Gave a Model but Could not Became a Role Model

Twenty years ago, there was a closed economy called India! Having forex reserve not even sufficient for two weeks, having a huge debt and over helming import than export; were pushed our nation to the nearest point of the economic emergency. Banks and financial institutions had stopped recruiting, promoting and expansion; there was no support for the industries. The foreign investment in the country was very small, even negligible compared to todays. The in-house industries were restricted by the boundary of the country. We where insulated. The inside heat had no more space here and had started burning the country. There came the Rao-Manmohan model of economy. Then Prime Minister P V N Rao and Dr Man Mohan Singh played a vital role in bringing the stability.

There was a unstable, coalition government with the leadership of Mr P V Narasimha Rao. He had a vision and bravery to bring the revolutionary changes in the Indian Economy. He found Mr Singh is the bet suitable to handle such a crisis. He was a scholar, played the role of the governor of RBI and also as the Finance Secretary during crucial time. He had a privilege to sign on both Re 1 note and also notes of above Re 1 i.e. both currency notes and bank notes. He was undoubtedly a most suitable person. He became the union finance minister and Rao-Manmohan model was added to the curriculam of the economic students. Our footprints in the globalised economy started from there.

Our economy is not fully opened or fully closed. Rupee is not fully convertible or non convertible. We are at safer side. We are partially insulated and even protected against the lethal effect of the recession. A software engineer in this country earns in lakhs per month, a professional is able to earn a handsome income, banks like SBI, BOB has gone global, and the employees are well paid, the opportunities are huge. We are strong enough and growing stronger day by day. The credit should go to Dr Man Mohan Singh.

He has thousand of good qualities to write. He has done several achievements herever he is- from academics to the Prime Minister Office. Have you ever considered him as a role model? Our mothers tell the story and achievements of Dr A P J Abdul Kalam. We get thrilled by reading the stories of Sri A B Vajapayi. Whenever it comes to Singh we see him with a doubtful eye. It is just because his loyalty towards the fake (to differentiate the borrowed name from the Mahatma) Gandhi family. Without the slavery of the Vishakanya (of Subramaniam Swamy), we know, he could not have achieved the height. This make him a model who was such a bright to gave an economic model and finally bars him from being a role model for Indian youth.

Changed Rain Pattern is a Cause of Worries

From last fifteen days the interior parts of south coastal regions of Karnataka getting heavy rain every day. As the local people tell they never observed such rain during November. They don't forget to mention the change in the rain fall pattern in the region. The rainfall in the Western Ghats is decreased in recent years against the heavy rains during the Monsoon, ten years ago. I have witnessed the holidays to the schools when there was heavy rain. I had not seen the sun for weeks due the rainy clouds in the sky in my village situated middle of the dense forest of western ghats. Last year when I was in Bijapur, a conversional drought hit area of Karnataka also got a good rainfall. One more year back there was flood in the same drought areas. I always felt, definitely the rainfall pattern should have changed. The Malnad, the rainy hills are getting lesser rain and others more.

To support there was a report in The Hindu. The average rainfall of the state is decreased from 1204mm to 1146 mm in recent years. The rainfall in coastal and Malnad areas decreased significantly and that in Kolar, Bangalore, Bidar, Gulbarga and Bijapur like interior areas increased. The average rain fall in Bangalore has increased about 20%. This is due to increase in the pollutants in Bangalore acting as artificial rainfall inducing agents condensing the vapour.

The change in the rainfall pattern is impacting the agricultural system. The sowing and planting of the paddy in the areas of Uttara Kannada is delayed. They usually start harvesting the paddy during Dashera after performing Pooja in the coastal parts and during Deepawali in Malnad Taluks of Uttara Kannada. This year I observed there was lack of grown paddy crop even to do Pooja. When asked for the reason they tell it is because of the delayed sowing which is intern related to the delayed monsoon.

One can mention several reason for this change, adding to the deforestation. But whats is the action plan? Should the people change their way of life and adjust to the new pattern of rain or is there any solution. I found no answer as no one has taken the matter seriously. But definitely it is going to affect the human life in coming years.

Private Banks, Money Laundering and Frauds

Sri K. Kashivishwanath did not know that he owned a mining company. He was unaware of the continuous transactions of crore of Rupees taking place in his bank accounts. Lokayukta reports read "it has been observed that crores of rupees have been deposited in banks and also withdrawn in cash from these accounts. Such illegal money transactions have been further trailed/proceed to accounts in bank of various persons/companies/firms and others."

The same banks which creates an image that they follow a strict KYC norms by asking tens of documents for changing correspondence address legally supports illegal money laundering. One of such bank, without which this article goes incomplete is Axis Bank. Is it possible to do such transactions without the support from the bank? Definitely impossible. The banks named by the Lokayukta report are Hospet and Bellary branches of Axis Bank and

Lakshmi Vilas Bank. Times of India repor

ted "Trail of the company's Axis Bank (Bellary) accounts points to large number of suspicious cash withdrawals in denomination of Rs 9 lakh in the names of persons suspected to be benami"

Couple of years back the same leading private bank had a client Shree Om Sai Nath Car On Rent Pvt ltd. This was a chain market company, which collected a huge amount from the public. Initially cheques were duly paid by the bank. Within a year the account was freezed by the court. The bank could have shown social responsibility and could have saved hard earned money of poor people.

The similar cases also been reported by Belgaum. Sri Sai Multi Service (SMS) was another fraud company involved in the chain marketing with a full banking support from the Axis Bank, collected a huge amount from the public through its account DDs and wannabe fraudster company was raided.

I hope you have not forgotten fraud happened in City Bank in Gurgaon. The main accused of the City Bank Fixed deposit scam Sanjay Gupta of Hero Corporate Services owned two firms G2S and BG finance company. These companies were registered as consulting firms but did not have any offices. Even then these companies had accounts with Axis Bank. Police seized Rs 20 Crores from their Axis Bank account. A company no needs to have an office to open an account with Axis Bank! Finally the state run SBI officials helped the police to find the kingpin of the scam

The fraudster’s relationship with the Axis Bank does not end here. A single google search will though a lot of news of fraud companies having accounts with the Axis Bank. Kadri Police of Mangalore arrested Pravin Shetty who is said to be partner of Global Index Investment Company and seized the account with the Axis Bank. The bank which opened the account of the fraudster company was mentioned and forgotten

These banks are target driven. The top executive put immense pressure on the sales executive. Sales personals bring such customers and accounts of the fraud companies get open in the bank based on the documents submitted by them. They even satisfy the KYC norms according to the present regulation. The will power of the banker to show some social responsibility and serve the society against such frauds can only prevent such fraud accounts. In don’t think you can expect it from private banks that are running behind the numbers.

Note: This article is supported by the various news reports and the author is not influenced to write against the institutions mentioned.

Engineering- the cheapest graduation!

There was a funny line on Malayalis- every corner of the world you can see a Malayali Chai (Tea) Shop. It is no more a funny line. Now you can also see sales persons, every corner of the road, sitting under a big umbrella, giving SIM cards for free with free talk time. I was thinking who would be the next to sell their products like this?

Engineering colleges are all set to sell the degrees at cheap rates! Some institutions have already started selling their cheap products both in quality and price. Offering management seats to candidates from CET quota at the reduced price of Rs 35,000/- supports this. Even then unfilled seats increased from 9,000 in 2010 to 15,000 in 2011. There are more than half of the seats in many new colleges were unfilled when I verified the Karnataka Examination Authority website.

The Hindu had reported that the COMEDK sources said that more than 30 colleges had zero admission in management seats, these colleges have slashed their fees by 50%-60% to attract the students. Even then they failed to fill the vacant seats.

The promotion mix used by these colleges is full of false messages. They have also employed paid survey agencies to give a good rating for their colleges. I have recently seen an advertisement of Reva Institute of Technology, Bangalore claiming it is the Best Private Engineering College in India and the Best Engineering College in Bangalore. Education Expo TV has done this rating from Gurgaon. I can definitely tell my readers that this is not even the best college in its area of 10 km. radius. Another similar college is claiming it is the best college for Entrepreneurship education and also it has 100% placement record. Can both coincide?

I have never seen good college advertising during CET counseling to mislead the students like this. You can see People Education Society advertising its Shimoga college but never PESIT, Bangalore. Mangaloreans listen to the ads of SDM College of Engineering Ujire ‘synonymous for 100% result’, which is a very new college, and only one batch is passed out. But people of Dharwad won’t to SDMIT which is much superior to former one.

Remember, cheap (in quality) engineering degrees won’t stand when you come out of the colleges!

How Reward Points Turn Costly for You?

Loyalty programs or reward points is the practice of providing discounts, prizes, or other incentives to encourage continued patronage of a business as per the definition in the web. Loyalty programs are designed to give you perks for sticking to the same product.

They are the common promotion tactics used by many debit/credit card issuers now a days. They tie up with some sellers and ask cardholders to stick to them while making any purchase. There are also independent reward programs like imint in India. There was a reward program by Times of India group called Times Reward, which failed within no time of its launch despite of huge publicity, due to non-support from the sellers.

The main idea behind the reward points is to trap the customer to be loyal to the product or the seller in the long run. They say he will be rewarded for being loyal to their products. The customer starts accumulating the reward points for the every purchase he makes from the same seller. At certain point when he reaches the specified reward points he can redeem the points to the discount or gifts, and in some situations to monetary benefits.

What is the benefit to the seller? The customer, who looks at the reward point every time when he makes purchase decision, visits the same shop. He does not even bother to pay little more as he is getting the reward point, which he thinks he can redeem later. So usually customer ends in paying more as he stops comparing the price and products with competitors.

As you come near the required loyal or reward points to get a gift or discount coupon, as studied by the psychologists, we tend to spend more to get that as soon as possible. We are willing to spend more money in the name accumulating the reward points. We may end up in buying unnecessary items in the name of loyal points.

Usually, the reward program keeps the reward redeem options little higher, so that the majority of the reward card holders gets an illusion that he reaches it soon by spending more. But most of the time it does not happen. When more and more reward card holders reaches that level the offers will be revised. It makes customer to purchase more, to be more loyal.

I am not against the reward programs or completely oppose holding a reward point options. I have reward point options enabled for all my credit/debit cards. I also have a few loyalty cards of super markets. But I never allowed these to influence my purchase decision. If I come up with a decision to buy a product, which has rewards attached with, ok, I am happy. I strongly believe making purchase decision based on reward points will costs you more in long run.