A random observation triggered this piece. A factory I visited in India located in an export zone recently caught my attention. It was in the business of manufacturing cookware. It was set up at a cost of over INR 200 crores, was totally automated and one learnt that millions of units could be manufactured by just 26 operators or so.  But I also understood that this unit, large as it was, still paled in comparison to China, which I gather almost had an entire town manufacturi

Much has been claimed about UP’s development. It is the singular pitch of the current dispensation’s estimated Rs 50-crore-per-day advertising campaign promising to make UP a $1 trillion economy, parroted from PM Modi’s presentation to BRICS in 2019 about making India a $5 trillion economy by 2024, with UP driving that growth. What’s the reality? Read more at: https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/up-s-race-to-nowhere-2885077

The Reserve Bank of India’s recent directive, acting on the unbridled growth of unsecured loans, is timely, but the move may actually lead to banks raising interest rates and charges. The solution lies in banks moving away from unbridled retail lending. But that may not happen because the banking system in India, overall, is taking easier routes to make its money insidiously from vulnerable segments of the population and the industry that are hungry for debt to sustain their

Using valuation to buy companies that are in a much lower multiple and putting it all together to make an ‘Action Defining Logic’ entity with a monster value was a strategy that was working and logical for the edtech company in that heady world of acquisition-led and fund-infusion-based valuation fantasy, before taking the company public and placing the monkey of that overvalued monster squarely on the shoulders of believing, FOMO retail investors. …My questions to Madhabi Pu

Hindenburg was accused of having a vested interest on every news channel — that the company significantly benefited in bringing down Adani share prices. Look at the timing, they all said. Point is, of course, that short sellers have a vested interest. The better short sellers do extensive research and then seek value in betting their own money against overvalued stocks and sectors. Short selling brought about the downfall of the housing market that brought down the global eco

It was never about creating wealth for the retail investor. It was about the government's need to meet it's divestment target.

Hung or lost wars that result in economic bankruptcy have led, time and again, to regime change — from the Greeks stretching themselves too thin to the East, to more recently the British Empire, Hitler’s Germany, and well, the Soviet Union… The economics that backed Putin’s decision to go to war is more obvious than, say, the calculus of Hitler’s Germany. Read more at: https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/comment/putin-s-calculus-1096538.html

This dichotomy between real income and valuation-based net-worth income has led to a peculiar shift in the way money is earned and invested today, changing the demographic and the mindset of the ‘entrepreneur’ with serious, though unmeasured, consequences… But from a systemic viewpoint, the long term is important, and we must not shy away from the reality. Read more at: https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/a-dukaandaar-andolan-in-the-making-1085137.html

“It’s a damn conspiracy, and everyone’s in on it!” – Jailor Norton, The Shawshank Redemption. Paper money is being made at every level by every player, where companies are bought and sold amongst themselves for paper value. They all gamble on a hypo... Read more at: https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/time-for-sebi-to-step-in-1042886.html

In India, the licence granted to a media house for use of sovereign airwaves is granted by the Government of India for a public purpose — to inform, hold a mirror to society, and to hold to account institutions — for the common good. Read more at: https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/the-economics-behind-the-news-anchor-s-performance-on-tv-1011061.html