Narendra Modi's Love for Shri Narendra Modi

I just got the above post of Narendra Modi on my FB TL. Verified. Found it was an old one but correct.

How to Tackle Terrorism? Listen mind-blowing audio speech of Shri Narendra Modi. Visit Breezy Audio Section of http://narendramodi.in/

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 31, 2009

'In economics, like elsewhere, the questions rarely change. The answers keep changing"

Source

Said : Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan while inaugurating the Meghnad Desai Academy of Economics (MDAE) in Mumbai on July 27, 2015 in presence of chairperson of MDAE, Lord Meghnad Desai, reported the Times of India under the title "RBI under 'enormous pressure' to cover up NPA: Rajan."

"Declaring an NPA is primarily an issue of cleaning up accounting. The market fully understands what is truly non-performing. Moreover, it gives the wrong incentives, as by avoiding NPAs it merely postpones the problem. There is confused understanding of this problem," TOI reported Rajan as saying.

Dr. Rajan stressed the need for a good understanding of the fundamentals of economics, such as price theory, general equilibrium which is the hardest concept to understand. According to him lot of policy-making is done without an understanding of general equilibrium which is a key contribution that an economist can make to the dialog. "The kind of economics we need is based on rigorous fundamentals - blood, sweat, tears, and toil. In economics, like elsewhere, the questions rarely change. The answers keep changing," said Rajan as per the TOI report.

LiveMint, on the other hand, reported that the move to strip Raghuram Rajan of control over India rates is faceing backlash as, already, two officials in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration have distanced themselves from a draft bill that would give the government control over a proposed interest-rate setting panel. 

"The kind of economics we need is based on rigorous fundamentals - blood, sweat, tears, and toil. In economics, like elsewhere, the questions rarely change. The answers keep changing" 

The Meghnad Desai Academy of Economics has been established as an institution of excellence to provide graduate students with the academic rigor and applied skills to meet the needs of a dynamic and globalized workplace. The programs have substantial input and participation by top-ranking corporates to improve the employability of young. The Academy offers 11-month Post graduate Program in Economics and Finance.

The above statement of Dr Rajan with respect to the NPAs has not got the required media attention due to Dr Kalam's untimely death which is occupying most of the social media's space today. But it is going to be a hot topic on Twitter very soon. Some have already started commenting.....

1/- for RT on July28: RBI is the last left untouched from institutionalized corruption by Sonia & Modi but, how long? http://t.co/NesnBGhCC3

— Kiran Kumar (@Yr_Conscience) July 28, 2015

Only the poorest, most isolated and socially hated few, with no clansmen to speak for and whose cases activists won't find sexy enough to defend, will go to the gallows.

Said Shekhar Gupta, former editor-in-chief of The Indian Express, in his facebook post.

My take on the Yakub Memon case in this Facebook post. What's a noose for the shd be a noose for the gander https://t.co/cTO2ykY5Eo

— Shekhar Gupta (@ShekharGupta) July 26, 2015

Observer @gdjasuja
Tweets by @gdjasuja

The U.S. stock market could "easily" drop 20 percent to 40 percent

Marc Faber

Said : Marc Faber, a Swiss investor based in Thailand, reported CNBC recently. 

Faber is publisher of the Gloom Boom & Doom Report newsletter and is the director of Marc Faber Ltd which acts as an investment advisor and fund manager. His latest prediction : "The U.S. stock market could "easily" drop 20 percent to 40 percent."

In his latest blog posting, Faber advices that the safest place to be is precious metals and some cash.

"Faber has been predicting the meltdown of U.S. stocks for years, only to see the market climb higher." 

Faber is pessimistic about Asian economies and expects "no growth" from there as some countries are already in recession. According to Faber, the expansion in Europe is "anemic" and the situation in Greece is "basically Ponzi finance" that can't last. 

In his latest newsletter, Faber declares "Indochina — including Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Laos — is the most promising region for investment over the next 30 years."

In a democracy, if you are critical of the government, you have to express it. Sitting quietly and grumbling about it is not going to help. That’s not what democracy is for.

Nobel laureate Amartya Sen

Said : Nobel laureate Amartya Sen in an interview with Amrita Dutta published in The Indian Express of today.

Highlights of the interview are as under :

There is a strong gender preference, which is characteristic of India, much more so than we often recognise. If you compare India with Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, not to mention China, we come out worse in female life expectancy, female literacy, female schooling, female survival. The previous government did not do enough, but the present government is doing less than enough. 

"The positive thing about Modi, which I recognized even earlier, was that he was telling people: we can get things done. I admired it then, I admired it now. The problem begins with what it is that he wants to get done. I think he has a wrong understanding of economic development." 

1. You can think of development as a process with human beings at the centre, or you can see it as a process with financial and industrial leadership [at the centre]. He (Modi) definitely belongs to the latter [school of thought]. We pay no attention to that, as if the quality of human beings is not central to human development. If India was bad at that earlier, it’s worse at it now. 
2. On his decision to quit Nalanda University : 'The board wanted unanimously me to continue as chancellor, but the government’s advice was clear: under no circumstances. The Minister of External Affairs spoke clearly to the members of the board and said that Amartya Sen wasn’t acceptable. Some people wanted to continue the battle but I thought that would be a mistake." 
3. It was clear to me that even if my friends in the board were to win in keeping me as chancellor, I could not be an effective leader because I would have to fight the government all the time. But I decided to make it a public affair so that it would be difficult to put a Hindutva ideologue in charge at Nalanda. The government did not want it to be made public at all. They would have loved it if I had quietly slunk away, but that, I am afraid, I was not willing to do. If there’s one thing to learn from this, it is that in a democracy, if you are critical of the government, you have to express it. Sitting quietly and grumbling about it is not going to help. That’s not what democracy is for. 
4. What made me speak up at the time of the elections was my concern at the Hindutva elements in Modi’s agenda. You see that as an academic very much now, in the interference in the academic administration of the National Book Trust or at the Indian Council of Cultural Relations or the Indian Council of Historical Research. What happened at Nalanda is a relatively nicer story than either it first appeared and also compared with what is happening to other educational/cultural institutions like ICCR or NBT or ICHR or for that matter TIFR, as well as what might be happening to the IIMs if the bill goes through. 

"Silicon Valley is no longer just the place talented people move to; it's the place those people are moving from"

Glenn Kelman

Said : Glenn Kelman, CEO of Redfin, a leading real estate website, in a commentary on - Soaring housing costs forces talent to flee Silicon Valley - published in CNBC on 21 May 2015. 

According to Kelman, "IT folks are leaving Silicon Valley, mostly because they can't afford to stay. For the first time ever, the median price for a Silicon Valley home just exceeded $1 million. That's about double what it is in other tech cities, like Boston or Seattle, and triple what it is in aspiring technology hubs, like Portland, Denver or Austin."

Kemlin, quoting PayScale.com, writes : "Silicon Valley engineers earn nearly 50 percent more than their Boston counterparts; in Seattle that difference is smaller, but still significant, at 12 percent. Nowhere is the pay difference large enough to offset the cost of housing."

According to Kemlin, Silicon Valley commercial rents are nearly double what they would be in Denver or Portland, and 50 percent higher than Austin or Seattle. For a 100-person office, the difference works out to be $400,000 a year. This is equivalent to about 2 percent of the total operating expenses in a typical software company which runs on 15 percent margins.

Readers' comments :

A reader 'Patriotoo' makes an interesing observation "Sadly, even Stanford has been corrupted by Silicon Valley, now just a trade school with students and faculty focused mostly on their widget startup or sitting on SV boards for faculty as well." "WA and OR already suffer for the earlier exodus of Californians to those states," noted another reader Don Iverson. Lacityterr remarked : "There is no more room in Silicon Valley and they are all moving down here to Los Angeles. Rents are skyrocketing in the city of LA. They are building housing like crazy in downtown. The entire west side of town has been taken over by the tech industry. In 10 years LA will be as unaffordable as the bay area. I am glad I bought my house when I did."

"The poor are most definitely not poor because the rich are rich. Nor are the rich undeserving"

Warren Buffet

Said : Warren Buffett - an American business magnate, investor and philanthropist, considered to be the most successful investor of the 20th century. 

In a commentary for The Wall Street Journal, he said : "The widening wealth gap is an "inevitable consequence of an advanced market-based economy. But it is a fact that in recent decades, our country's rising tide has not lifted the boats of the poor," reported CNBC.

The Screen Shot of 
Warren Buffet's Most Recent Tweet
@WarrenBuffet