A fine interpretation by Osho

Two unbelievable videos.

When Bankers Joke

Bharat Financial Inclusion ( Wholly owned subsidiary of IndusInd Bank) recently admitted to a technical glitch. The glitch resulted into:

84,000 loans were sanctioned without customer consent.

The ones who are in real trouble is:

• IT Department
• Regulatory team
• Risk Management team
• Internal Audit team
• Chief Financial Officer
• Chief Operating Officer
• Managing Director

The big question:

An article stated that this issue was highlighted by the field staff within two days and the technical glitch was rectified expeditiously.

If above statement is Big Yes, then did IndusInd Bank reported Stock Exchange about this issue?

If No, then serious action should be taken on the Board of Directors of IndusInd Bank.

So how the Bankers Joke.

After disbursing 84,000 loans without customer consent, the bank stated that:

“The bank wishes to reiterate that there is a strong risk management and control framework in place, both within the bank and at BFIL. Nevertheless, the bank has been following a conservative provisioning approach and reiterates that there is no change in the credit cost estimates including that in the micro-finance business…In October 2021, nearly 100 per cent of the loan disbursements were in the bank accounts of the customers, as in pre-Covid time,’’ 

Mumbai = Kolkata

The impact of Antilla Bomb Scare has finally got rolled out. Headline of Economic Times says it all:

Namaste, London! Ambanis set to move to Buckinghamshire mansion which has 49 bedrooms & mini hospital, says report.

Richest Indian post independence, Mr. Mukesh Ambani, has to move to London for second home. This will in coming years (or already) may be the place where Mr. Mukesh Ambani's grand children will be raised.

Remember, construction cost of Antilla is considered as USD 1 billion  dollars - USD 2 billion dollars.

Lets visit one old article from Economic Times dated September 03, 2001:

Is Mumbai following the Kolkata of ‘60s?

Article states that:

It's becoming something of a fashion these days to say that Mumbai is going the way of Kolkata in the late sixties, when dirt, filth and violence combined to drive good people out of that throbbing metropolis. unwelcome as such comments might be there is more than a grain of truth in such utterances. Kolkata was one of the safest cities to live in. then something strange happened. politics, always big in Kolkata, got more dominating, less tolerant.

May be Mr. Ambani felt that if they are unsafe and vulnerable to political mischiefs then it is time for them to move out. 

Is this an imminent signal that there is going to be a space left open by this move.  Some questions which future will answer:

• Is this the signal of Mumbai losing its financial power status?
• Is Bengaluru overtaking Mumbai in Fintech ? (as on September 8, 2021) Mumbai has 924 fintech start ups against Bengaluru with 832 fintech start ups.
• Does this indicate a lack of faith on the Governments / Political rulers?
• Will this have an impact on the hold of Mr. Mukesh Ambani family in political circles in India? in coming decades?
• Is there some more of the Super Rich in Mumbai will move out because of Antilla and Ambani move?
• Will there be an emergence of new political group in Mumbai within two decades? 
• Like Kolkatta had Mamta who will be in Mumbai?
• Who will take the blame?

How long will it take, may be another 20 years.

Important Update:

Reliance Industries Ltd. rejects the report presented in Economic Times.

Reliance rubbishes media report, says Mukesh Ambani, his family have no plans to leave India

Will have to wait and watch the school where the Grand Children study, this will be an indication.

Learnings of a Value Investor

Sometimes, even advocates of Value Investors do not know what happens in their investment.

First message from Fundoo Professor

Fundoo Professor

@Sanjay__Bakshi

Anyone else getting such emails even though they don’t have a locker with the bank branch?

@HDFCBank_Cares

Second Message from Fundoo Professor acknowledging the knowledge:

Fundoo Professor

@Sanjay__Bakshi

Problem resolved. Turns out my wife is joint holder of a locker with her sister and unknown to us the sister went to the locker. . Thanks

@HDFCBank_Cares

for clarifying to my wife.

9:17 PM · Oct 21, 2021·Twitter for iPhone

Link: Fundoo Professor

Message

"I like people admitting that they were complete stupid horses’ asses. I know I’ll perform better if I rub my nose in my mistakes. This is a wonderful trick to learn.”

Munger

Faces for Yes Bank

Article: Yes Men at Yes Bank, and Elsewhere: ‘Phone Banking’ in the Private Sector

Author : Hemindra Hazari

Hemindra has presented faces for Yes Bank Fiasco besides Rana Kapoor. They are reproduced below:

Remember this people are professional with qualifications worth envy.

Article / blog post is worth reading.

Remembering JRD

On the eve of Air India going back to Tata Group, Shyam Sekhar (Investor) provided a link which covered the interview of JRD by T N Ninan, appeared in India Today. Interview was dated August 15, 1986.

Interesting (select) part from the must read interview is reproduced below:

Q. To start by looking back, what do you think are the major changes in Indian business in the 50 years that...

A. When I started in business - nearly 60 years ago - the conditions were very different to what they became. There was no licensing system, so there was nobody to bribe. Business was reasonably honest. The taxes were reasonable. So there was no great inducement to evade taxes.

But then came a controlled society, under the impulse of Jawaharlal. The Government needed money to run elections, and the whole culture changed. Along with this came punitive taxes of 98 percent. When you have a licence-permit raj and very heavy taxes, you get tax evasion, black-marketing, and corruption.

Q. You think controls and political corruption went together?

A. We know that enormous fortunes were made, enormous sums were sent abroad. During those 30 years, I haven't heard of a single businessman who was sent to jail.

Q. This has been your biggest frustration?

A. Yes of course. And even on things that were not business. I was the first in India 35 years ago to sound the alarm on the population. I made a speech. I was wrapped on the knuckles, whom do you think by? Nehru. His words will always ring in my ears: "Nonsense, J. A large population is the greatest source of strength of any nation." And after that, we've added 350 million people.

Q. Didn't you argue with him?

A. You don't argue with Jawaharlal. He didn't want to discuss it. But the interesting thing was I was a good friend of his. He trusted me. He knew I admired him. But he knew I disagreed with all his economic policies, and I even didn't agree with his foreign policy. I felt that Krishna Menon and others like that were pro-Soviet. So I never was able thereafter to discuss economic matters.

Q. Did you try?

A. Yes. He and Mrs Gandhi later developed this similar little polite way of telling me to shut up. Jawaharlal, when I started to bring up the subject of economic policy, would turn around and look out of the window. Mrs Gandhi did something else.

Q. She doodled?

A. Yes, she doodled. Doodling I didn't mind so much. She started picking up envelopes, cutting open the envelopes and pulling out letters. It was a polite indication that she was bored.

Many a times interview from past reveals truth which we have forgotten today.

Thanks Mr. Shyam Sekhar

IBC Summary

Indian Bankruptcy Code (IBC) summed up nicely by Moneylife:

The media euphoria is about the banks as well as bond and deposit holders receiving a tidy sum of cash as settlement. But the fact is that a significant part of the settlement, amounting to Rs19,550 crore, is by way of 6.75% coupon debentures payable half-yearly. The debentures are redeemable over a 10-year period in a phased manner. The cash settlement, according to news reports, is only the balance sum, which conveniently uses about Rs3500 crore already in DHFL.

The same happened in the case of Ruchi Soya. The new owner immediately got funding from State Bank of India ( SBI) who was also the loan provided for Ruchi Soya.

In few year some one will write similar about Bad Bank.

Indian Government - Wise decision

India banned TikTok and other Chines APPS temporarily on June 29, 2020 and permanently banned it in the month of June 2021.

Response from TikTok representative was:

"We are evaluating the notice and will respond to it as appropriate. TikTok was among the first companies to comply with the Government of India directive issued on June 29, 2020. We continually strive to comply with local laws and regulations and do our best to address any concerns the government may have. Ensuring the privacy and security of all our users remains to be our topmost priority,"

Indian Government's decision turned out to be a correct one. 

Recent news stated that Chinese Government has taken stake in TikTok and they will also get a board seat.

The above move directly impacts the data sharing of the Indian citizens with Chinese Government.

Lets visit some of the news agencies as to what they reported when TikTok was banned:

Is India’s ban on Tiktok and 58 other Chinese apps consistent with the provisions of IT Act? The restrictions also limit the fundamental right to free expression. - scroll.in

What Indians Lost When The Government Banned TikTok - thewire.in

TikTok ban in India causing $500,000 daily loss, job risks, says Bytedance - businessstoday.in

There are other news agencies which supported the ban and stated this as an opportunity to boost Make In India apps.

Hope many Indians who were disappointed with banning of TikTok are now convinced about the Government stance.

The Unknown Bureaucrat - Mr. Haldea

Thanks Moneylife for writing article on Gajendra Haldea. The article introduced me to a Bureaucrat who has contributed immensely to India, especially in the Infrastructure sector.

What saddened me  more was how many people ( citizens ) were aware about his contributions. I typed Gajendra Haldea passes away in Google search engine only following news agencies reported it:

• Business Standard
• The Federal
• Business Line

Shockingly no Economic Times, Times of India, Hindustan Times, DNA, Indian Express, Financial Express none reported about Gajendra Haldea death.

Mr. Gajendra Haldea passed away on 15 January 2021. Sorry for being late.

The search engines stops with the news on passing away of Gajendra Haldea on page 2 (for last one year prior to 31 August 2021).

If any reader accidentally steps in and visits this blog please visit Gajendra Haldea website which has treasure trove of information about this great Bureaucrat.

Praise by Soli Sorabjee (Former Attorney General of India):

Frankly, I have not come across such a clause in any guarantee. During conferences held in the matter, I was keen to know how this expression came to be incorporated in the GOI‟s counter-guarantee and I found that it was owing to the efforts and good work done by Shri Gajendra Haldea, a former officer of your Ministry, that the exposure of GOI under the counter-guarantee was substantially reduced. During

negotiations with DPC, Shri Haldea insisted on the inclusion of this expression and modified the draft of the GOI‟s counter-guarantee which was submitted by Enron. He also capped the termination liability of GOI to a maximum of $300 million compared to a possible $1400 million under the State guarantee and made other significant modifications..... Shri Haldea‟s contribution becomes all the more remarkable in view of the considerable clout that Enron wielded at that time. It would have taken exceptional brilliance, skill, integrity and courage of conviction to be able to modify the draft of the counter-guarantee proposed by Enron..... I would humbly commend Shri Haldea for the recognition that is legitimately due to him.

– Soli Sorabjee

Then Attorney General of India

Letter dated February 14, 2004 to the Union Finance Minister

Out of deep respect my head bows to Mr. Gajendra Haldea.

Apologies , but I disagree with Mr. Munger

Charlie Munger (Billionaire Investor) recently made a statement on Alibaba Group and China:

Berkshire Hathaway vice chairman Charlie Munger praised the Chinese government for silencing Alibaba's Jack Ma in a recent interview, adding that he wishes US financial regulators were more like those in China.

"Communists did the right thing," Munger, the 97-year-old longtime friend of Warren Buffett, said about the handling of Ma, who criticized officials in Beijing last year for stifling innovation.

Although he would not want "all of the Chinese system" in the US, Munger did say "I certainly would like to have the financial part of it in my own country."

The above statement of Charlie Munger reminds of this phrase:

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

In this case respected Charlie Munger, I disagree with your statement.

Clarification from Stanford

Post: Happy not to have studied in Harvard

Note:

Stanford University has issued a clarification stating that they were not part i.e. Co - Sponsors of the event Dismantling Global Hindutva. 

Source: Rajiv Malhotra

Hope other universities come out with their own clarifications.

Retailers Beware

At a time when interest rate offered by banks on Fixed Deposits stands at 3.5% - 5.5%, Media states that there is an offer to Earn up to 9% by lending to peers in CRED.

This is a sure fire recipe for scam / theft in future. Now what CRED claims:

 CRED is a members-only club that rewards individuals for their timely credit card bill payments by providing them with exclusive offers and access to premium experiences. It is a platform that allows credit card users to manage multiple cards along with an analysis of their credit score. Members with a high Experian or CRIF score are eligible for exclusive rewards upon payment of their credit card bills through the app. Among many of the features in the app are CRED's credit card spend tracking and management feature which provided the user with analysis of spend tracking and efficiency of usage of the card.

Now what is a High Experian or CRIF Score?

CRED members have a credit score of 750 or higher, making them the most trustworthy audience to provide financial services. On CRED, a user has to have a credit score of 750 or higher to join the app.

So who are  rating above 750.

Very Good (ranging between 750-850)- this score indicates that the customer has a very good history of financial management and their financial history demonstrates sharp financial acumen regarding the utilization of credit. Extending credit to such a customer is very low risk to the lender as the customer has a proven record of creditworthiness.

Excellent (850)- this score is the highest allotted by Experian and indicates a customer with an almost perfect credit record. All lines of credit extended to a customer with such a score are very low risk due to their proven financial management.

The most important question is why a person with a very good history / a very low risk customers need credit from peers in CRED?

Initially the PE investors joined and now retailers are invited to the CRED Party. 

Hope Reserve Bank of India is observing what the FINTECH's are offering.

Retailers beware!

Happy not to have studied in Harvard

It is unfortunate that Universities like Harvard, Princeton, Stanford etc. are sponsoring a discussion titled "Dismantling Global Hindutva".

Today , I am relieved not to be associated with any of these universities.

One more reason why western universities will never understand Sanatan Dharma.

Note: I hope the Universities will clear their position by stating either the above is a mischief / accidentally sponsored and they are withdrawing their support. 

Can Government withdraw Bharat Ratna awarded?

An unbelievable statement appeared in The Print newspaper. The Print carried out excerpt from a book titled "Ä Rude Life" by Vir Sanghvi.

I will reproduce the portion from the excerpt:

What none of us realized was that the sanyasi had gathered up every secret file he could get his hands on at the PMO before they booted him out. He had a treasure trove of confidential communications, government files and secret letters, all kept safely, perhaps in those Air India attaché cases.

The heading of the excerpt in the Print was titled as "Morarji Desai had stolen PMO documents. Was set to reveal classified secrets"

If the above statement is true :

• Can / Will Government of India withdraw the Bharat Ratna awarded (1991)?
• Will Government of India set up a committee to know which documents were stolen and initiate process for retrieval of the stolen documents? 

Learnings - Auto Pilot

Read a wonderful book titled Auto Pilot - The Art & Science of doing nothing by Andrew Smart.

Auto Pilot book is a must read to understand ourselves, our brain and our world economy. Examples, quotes are excellent. 

Last chapter Work is destroying the planet is worth reading and reproducing in total.

Contents of the book is worth treasuring. 

Select takeaways from the book is reproduced below: 

Beauty of Brain

On the contrary, when you leave important parts of your brain unattended by relaxing in the grass on a sunny afternoon, the parts of your brain in the default mode network become more organized and engaged. In your brain, the dishes do wash themselves if you just leave them alone. It turns out your brain is never idle. In fact, it may work harder when you’re not working at all.

The brain represents about two percent of your total body weight, yet it consumes twenty percent of your body’s energy. It is the biological equivalent of the one percent. In other words, your brain is a pig and it is selfish.

So the best thing to do after learning new information is to take nap, or atleast be idle.

What a busy and occupied life performs?

Even though the network your brain uses to actively pay attention only requires a small fraction of your brain’s total energy, when this attention network activates, your default mode network reduces its activity. This is what is meant by anti-correlated: when your attention network activates, your default mode deactivates. While you run around like a decapitated chicken in your daily life, trying to manage your schedule, trying to keep up with all your mobile devices, posting to your Twitter and Facebook accounts, receiving text messages, composing emails, and checking off to-do lists, you are suppressing the activity of perhaps the most important network in your brain.

Why males start performing better after 25?

In fact, in males, the prefrontal cortex does not finish maturing until about age twenty-five. I mentioned above that the prefrontal cortex is responsible for skills like decision making, planning, impulse-control, and self-reflection—skills that many males under twenty-five tend to lack.

How Newton might have got the idea?

It was during this revolution that a scientific community came into being that published journals and started having meetings much like today’s scientific conferences. In the centuries since Newton, natural science has met with astonishing success. Typically we think of Newton seeing the apple fall as some kind of serendipitous moment in the history of science. Whatever the origin of the story really is, after seeing the apple fall and after working out his theory Newton wrote one of the most significant scientific publications in history: the Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica, in which the formal theory of gravity is introduced.

Newton wasn’t holed up in his study tearing his hair out trying to figure out why objects move toward earth and the planets orbit the Sun, stressing about a looming deadline. Nor was a productivity expert looking over Newton’s shoulder to make sure he was working efficiently. We can imagine that as he relaxed on a warm evening in his garden, the soothing noises of birds singing and leaves blowing in the breeze surrounding him, he either closed his eyes or looked at nothing in particular.

He would have had a feeling of well-being and sensations of positive emotions might have washed over him. All this would put him in a nice “contemplative mood.” His default mode network would have started to increase its activity. Blood would have started flowing to his precuneous, his lateral parietal cortex, his medial prefrontal cortex, and his anterior cingulate cortex as these regions began to consume oxygen and glucose at an increased rate.

This is the default mode network getting warmed up. The neurons in these regions are increasing their activity. His anterior cingulate would have signaled to his parasympathetic nervous system that all was well and his blood pressure would drop. His heart rate would slow and time between beats would start to become slightly more variable.

This physiological reaction would start to feed back to his brain and his relaxation might deepen. In this idle state and in the absence of some externally induced task, Newton’s brain starts to get to work. His mind begins to wander; his thoughts turn inward and become reflective. The nodes in his default mode network are now ready to communicate.

The millions of neurons in these regions begin to partially synchronize their oscillatory electrical activity at different frequencies so that neuronal messages from the default mode network can travel throughout his brain. Since the nodes in the default mode network are hubs they can get information from almost any brain region. Memories and associations, along with mathematical and spatial concepts, which are stored in regions connected to the parietal cortex, can also be accessed by his default mode network. These concepts now begin to bubble up into Newton’s consciousness as the medial prefrontal cortex reports to the rest of the active default network what is happening in the far reaches of his subconscious.

These reports from Newton’s vast knowledge of physics in his long-term memory, which are normally not part of his conscious awareness, can now enter his mind because his brain does not have to worry about talking, scheduling meetings, planning his day, or managing his time.

The motions of the planets, the inverse square law, attraction, mass, and acceleration: all of these concepts that Newton has learned might have begun circulating in Newton’s awareness. Prior to sitting in his garden this particular evening, Newton might not have found relationships among these concepts because they would not have the chance to enter his awareness during his everyday life. Likewise, there is also evidence that the default mode network works unconsciously so that in an idle state, the brain finds connections among concepts without awareness.

Then for reasons we do not yet understand, sometimes these thoughts reach awareness. The important thing is that during rest, the default mode network can open connections between brain regions that are normally too busy trying to keep up with your activity-filled life to talk to each other.

This is when true creativity and insight can happen. At this point, Newton’s anterior cingulate cortex, normally hard at work detecting errors and monitoring the outcome of behavior, is now freed to detect weak and strange relationships between numbers, forces, objects, and space.

In such a relaxed state, Newton might have only barely noticed the apple falling from the tree. However, his brain would have recorded the event. A seemingly trivial event in the world, an apple falling from a tree, might have triggered a cascade of neural activity which allowed the concepts Newton was contemplating to synthesize into a completely new idea. All the clocks struck at the same time because the clocks were not being wound.

Importance of resting phase of the brain?

We categorize adults who sit in contemplative moods as flakey, spacey, or lazy. But for your brain to do its best work, you need to be idle. If you want to have great ideas or if you just want to get know yourself, you must stop managing your time. At the very least, modern neuroscience is rapidly amassing more and more evidence that the resting state of the brain is vital to its health.

Problems of modern world?

In our hysterical rush to make money, gain status, compete for scarce jobs, jockey for promotions, make our kids athletic and intellectual geniuses, and organize our lives down to the second, we are suppressing our brain’s natural ability to make meaning out of experience. It is through our brain’s amazing natural meaning-making ability that real and profound creativity can happen. It is becoming clear that the resting state of the brain is essential to this process.

How nature restores balance?

Ants are among the most successful species on the planet. The number of ants alive at any given time has been estimated to be around ten million billion. And given that a human weigh approximately one to two million times as much as an ant, ants and humans have roughly the same global biomass.

Quote whose meaning I knew well

“The survival of humans and other species on planet Earth in my view can only be guaranteed via a timely transition towards a stationary state, a world economy without growth.”——Peter Custers

Job market well explained

Most of the jobs politicians are perpetually promising to create are downright awful. For people without formal education, the countless jobs that each party claims to be able to produce are demeaning and tedious service-sector jobs at places like Amazon fulfillment centers that don’t pay enough for rent, healthcare, food, daycare, phone bills, or a car. For people with more formal education there are mindless corporate jobs where the only skill required is to master the asinine business jargon in a way that makes it seem like you are doing something meaningful. 

How you should approach your work?

I knew if I was going to make this work, I had to equip myself better. This would be a long, tough journey. I had to educate myself more deeply, learn as much as I could about music, especially the riches and beauties that others might miss. My new concern with musical pleasure might even turn into an advantage here, opening my ears to sounds the celebrity critics would scorn. I also had to learn how to write better, with more incision and imaginative grasp of the subject at hand. Above all, I had to think about the reader, with far more clarity than I had done before.

Writer: How I Became the Honest Broker

Source: Alpha Ideas blog

Truth comes out of the bottle

Interview of Yuri Bezmenov on his political assignment in India. 

Highly recommended to watch this video and decipher on your own:

Source: Ayudhika

Mutual Fund and Insider Trading

It is believed that those at the top of the pyramid are apostle of  ethics. It is when the surface is scratched the true human being and his character is revealed.

Headlines: Debt scheme redemptions: SEBI to charge key officials of Franklin MF with fraud

It is surprising to know that Insider Trading is associated with Mutual Fund. The correct headline should have been:

Mutual Fund and Insider Trading.

Extract from the newspaper Business Line:

Vivek Kudva, Head of Asia Pacific for FT, his wife Roopa, who is a partner and managing director of Omidyar Network India, and his mother, Vasanthi, are alleged to have redeemed over ₹30 crore from the debt schemes between March 20 and April 3, 2020. SEBI found that the concerns of redemption concentration and liquidity risk were known to Vivek Kudva as per various e-mails dated March 18 and 19.

Now who is Vivek and Roopa Kudva:

Name	Vivek Kudva	Roopa Kudva
Qualifications	IIT Delhi, IIM Ahmedabad	IIM Ahmedabad
Associated with (Current and Past)	Franklin Templeton Investments, Head of APAC Distributions.	MD Omidyar Networks India
		Nestle, Director
		IIM Ahmedabad, Member Governing Council
		Tata AIA Life Insurance, Director
		Infosys, Director
		Member, Banks Board Bureau
		SEBI, RBI etc.
		MD and CEO CRISIL
Source: LinkedIn

May be after few years we will read the following :

..defendants  .. settle proposed enforcement actions without either admitting or denying the allegations..

Please note the enquiry of the case is at a very early stage and this may be contested in the courts.