Saturday 24 June 2017

Independence of Central Bank

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies." —Groucho Marx

Voters / Citizens will never know why decisions get altered while they were sleeping and impending ones get cleared with effortlessness.

The newest being relief to District Central Cooperative Banks. An article appeared in Hindustan Times which stated “In a move that aims to ease the state’s distressed farm sector, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has allowed district central cooperative banks (DCCBs) to deposit demonetised currency worth Rs2,772 crore with it by July 20.”

The above move should be considered under loan waiver schemes / mela sanctioned by Central Government over and above what various State Governments in India have initiated.

P Chidambaram tweeted at 11.21 p.m. on 20th June 2017 "Was the midnight gazette notification perfectly timed with garnering support for Presidential candidate?".

Former Finance Minister was hinting at political support that was required for the Presidential candidate Mr. Ram Nath Kovind.

Astonishingly there was turn of event on Tuesday 20th June 2017 when Shiv Sena extended support to National Democratic Alliance candidate Mr. Kovind. This was a day after Shiv Sena was against vote bank politics.

The (independent) Reserve Bank of India decided that it will allow DCCBs to deposit demonetized currencies.

Citizens would be interested to know what is the logic for allowing DCCBs to deposit huge amount with RBI? at this juncture.

Answer for the abrupt amendment will be relief to farmers as most of them transact with DCCBs.

Farmer distress was there since November 2016 and why RBI blocked exchange of the demonetized currencies then?

Will, the independent, RBI explain whether this decision was:

·         Abrupt or
·         Documentation about deliberation is available

Will there be audit / control to make certain whether the notes that will be exchanged were deposited during the window allotted by Reserve Bank of India.

We have to remember “The central bank needs to be able to make policy without short term political concerns.”- Ben Bernanke

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Saturday 10 June 2017

Review - How To Live on Twenty-Four Hours a Day

The first book I read in the past seven months turned out to be a stimulating and of significant value. The revelation of the book happened in Farnam Street.

To my surprise, the book How to Live on Twenty-Four Hours a Day by Arnold Bennet (35 pages) helped me to complete it in a short period, with a high dosage on appreciating time and live a meaningful life.

The book (part of a bigger work) written in 1910 by Arnold is perfectly applicable today to many developing countries and especially Indians (living in cities like Mumbai, Delhi and other metros). They face challenges which were accurately captured in the book.

The preface correctly stated “It is better to have lived a bit than never to have lived at all”.

Section wise learning’s is listed below:

From Preface

“You are not going to allow your highest welfare to depend upon the precarious immediate co-operation of a fellow creature.”

“It is always the man who has tasted life who demands more of it. And it is always the man who never gets out of bed who is the most difficult to rouse.”

The Daily Miracle

The best part of time and how it is given to us by Nature is described beautifully:

“The supply of time is truly a daily miracle, an affair genuinely astonishing when one examines it. You wake up in the morning, and lo! your purse is magically filled with twenty-four hours of the unmanufactured tissue of the universe of your life! It is yours. It is the most precious of possessions. A highly singular commodity, showered upon you in a manner as singular as the commodity itself!

For remark! No one can take it from you. It is unstealable. And no one receives either more or less than you receive.” But “The supply of time, though gloriously regular, is cruelly restricted.”

Another important aspect of time we forget, it is unbiased. Author states “Waste your infinitely precious commodity as much as you will, and the supply will never be withheld from you. No mysterious power will say:—"This man is a fool, if not a knave. He does not deserve time; he shall be cut off at the meter."

The financial aspect of the capital Time received is highly controlled and does not allow man to go beyond means / draw from the accumulated source.

“Moreover, you cannot draw on the future. Impossible to get into debt! You can only waste the passing moment. You cannot waste to-morrow; it is kept for you. You cannot waste the next hour; it is kept for you.”

Author states “Strange that the newspapers, so enterprising and up-to-date as they are, are not full of "How to live on a given income of time," instead of "How to live on a given income of money"!”

Precautions before Beginning

The author has bluntly mentioned that in the desire to handle time properly it is the petty success which matters than the glorious failures.

The Cause of the Troubles

The pain of not knowing what to do with the capital Time is succinctly put “He has a solid coin of time to spend every day—call it a sovereign. He must get change for it, and in getting change he is content to lose heavily.”

Tennis and The Immortal Soul

In this section a crucial part of activity performed by all individuals is directly attacked i.e. reading of newspapers during train journey from residence to office.

Author states “Newspapers are produced with rapidity, to be read with rapidity. There is no place in my daily programme for newspapers. I read them as I may in odd moments.”

“The idea of devoting to them thirty or forty consecutive minutes of wonderful solitude (for nowhere can one more perfectly immerse one's self in one's self than in a compartment full of silent, withdrawn, smoking males) is to me repugnant. I cannot possibly allow you to scatter priceless pearls of time with such Oriental lavishness. You are not the Shah of time.”

The best time to read newspaper according to the author is during lunch breaks ( or tea breaks if any).

Remember Human Nature

Importance of exercising the mind is rightly explained “You practise physical exercises for a mere ten minutes morning and evening, and yet you are not astonished when your physical health and strength are beneficially affected every hour of the day, and your whole physical outlook changed. Why should you be astonished that an average of over an hour a day given to the mind should permanently and completely enliven the whole activity of the mind?”

In this section, importance of habits and sacrifice are stressed to achieve the enlivening of the mind. In this significance of starting “quietly, unostentatiously” is a very good advice for a newcomer who has wasted his time.
Controlling The Mind

The age old mantra of Mind Control is emphasized by stating “And without the power to concentrate—that is to say, without the power to dictate to the brain its task and to ensure obedience—true life is impossible. Mind control is the first element of a full existence.”

The Reflective Mood

A truth which we refuse to accept / we are ignorant of is that we have stopped reflection of the day’s events.

Confucius has rightly summarized it "By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest." 

Author has rightly picked up the noblest one that is reflection and states “I am entirely convinced that what is more than anything else lacking in the life of the average well-intentioned man of to-day is the reflective mood.”

“The chances are that you have already come to believe that happiness is unattainable. But men have attained it. And they have attained it by realising that happiness does not spring from the procuring of physical or mental pleasure, but from the development of reason and the adjustment of conduct to principles.”

Interest In The Arts

After reading many articles / books on various subjects of interest, what I missed was rightly pointed out by author. Below three paragraphs, nails importance of reading a book on a subject and participating in that subject activity.

“Now surely your inability to perform "The Maiden's Prayer" on a piano need not prevent you from making yourself familiar with the construction of the orchestra to which you listen a couple of nights a week during a couple of months! As things are, you probably think of the orchestra as a heterogeneous mass of instruments producing a confused agreeable mass of sound. You do not listen for details because you have never trained your ears to listen to details.

If you were asked to name the instruments which play the great theme at the beginning of the C minor symphony you could not name them for your life's sake. Yet you admire the C minor symphony. It has thrilled you. It will thrill you again. You have even talked about it, in an expansive mood, to that lady—you know whom I mean. And all you can positively state about the C minor symphony is that Beethoven composed it and that it is a "jolly fine thing."

Now, if you have read, say, Mr. Krehbiel's "How to Listen to Music" (which can be got at any bookseller's for less than the price of a stall at the Alhambra, and which contains photographs of all the orchestral instruments and plans of the arrangement of orchestras) you would next go to a promenade concert with an astonishing intensification of interest in it. Instead of a confused mass, the orchestra would appear to you as what it is—a marvellously balanced organism whose various groups of members each have a different and an indispensable function. You would spy out the instruments, and listen for their respective sounds. You would know the gulf that separates a French horn from an English horn, and you would perceive why a player of the hautboy gets higher wages than a fiddler, though the fiddle is the more difficult instrument. You would live at a promenade concert, whereas previously you had merely existed there in a state of beatific coma, like a baby gazing at a bright object.”

Nothing In Life Is Humdrum

Why it is important to understand the cause? Cause helps in making the individual “..not only large minded but large hearted.”.

Also “The study of cause and effect, while it lessens the painfulness of life, adds to life's picturesqueness.”

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