Amit Trivedi: On terrorism ...

Amit Trivedi: On terrorism ...: Who is responsible for maintenance of world peace? How are they performing their duty? Are they performing the right actions? The five p...

On terrorism ...

Who is responsible for maintenance of world peace? How are they performing their duty? Are they performing the right actions?

The five permanent members of the UN Security Council are: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the USA. The members represent the five great powers considered to be the victors of the World War II.

United Nations Security Council is one of the five principal organs of the United Nations and is charged with the maintenance of international peace and security. Its powers include the establishment of peacekeeping operations, the establishment of international sanctions, and the authorization of military action through Security Council resolutions. It is the inly UN body with the authority to issue binding resolutions to member states.

Like the UN as a whole, the Security Council was created following the World War II to address the failings of another international organization, the League of Nations, in maintaining world peace.

(Source: www.wikipedia.org)

In light of the above, look at the list of the top arms exporter countries. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the world’s largest arms exporters in 2014 were:

Rank	Nation
1	United States
2	Russia
3	China
4	France
5	Germany
6	United Kingdom

Of the top six nations, five happen to be the permanent members of UN Security Council, whose primary responsibility is to maintain international peace and security.

How are these countries maintaining world peace? Through export of arms? Do any of these arms end up with terrorists? Who would ask these questions? Who is answerable?

I am sure that the world leaders are aware of these points. There is nothing new that I have mentioned above. The question is: if they know, what are they doing about it?

I feel it is my duty to ask these questions, as an Indian. It is important to understand that India features among the top on the wrong side – actually, the wronged side. India is the largest importer of arms and yet the sixth largest victim of terrorism.

Karma yogis of Mumbai

19^th June 2015 – exactly a year ago, Mumbai witnessed heavy rains and there was waterlogging in many low-lying areas. Matunga are King’s Circle are among the first areas to get affected and sometimes severely. Last year, too, many parts of our area were badly affected.

I had a training program at Goa and had to take the early morning flight from Mumbai to Goa. I had called for a Meru cab at 3:45 in the morning. At around 3:30 AM, I got a call from the taxi driver from Meru that he cannot come due to waterlogging. I was angry as I could not see any waterlogging from my window (incidentally, the part I can see from my window is not low-lying and the other side is not visible). A lot of discussion followed between me and the cab driver, who refused to come inside our complex and finally said, if you want to go to the airport, you will have to come to the cab.

I had no choice. I went out of the house with my travel bag, my laptop bag and an umbrella. The cab driver was right about the waterlogging, which I could not see from my window.

The moment I was out of our complex, the water touched my ankles. A little distance and my knees were under water. I kept wading my way through. I walked some more distance and now the water was almost touching my wallet that I keep in my pant’s front pocket. It was just a little short of waist-high. I could finally manage to reach the cab and make it to the airport in time.

This is not about me. This is about some other people.

Now let us see what had happened. It rained heavily during the night. Mumbai received equivalent of 10 days’ rain in 24 hours. Of course, many areas, especially the low-lying ones, were under water. Near my house, a big tree had fallen on the road, further blocking the traffic.

However, at 3:50 in the morning, there were police and BMC workers were present at the situation diverting the traffic (whatever littler there was at that hour) and clearing the mess created by the fallen tree as well as the water.

The driver from Meru cab was present to pick me up.

The next day I received messages from some friends complaining about the conditions. There were so many messages on social media cribbing about what the BMC should have done.

I think some of those who sat in their houses and complained had no idea about what the BMC and police staff were actually doing on the ground. I am sure many of the commentators did not venture out due to the rains and hence did not know that the ones whom they were criticizing were actually out working to clean up the mess.

My head bowed down to those silent workers carrying out their thankless duty at an unearthly hour. I missed the opportunity to publicly acknowledge this earlier, but thought the anniversary of the incident may be the best time to do so.

I would also like to mention about the cab driver, who was there in spite of the rains.

These are the true Karmayogis.

Some interesting statistical facts about India v/s Pakistan match, Asia Cup on 27th Feb, 2016

On 27th Feb, 2016, India met Pakistan for Asia Cup T20 match at Dhaka. India beat Pakistan by 5 wickets with 

We found some interesting statistical facts about the match.
Most of these numbers suggest something extraordinary. Let us discuss these facts:

1. India scored 85/5 against Pak's 83 all out, but 3 Indian batsmen got out for a duck; none for Pak.
• Seems like Virat Kohli was the only difference between the two teams. Or was it Yuvi's luck? Whatever it is, with Virat Kohli steering the Indian innings with such finesses, it seems quite natural to believe that he could (and probably only he could) do it. There are no doubts about Kohli's abilities, but it could have been some other batsman, too. Once Amir completed his spell, no other bowler looked threatening. 
2. In a low scoring match, India's best bowler Ashwin was the worst of all Indian bowlers 3-0-21-0. Only Wahab Riaz was worse than him in the match. Easy (but completely unfair) to conclude from a single match that Ashwin was the worst bowler 
• Easy to conclude based on one match. Unfair and incorrect - the only words that I can think of for such a conclusion. And the analysts and pundits would agree.
3. The second highest score in both teams was "extras". If we total up the runs in both innings, "extras" was second highest score after Virat. "Extras" accounted for more than 17% of total runs scored n the match. 
• It talks only about the pitch and weather conditions. 19 wides is the proof that the bowl swung so much that neither the batsman nor the wicketkeeper could touch the ball.
4. Only 18 boundaries were scored in the entire match. Virat hit 7 of those, just one less than the entire Pakistan team's 8. Not a single six in the whole match.
• Once again, the swinging ball was not coming onto the bat and the batsman were busy saving their wickets than scoring boundaries.

Points 3 and 4 do not suggest anything about the quality of batting. It was high quality bowling assisted by the pitch and the weather.

 

Investor behaviour

Good advice: "Buy right, sit tight" *

Investor behaviour: "Buy wrong, wait long"

*               (Courtesy: Motila Oswal AMC's YouTube advertisement)

                 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rpp6iLD2sg&feature=youtu.be

Never? Always? What do these words mean, really?

English language has certain words that change the meaning when used in the financial markets. Take for example, two opposite words – “never” and “always”.

Over the years, one has come up with many experts and common men use these words while referring to the future. Let us look at some usages of these two words we often come up with:

·      This thing will always going to behave like this

·      Investors will never learn

·      India will always be full of opportunities or India will never be corruption-free

(The above are general statements used as examples. These are not the author’s views)

When you hear these (bulleted) statements, you start forming an impression. The mind starts to believe things in “black and white”. Psychologically, it is quite difficult to appreciate the grey areas for many.

However, real life is quite different. I can be confident about the past but not about the future. It is in this context that the meaning of the two words may be different from that in the English language.

Very often, we extrapolate the past events into the future. If something has never happened, we assume that it will never happen. If something has happened very often, we assume it has to be always like that.

It is important to remember the mutual fund tag line: “Past performance may or may not be sustained in future”.

Consider turning point events – or a unidirectional price movement. The recent example of Gold prices suggests that many had accepted that since gold prices had risen continuously for almost a decade, gold would never give negative returns. One has heard the same argument for real estate, too. One has heard the same argument for equity prices in the past – remember 1999-2000 and 2007-08. In fact, when the party is going on, the music is “never” supposed to stop. But, it stops, eventually. The date of the “eventuality” is not marked in our calendars.

My understanding of these two words is very simple:

·      When someone uses the word “never” referring to the future, it should be understood as a very low probability, higher than zero

·      When someone uses the word “always” referring to a future event, it should be understood as a very high probability, less than 100%

The above thinking keeps one’s mind balanced. One is able to absorb shocks better, when they occur. This ability to absorb shocks allows one to avoid acting in panic.

Happy investing. Happy thinking.

How safe is your personal data?

Recently, I read a news item in a leading newspaper. It said that Michelle Obama has been seen in a particular dress more than six times. My shock was not just about the quality of news, but also the state of affairs that there seem to be more news carriers than the news itself. Hence, someone has to come out with such news and sensationalise it. At the same time, is also talks about how much is one interested in private (however insignificant) news involving celebrities.

And then, I felt like even I was put in the same league as some of these celebrities. There are some marketers interested in my personal details – although for entirely different reasons.

I bought a car in June-2012. The car was insured for a year. In May-2013, I got a call from an insurance broker, who had all the details of my insurance and also my name and phone number. The call was to offer me best insurance option at the time of renewal of the insurance. On asking, I got to know that “they do not need my permission to get this data and it was provided to them by RTO, a Government Office.” I knew that data leakages are nothing new, but the audacity to disclose the source of information was really new in this case.

So let us talk about another case where the person tried hard to hide the source of information. There are some companies in NCR from where I received calls. These companies call themselves by different names – XYZ Marketing Company, Some Business Development Company – names sounding like they are serious players. They start with name of the company (somehow I have never been able to capture the exact names of the company in any of the cases – I must have received 5 to 6 such calls at different times) and then quickly add that this is a Government recognized company. I missed it the first time, but then asked what do they mean by this Government recognition – the answer was: the company is registered with Ministry of Corporate Affairs. So far, it is only about them. The scarier part comes when they start talking about the reason for the call.

These people have access to my credit card number, my payment track record, my location city, my name and my phone number. When I inquired about the source of information, I got vague replies like they conduct merchant surveys. Those of us who use a credit card know that we do not give details of our city of residence and phone number at the time of any credit card transaction. The only places where all these details are available together are: the bank that has issued the credit card and CIBIL. I shot mails to both the organisations, only to get the standard and expected replies that there has been no leakage of information from their respective sides and that they have sufficient checks and balances in place for data security.

I believed them and moved on.

If you are an Indian, please understand that none of your data is secured. If at all, your data security means that nobody is interested in it. Or you are simply lucky.

Your vehicle registration data, your income tax return, house property registration details, financial transactions, everything is up for sell.

Next time you get that unwanted call from a marketing firm, it means at least someone cares about you – see the positive side and be happy. I am sorry for giving this false hope to you. Nobody was interested in me - they were ONLY interested in whatever money they can extract from me.