesting nationalization of the agriculture sector. I am just saying that the government should undertake the activity on a commercial basis to provide the sector with much needed escape velocity in terms of capital, technology, and risk-taking capability.

Pragmatic business regulation

The government must substantially liberalize rules and regulations governing businesses in India. It should make the regulatory pragmatic, allowing a great deal of freedom to businesses.

For example, an autonomous sustainability commission may be set up. The commission may comprise representatives of the scientific community, civil society, and judiciary. Instead of prescribing a rigid dogmatic environment clearance regime, each business must be permitted to submit a customized sustainability plan to the commission. The plan must specify how the enterprise proposes to address the sustainability concerns arising from its business. The commission may accordingly award environment clearance.

A pragmatic, business-oriented regulatory framework would stimulate growth, encourage larger CSR activities, generate more employment and hence ease pressure on fiscal.

The central government presently derives 63% of its resources from taxes (Direct Taxes 36% and Indirect Taxes 27%). 27% comes from borrowing and 10% from other sources.

The present socio-political milieu is such that (i) the central government is becoming increasingly dependent on the regional parties, hence it is imperative that it would need to allocate more resources to the states ruled by the supporting regional parties; (ii) a larger proportion of the population is becoming increasingly dependent on the government for the basic necessities like food, shelter, education and healthcare, requiring the basic social sector spending to rise without any major improvement in the quality of life; (iii) supply side pressures are not abetting, keeping the inflation (including imported inflation) elevated, pressurizing USDINR and yields; and (iv) economic growth continues to be disproportionately dependent on government spending (both revenue and capex).

Under these circumstances, the government shall continuously be under pressure to augment its revenue. The challenges it faces are — (i) personal tax rates are already stretched; (ii) actual number of income tax payers is consistently declining despite decent rise in the IT return filers; (iii) corporate tax hikes at this stage will send wrong signals to the global investors; (iv) GST rates are widely anticipated to be moderated; (v) disinvestment process has totally derailed and not expected to come on track anytime soon due to the political rhetoric; (vi) dividend from CPSEs is close to peaking; and (vii) FRBM targets require deficit cuts putting a cap on additional resource mobilization through borrowings.

The investors need to contemplate from where the government will attempt to raise the additional resources in the coming years to sustain public spending. The answers may have material implications for the investment strategy and market direction post Budget in February 2025.

 For me, Diwali this year was certainly not as it ought to be. Untimely demise of many close friends and relatives in the past few months; incessant horrific news flow from the active war zones; conspicuous signs of extreme socio-economic stress in a majority of the population; and apathy of the administration towards common man’s plight and worsening law & order situation dampened my spirit of festival.

I spent the week wandering the streets, slums and villages of Delhi NCR region and adjoining districts. What I witnessed and experienced, makes me believe that blaming selling by the foreign investors for the extant pain in the stock markets is like treating “the effect” as “the cause” – which is not only inappropriate but borders foolishness.

Household inflation, unemployment (including underemployment, disguised unemployment and most importantly unemployability), lack of basic civic infrastructure (drinking water, sanitation, primary health, decent primary education, etc.), are serious challenges for even the citizens living in the national capital or in its vicinity.

It is clearly evident that household savings and consumption may continue to face strong headwinds in the short term (4-6 quarters) at least. It shall reflect on the asset quality of the lenders, fiscal balance (rising reliance on the fiscal support for food, healthcare, education, and constricted ability for revenue mobilization) and eventually slow down the capex growth. 2QFY25 results declared so far are indicative of some of these trends.

I also find the stress in household finance management manifesting in the elevated anger and anxiety in the personal behavior of citizens. A sharp rise in the instances of domestic violence; social aggression; racial & religious intolerance; addiction to drugs, alcohol, & pornography; and insolent disregard for compliance, are some of the conspicuous effects, especially in the lower strata of the population. Rise in corruption and ostentatious consumption (as an act of denial of the actual state or to deceive others) are only a couple of economic consequences.

I also gathered some pearls of wisdom during the Diwali week, which I would like to share with the readers.

End of home cooking approaching?

A reputable entrepreneur shared his thoughts on the likely future trend in the food industry. In a tweet on Diwali day, he wrote, “In my view in 2040: For every 1L population at least one “Food Factory” will operate. From it, for 5 KM radius food will be delivered at home in 10 mins by a drone or a driverless EV. 50% of the population will not use the kitchen even once a week. 80% of hotels will not exist.” Many comments to this tweet mentioned that 16 years is too long a period. This trend may emerge in the next 5-7 years. The necessity of two incomes to run a kitchen may be one of the major factors in forcing the ‘homemaker’ out of home for work.

It is pertinent to note that as per the latest Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) Factories producing food products, 16% of the total number of factories, are now the largest category of industrial units in the country. These factories employ 21,16,000 or 11.4% of the total industrial workers, more than any other industry. The traditional largest employer, textile industry, comes a distant second employing 17,23,000 workers. (see here)

It would be interesting to see what changes the kitchen appliances industry would face due to this emerging trend.

Gulab Jamun is real villain not Soan Papdi

In the past decade or so, the Soan Papdi memes have become an essential part of the Diwali festivities. Once a cherished delicacy, a traditional sweet Soan Papdi has become a joke for everyone, as the modern health-conscious find this particularly sweet very unhealthy and prefer to pass it to others instead of consuming it themselves.

A sweet-maker (Halwai) in Hathras town in Uttar Pradesh educated me on this. As per him, if properly made, Soan Papdi is actually not unhealthy. It is made of besan (gram flour) which is protein rich and not deep fried. On the other hand, the worst sweet is Gulab Jamun – Maida (refined flour), deep fried (mostly in extremely unhealthy reused palm oil), and soaked in sugar syrup for days. It has no nutritional value and tons of ill effects. So, the next time you gulp a savory Gulab Jamun, please be mindful.

Kiwis whitewash the men in blue

The Indian men’s cricket team lost their first test series in India after 2012, after 18 consecutive series victories. The New Zealand team defeated India 3-0 in a three-test series. The worst part is that all three tests were lost very badly. For example, on the third day of the third test, India needed just 146 runs to win the test. On home ground, for a team that bats right till number nine, it should not have been very hard. If only the coach had told all the eight batsmen that “they need to score 19 runs each, and they have 25 overs each to achieve this task. There is no rush and no need to hit boundaries.”

I think all the young investors, who have started their investment journey in the past four years, could draw an important lesson from this. They need not chase the stocks that hit daily limits frequently. They just need to find 10 companies that are most likely to grow their earnings @15% CAGR for the next five years. Investing in these companies may double their capital in the next five years. It is as simple as that.

Internecine celebrations

The residents of the national capital blew up billions in burning firecrackers on Diwali night, despite the dangerous level of air quality, sick children and old parents in their homes, a government order prohibiting non-green crackers, and stretched finances. They offered the most ridiculous of the arguments to justify this act of assured mutual destruction.

In all their sincerity, they believed that by doing so they are (a) protecting their religion; (b) telling other religious communities their true place in the society, and (c) rebelling against the government’s minority appeasement policies.

Little did they realize that (i) they have burned their hard-earned money; (ii) added more poison to the already poisonous air; (iii) poisonous air does not discriminate between Hindu and Muslim lungs & brains, and it would kill both equally; and (iv) the people who claim to be more fierce religious warriors come mostly from lower middle and poor classes, spend most money on firecrackers are the worst affected by the poor air quality. Their children and old parents will suffer the most and they would spend the most on their healthcare.

The administration and law enforcement agencies bother little about their welfare. Like the colonial British government, they are happy seeing the society divided and killing each other. The educated and rich are getting disenchanted from festival celebrations, slowly dissipating the Indian culture and traditions. This is what the colonial rulers always strived for – destroy their culture and traditions, and the people will love to be slaves.