Lamborghini Urus - Dividing India

My professor use to keep referring India as a very dichotomous country. I completely agree on it after reading a news which stunned me.

Lamborghini Urus a super luxury car is priced at Rs.3 Crore in India.  According to a report 25 units of Urus was allotted for India. About the Urus Car:

The Urus, described by Lamborghini as a ‘super SUV’, is powered by a 4.0-litre, twin-turbo V8 that produces 650hp and 850Nm of torque and sends power to all four wheels (40:60 front-rear split) via an 8-speed automatic gearbox. Lamborghini claims the near-2.2-tonne Urus will do 0-100kph in 3.6sec - quicker than the original Murcielago - and can go on to a top speed of 305kph. Its 440mm carbon-ceramic front disc brakes are also the largest on a production car.

It seems Lamborghini grossly under estimated the power of India.

At one end Corporate India reached Government of India stating tax cuts is the need of the Industry and they welcomed it wholeheartedly. Auto sector said they were bleeding quarter to quarter and needed Government support to resuscitate them.

Lamborghini India gave us a big surprise:

"50th Lamborghini Urus Delivered in India Within 12 Months of Launch"

Now the big question is who are the buyers of the Urus (super luxury car)? did they voiced their concerns about India Slowdown?

The chances are very high that Individual tax payers with Income below Rs.5 crores will never buy a car worth Rs.3 crores and maintenance cost running in lakhs.

Surprisingly, 6,361 individuals declared incomes of over Rs 5 crore.

Now the dichotomy:

In a land of 133 crores, 6,361 people have declared income over Rs.5 crores and 50 Lamborghini Urus is sold. A classic tale on how Income Inequality works in India.

About Income Inequality in India from Business Today magazine:

India is no stranger to income inequality, but the gap is widening further. Last year's survey had showed that India's richest 1% held 58% of the country's total wealth, which was higher than the global figure of about 50%. According to the latest survey, the wealth of this elite group increased by over Rs 20.9 lakh crore during the period under review-an amount close to the total expenditure estimated in the Union Budget 2017. India's top 1% of the population now holds 73% of the wealth while 67 crore citizens, comprising the country's poorest half, saw their wealth rise by just 1%.

Welcome to Unchanged Old India in 2019.

Degree for faulty IIT recruitment

Indian Institute of Technologies (IIT) have approached Government to consider issuing B.Sc. Engineering to academically weak students. This will be given after three years.

The reason being:

The latest move comes amid worries over a high attrition rate in the IITs that saw over 2,461 students dropping out from the 23 institutes in the last two years (both at the undergraduate and postgraduate level), according to data shared by the Ministry of Human Resource Development in Parliament in July. Most of the dropouts occurred in the older IITs — Delhi tops the list with 782 dropouts, followed by 622 in Kharagpur, 263 in Bombay, 190 in Kanpur and 128 in Madras, a report by Hindustan Times on the HRD data said.

Poor academic performance of students has been highlighted as one of the main reasons behind the students dropping out. Even Union minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank highlighted the issue in the Rajya Sabha.
“..the drop out in undergraduate programmes is attributed to withdrawal due to wrong choices filled, poor academic performance of students, personal and medical reasons,” he said.

Questions:

1. Who is responsible for such faulty admissions? Students alone or the IIT selection process?

2. Why IIT should be sympathetic for such students who have wasted Government resources?

3. Instead of awarding partial degrees Government should collect extra amounts from them for using Government resources?

4. Are students academically weak or the teaching staff of IIT are incapable of improving them?

5. Why the Dean / Professors income is not linked to the student attrition rates? More attrition less incentives?

6. Can other institutions like IIMs can issue such partial degrees?

7. Is this the direct outcome of the Cramming sessions of coaching classes at Kota?

8. Is this a cover-up procedure for faulty education system in these great institutions?

9. It is assumed by IITs that their teaching staff is of excellent quality or the root lies in its faulty selection of Professors?

10. Is it academically weak students or academically weak professors?

It is understandable why no universities from India appeared in the top 300 universities in the world.

Prophetic statement by Narayana Murthy (INFOSYS founder) way back in 2011:

“Thanks to the coaching classes today, the quality of students entering IITs has gone lower and lower,” 

“They somehow get through the joint entrance examination. But their performance in IITs, at jobs or when they come for higher education in institutes in the US is not as good as it used to be. “This has to be corrected. A new method of selection of students to IITs has to be arrived at.”

Lets remember Swami Vivekananda "The Guru has to bear the disciple's burden of sin."

Further reading: Narayana Murthy questions the contribution of IITs and IISc in the last 60 years

Nuclear Vs Renewable Energy

An interesting article titled "The Complete Case for Nuclear" stated differences between Nuclear Versus Renewable energy.

The article is worth reading with respect to understanding the difference in cost and impact by both Nuclear and Renewable energy.

The article uses lots of graphs and visual images to communicate with the reader.

For a layman like me who have no knowledge of Nuclear energy Vs Renewable energy this article has given a new dimension.

One small section of the article is re-presented below:

Thanks: Anand Ranganathan for article source.

Learning what not to do?

If you want to know the following:

1. How West did exactly opposite to what they advised East ( during ASEAN crisis)?

2. Is there next risk free asset (for west)?

3. How banks (in west) are going to face this negative yield situation?

4.  And other areas?

Listen to Mr. Donald Amstad:

Learning's for India:

1. Do not force feed debt to retailers (requesting Private Indian Banks)

2. Slow / avoid cutting interest rates (Reserve Bank of India)

3. Avoid increasing stock market participation by Provident Funds, Public Provident Fund etc.

4. Do not reduce Provident Fund contributions by employees and employers.

Remember more funds in the hands of salaried class, Indian Private Banks are there to offer you wide variety of loans.

Listen to what Mr. Aditya Puri have to say (focus more from 7:33): 

Sant Kabir - Sumiran Kar Le

Below is a divine rendition of Sant Kabir bhajan " Sumiran Kar Le...". Rendered by Pandit Jasraj accompanied by Ms Kavita Krishnamoorty and L Subramaniam (violin).

The bhajan transports you to different time zone:

Physical Literacy

Below is an exceptional interview with exceptional panelist. The important statement which drew my attention was from Badminton Coach P Gopichand and Chess Grand Master Vishwananthan Anand.

Gopichand spoke about Physical Literacy. He stated how we have achieved as a nation numerical and educational literacy but lack in Physical Literacy.

Similarly world chess champion Anand spoke excellently. The punch line was:

"We don't learn to be fit, we learn to be inactive".

The entire conversation is worth listening with Mary Kom, Gagan Narang and other luminaries. But those who want to go directly to Gopichand and Anand start from 53:03 onward.

From Masses to Select Companies

Financial Inclusion according to Reserve Bank of India (RBI):

Financial inclusion may be defined as the process of ensuring access to financial services and timely and adequate credit where needed by vulnerable groups such as weaker sections and low-income groups at an affordable cost (The Committee on Financial Inclusion, Chairman: Dr. C. Rangarajan).

The key word is adequate credit where needed by vulnerable groups such as weaker section and low-income groups at an affordable cost.

However, a recent article in Financial express paints a contradictory picture. It states Big firms grab most bank funds: Less than 1% companies have 50% of bank loans.

The statistics are very revealing. I will reproduce the image from Financial express:

It seems financial inclusion is collecting from the masses and lending it to select Companies.

It appears the select 666 borrowers are the vulnerable groups who are lend at a very affordable cost i.e. rates much lower than what an individual depositor gets. 

Remember Personal loans (for marriages , education etc.) are much costlier than the bank loan provided to the vulnerable 666 borrowers.

We have to remind ourselves the borrowers are institutions and their masters (vulnerable ones) appear in the dollar billionaire list.

Mathew Fontaine Maury

Many a times we miss men who impacted world immensely. One of them unknown to many is Mathew Fontaine Maury.

Thanks to a wonderfully written article How Maury Saved Millions and Unified the World with Data in the 1800s  by Christine Garcia, i could understand the immense contribution by Maury to the world of commerce, saving lives and reducing travelling time.

Great piece of writing worth reading. I will reproduce some portion to explain the contribution by Maury:

After Maury’s charts, voyage times were down across the world. The travel time for the route that started everything—from the U.S. to Rio de Janeiro—decreased from 41 days to an average 30 days. The Sea Serpent even completed the trip in a record 18 days.

Though he’s hardly a household name today, Matthew Fontaine Maury rocketed to fame for his work. By the beginning of the 1860s, he was known globally as the “Father of Oceanography” and “Pathfinder of the Seas”.