Warrier's COLLAGE August 26, 2021 : Assets Monetization
Welcome to
Warrier's COLLAGE
On
Thursday
August 26, 2021
How the world works*...: Bo Burnham
https://youtu.be/oDQXFNWuZj8
(*Lyrics :
https://genius.com/amp/Bo-burnham-how-the-world-works-lyrics
See H1 for more)
Good Morning
I'm getting some messages about same content getting repeated in multiple group mails and WhatsApp messages. I'm trying to help where I can, by not sending Collage by WhatsApp to those getting it by email. Any other possibilities can be suggested. This is a problem with all streams of Media which we have to get used to.
Nice Day
M G Warrier
For cartoons by Bimbadhar Mishra, please log on to his website www.bimbadharmishra.in
Thought* for the day :
"Life taught me not to complain about others.. change yourself, if you want peace.
Because it is easier to protect your feet with slippers than to Carpet the whole world."
(*Received from V Rangarajan. Author anonymous)
A
Messages
1) Yeshavant Hedavakar
A very good video* on Pancha Mahabhuta* and a very good speech on Bhagwad Geeta by Swami Sarvapriyananda from Warriors Collage dated 18th March 2021.
*Pancha Mahabhutas
https://youtu.be/9CxvZRHp2S0
2) R Jayakumar Mumbai
After reading the two articles, Analysis can lead to Paralysis and Facing Challenges in Life, I have a feeling that there are broadly three categories of people living around us.
The first category is those who see life as full of opportunities and so are positive in mind and can succeed in life. But they have no guts to face disappointments in life and can feel frustrated when opportunities don't work.
The second category are those who see life as a stumbling block everywhere and so are always negative in thinking and never come up in life. They always have easy excuses to give for not being successful.
The third category is those who consider life as full of surprises and hope for unexpected things to happen at every turning point. They are always excited and are balanced between being positive and negative.
They live a contented life like little children who are happy to be surprised by gifts brought to them by parents.
Great surprises are in store for those who expect constant surprise from God!
R Jayakumar
B
Society
Self Before Society : Vathsala Jayaraman Chennai
Many psychologists with penetrating insight,those who have specialized in community Development, strongly advise that making and keeping promises to oneself should precede making and keeping promises to others.
Naturally private victories precede public victories. We can't reverse that process any more than we can harvest a crop
before we plant it.
Though they have meant 'improve yourself before improving others'--this has been wantonly misunderstood by the politicians and other influential people.
They are so much preoccupied with private victories that they have neither time nor inclination to bother about public victories.
What a strict adherence to self-improvement techniques!
Vathsala Jayaraman
C
Current Affairs
1) Assets Monetization : India
https://www.livemint.com/news/india/government-eyes-rs88-000-crore-from-asset-monetization-in-fy22/amp-11629724364715.html
Excerpts :
"The government will raise ₹88,000 crore this year by leasing infrastructure assets of central government ministries and state-run companies under a ₹6 trillion National Monetization Pipeline (NMP) it unveiled on Monday.
The funds will then be used to build new infrastructure assets, helping boost economic growth in Asia’s third-largest economy."
2) Resources Management : India : M G Warrier
Resources Management
Though our country has only one-third
the geographical area as compared to the US with more than three times population, we are blessed with much more resources and a much better weather cycle. Also, we have not appro-priately accessed the potential of our workforce.
(a) Land and buildings
We should immediately take up a survey of usable land and buildings in cities and towns with a population of five lakhs and above. The survey should cover Rashtrapathi Bhavan to Temples/Mosques/Church premises with an objective of optimal use for public advantage.
(Continued at H2)
*Excerpted from "Agenda for Modi 2.0"
By M G Warrier, published in The Global ANALYST, March 2019 issue.
D
Readers Write
1) Food Psychology : Vathsala Jayaraman Chennai
It is understood from caterers and chefs that it is easier and cheaper to prepare
varieties of dishes, each in lesser quantity than to prepare barrels of the same dish.
There is a difference in how people enjoy and the enormous saving. When people are served around 50 dishes, their amazement increases and there is a great tendency to consume less. There is a saving of nearly 30 % more. This is more based on human psychology. That is child psychologists advise to feed varieties of food to children to avoid fat accumulation and to bring in more satisfaction. You would have seen caterers advertising the list of nearly 60 dishes during dinner.
Vathsala Jayaraman
2) Parasurama
Parasurama appears In Ramayana as well as Mahabharatha. Anchaneya is seen both in Ramayana and Mahabharatha.
There appears to be no restraint that God should take only a single avatar on a particular period.
Bhagavata Purana speaks of 22 avatars inclusive of Sanatkumaras, Narada, Vyasa, Kapila, Rishaba Deva and others.
Some people include Balarama and don't consider Buddha as an Avatar.
In addition, we have Avatars of Ganesa and Shakthi.
As regards Parasurama 'revenge' is at the back of his mind for ever.
He takes revenge on the entire Kshatriya race for the harm done by one person.
It is also seen that Parasurama created Kerala, which already existed.
It appears superficially that the aim of Parasurama Avatar is to teach people 'what not to be' or how not to be also.
Whenever we think about an Avatar or incarnation we remember the words of Lord Krishna :
"Paritraanaaya saadhoonaam Vinaashaaya cha dushkritaam
Dharma Samsthaapanaarthaaya Sambhavaami yuge Yuge'"
If the aim of Avatar is 'Dushta nigraha and Shishta paripalana' we should be
able to define in clear terms who is a Dushta and what are the activities that deserve Nigraha.
Parasurama's mother was killed for just seeing the reflection of a deva within a pot of water.
Was she a Dushta? Perhaps as too much importance was given to Pathivratya Dharma, ladies like Renuka and Ahalya met with severe punishments.
But the action of even great sages who were overpowered with kaama, on rare occasions though, was taken lightly. All these things point out to customs and practices, named as Dharma prevailing at a particular point of time in the society.
Unless one has implicit faith that whatever is done by the Avatar is for a good purpose taking into account the tradition and culture of that particular period, it is unquestionable, any amount of discussion with logic and reasoning about Avatars will lead us nowhere.
Confusion will get confounded.
Vathsala Jayaraman
E
Hierarchical issues :
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/evolution-in-daily-life/202108/who-pays-attention-whom
The attention structure of our pre-human primate ancestors was based on dominance hierarchies. Everyone looked up.
Our hunter-gatherer ancestors did away with dominance hierarchies; people looked around.
With the advent of agriculture dominance, hierarchies returned to human groups. Today we are constrained to look up, but we also look around.
F
Leisure*
One day a Colonel Sa'ab from the Army, fell into a well. The soldiers threw a rope into the well and pulled the Colonel Sa'ab out.
The moment the Colonel came up, the soldiers left the rope, snapped to attention and saluted.
The Colonel Sa'ab fell back into the well.
This happened many times.
Someone suggested that a Brigadier be asked to help-because HE wouldn't have to salute the Colonel.
So a Brigadier Sa'ab arrived. He threw the rope into the well and the Colonel Sa'ab grabbed it.
The Brigadier Sa'ab began pulling the rope. As soon as the Colonel Sa'ab reached the top of the well, he spotted the Brigadier Sa'ab. He immediately left the rope and saluted. And he fell back once more, into the well.
There was total silence. Then everyone heard the desperate Colonel Sa'ab's voice from down below
*"You idiots - get hold of a batch mate !!"*
MORAL OF THE STORY:
Batchmates ARE important !
They can save your life!
(Dedicated to all contemporary batchmates friends at school and college and at office)
*Forward received from Dr T V Surendran Mananthavady
2) Live Dreams*
I woke up today , having dreamt early morning at 4 AM . I was in the biggest Mall of India looking to buy a pair of socks and a neck tie .
As I walked in, I noticed a sweater with a price tag of RS 9000 .Next to the sweater were a pair of Jeans for Rs.10000 .The socks were Rs.8000 ! And Tie for astonishing 16,000 /-
I went looking for a salesperson and found one in the watch Dept
(Continued at H3)
*Received from S R Badrinarayanan Cheñnai
G
Quotes about Assets
https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/assets-quotes
Like :
"I would say don't take advice from people like me who have gotten very lucky. We're very biased. You know, like Taylor Swift* telling you to follow your dreams is like a lottery winner telling you, 'Liquidize your assets; buy Powerball tickets - it works!'"
Bo Burnham
(Robert Pickering "Bo" Burnham is an American comedian, musician, writer, actor, and filmmaker. He began his career on YouTube in March 2006, with his videos gaining over 450 million views as of August 2021.)
And
*Taylor Alison Swift is an American singer-songwriter. Her narrative songwriting, which is often inspired by her personal experiences, has received widespread media coverage and critical praise.
H
1) How the world works : Lyrics
Excerpts :
[Intro: Bo Burnham]
Hey, kids
Today, we're gonna learn about the world
[Verse 1: Bo Burnham]
The world that's around us is pretty amazing
But how does it work? It must be comp-l-icated
The secret is: The world can only work
When everything works together
A bee drinks from a flower and leaves with its pollen
A squirrel in a tree spreads the seeds that have fallen
Everything works together
[Pre-Chorus: Bo Burnham]
The biggest elephant, the littlest fly
The gophers underground, the birds in the sky
And every single cricket, every fish in the sea
Gives what they can and gets what they need
[Chorus: Bo Burnham]
That is how the world works
That is how the world works
From "A" to "zebra" to the worms in the dirt
That's how it works
[Interlude 1: Bo Burnham & Socko]
Hey, everyone, look who stopped by to say hello! It's Socko!
Hey!
Where you been, Socko?
I've been where I always am when you're not wearing me on your hand: in a frightening,
liminal space between states of being! Not quite dead, not quite alive! It's similar to a constant state of sleep paralysis
Socko, we were just talking about the world and how it works
Boy, that sounds complicated!
Do you have anything you'd want to teach us about the world?
I wouldn't say anything that you probably haven't already said yourself
I don't know about that, Socko. How about you give it a try?
All right!
2) Continued from C2
For example, the possibility of ministerial bungalows spread over the whole
city getting substituted by residential
complexes in the vicinity of Parliament
House, Secretariats or Legislative
Houses can be considered. The excess
land and buildings that will get released
will be worth billions which can be rede-
ployed for economic development. The
city traffic also will become smooth.
(b) Domestic gold stocks
Gold management needs a makeover.
Domestic gold stock with individuals
and institutions (including religious
bodies) needs to be accounted and
mainstreamed for the nation’s benefit.
Through an amendment to its ear-
lier instructions, the Resrve Bank of In-
dia (RBI) expanded the ambit of gold-
monetization scheme on January 9,
2019 to enable charitable institutions
and temples/religious bodies, among
others, to invest their gold stock under
the scheme. The revised instructions
give a new avenue for productive deploy-
ment of idle domestic gold stock. This is
a welcome move from the RBI. The new
entities which have become eligible to
invest their gold stock under the scheme
need to be educated about the advan-
tages of mainstreaming their gold
stock. Issues of trust, faith, emotion
and sheer laziness to take responsibil-
ity on the part of voluntary social work-
ers who generally manage the affairs of
trusts and boards of management of re-
ligious bodies need to be addressed
with care and deftness. Past experience
shows, organizations do not spontane-
ously volunteer to part with gold, even if
the investment fetches substantial re-
turns. Perhaps, Tirupati and Siddhivi-
nayak (Mumbai) are the only temples
which have already availed of the facility
to deposit gold in banks and earn income
from such deposits. Some of the other
temples/religious bodies are sometimes
secretive about even the quantity of gold
in their vaults. Governments’ eye on every
asset as an income source (read: tax) also
is behind such fears. According to media
reports, during 2017, Tirupathi temple
had gold deposits of over 4,000 kg with
two banks, fetching the equivalent of
the value of around 80 kg gold as inter-
est per annum. If the center is serious
about mainstreaming domestic stock of
investible gold, massive efforts will
have to be made to create awareness
among the people about the benefits
that will accrue to the country’s
economy by deploying part of the sur-
face gold stock productively. The avail-
ability of sovereign guarantee for the
gold invested, professional handling of
conversion of gold and timely payment
of interest and return of gold or value of
gold will have to be ensured by central/
state governments. The existence of
such protection and facilities should
also be publicized in a business-like
manner to attract investment. Perhaps,
India may be alone in the world to sus-
tain the dubious distinction of grossly
mismanaging domestic gold stock the
country has been holding for centuries
in huge quantities, in multiple forms
and in various places. When the popula-
tion starved and died as a consequence
of bad governance or as victims of
nature’s wrath, Indian rulers allowed
use of huge quantities of gold (a) to be
wasted for gold-plating of roofs, flag-
masts, and statues and (b) to be held in
underground vaults, hidden and unac-
counted, as unproductive ‘assets’. A
positive change in approach to gold is
perceivable from the second half of the
current decade. Errol D’Souza, Director,
IIM, Ahmedabad in his note recorded in
the 3rd Annual Report (2017-18) of the
India Gold Policy Centre had this to say
about gold management in India:
“As a macroeconomist, I uphold the
view that integrating gold with India’s
broader economic vision is the touch-
stone for India’s gold policy and gold
markets. The foremost is adopting
‘Make in India’ policy which should ad-
dress unexplored gold stocks below the
ground, optimal use of gold stocks in cir-
culation, and mobilize gold holdings held
by individuals in lockers and temples.”
At this late hour, GoI needs to un-
derstand the significance of the trea-
sure in the form of gold stock with insti-
tutions and individuals lying idle in the
country. As a short-term plan, concrete
measures should be initiated for put-
ting a substantial portion of the domes-
tic gold stock to productive use in the
next five years. This will reduce the
country’s gold import bill considerably.
This can be achieved by:
• Making a realistic assessment of
gold stock remaining idle in the
country;
• Providing incentives to holders of
gold stock to properly account for the
stock with them;
• Making gold deposits with banks re-
munerative;
• Introducing gold-backed financial
instruments which are not depen-
dent on imported gold (the tiny in-
struments now available in the
form of Gold ETFs, gold coins and
Sovereign Gold Bonds are indirectly
dependent on import and have not
attracted significant investor inter-
est); and
• Quickly arrange for infrastructure,
technology support and linkages for
gold refining and certification facili-
ties of international standard.
RBI also needs to convert the entire
gold stock with it to purer variety con-
forming to internationally acceptable
standard. If this happens, a new chap-
ter in the country’s gold management
will unfold. It is distressing to remember the 1991 ‘gold pledge’ episode to
save the country from a payment de-
fault when the forex reserves of the
country had touched its nadir. Think of
the agony of a central bank governor be-
ing forced to ‘ship’ a small portion of
gold in the central bank vault for pledg-
ing to draw a small amount of dollars.
Even though the gold lying with Bank of
England has long been freed of pledge, it
was not considered necessary to physi-
cally ship the bullion back to India. It
should have been for valid reasons that
options like selling a portion of gold
stock or borrowing dollars against
‘stock’ of gold would have been dropped.
Let us forget all that. But, let us re-
member, if the stock of gold was of inter-
nationally acceptable standard, things
would have been different.
(c) Long coastal areas
India’s long coastal areas remain
underexploited. More mini-ports, fishing
harbors, tourism development, use of
sea-belt for transportation of people and
goods are all areas needing attention.
(d) Forests
Forest mapping, planned re-foresta-
tion, development of medicinal plant
gardens in and around existing forests
and commercial exploitation of forest
produce without destroying environ-
ment need to be prioritized.
(e) Workforce
Workforce in India is in disarray for vari-
ous historic reasons. Privatization of
public services and outsourcing of work
by organizations, reducing the number of
regular employees have affected job se-
curity in the short term and social secu-
rity in the long term. Remuneration for
every day’s work should factor in the con-
cept of fair wage comprising living wage
and post-job survival costs.
Some more issues which need
prioritization
There is something glaringly missing in
management of resources and finance by
GoI and that is planning. This is affect-
ing smooth implementation of schemes
and in some situations, effective func-
tioning of institutions. Illustratively:
HR issues in financial sector and Indian
financial sector service
The RBI can be a case to understand how
interlinked HR issues are with the func-
tional efficiency of public sector organiza-
tions. Presently, the RBI is merging some
departments concerned with supervision
and regulation of different categories of
institutions in the financial sector and is
in the process of inducting expertise by
making direct recruitments at higher lev-
els. The dilution of expertise in depart-
ments other than the monetary policy
and statistics departments has a historic
background. Till the early 1970s, the RBI
had specialized departments for func-
tions needing specialization. In 1972,
combined seniority was introduced for
some of the large departments and inter-
mobility reduced the chances for develop-
ment of expertise by remaining in the
same work areas. The present effort is to
induct experts from outside to compen-
sate for this. A better option would be to
have an All India Financial Sector Ser-
vice similar to Indian Civil Services or
Tata Administrative Service with inter-
mobility among finance ministries (cen-
tral and states), statutory bodies like
RBI, NABARD and IRDA, as also banks
and financial institutions in public and
private sectors.
Indian Pension System
With the introduction of NPS effective
January 1, 2004, all is not well on the
Indian pension front. Review for an
overhaul is overdue. Cost of post-retire-
ment life needs to be factored in, in the
wage structure of employees in govern-
ment, PSUs and in private sector.
Agricultural Income Tax
A consensus has to be reached to tax
agricultural income above a reasonably
high threshold level.
Kisan Samman
Doling out the paltry amount of 17 or 18
per day to farmers below the poverty line
is an insult to the Indian farming commu-
nity. What is needed is to plug the leak-
ages in pricing of farm produce between
the farm gate and the consumer. Once a
reasonable farm gate price for the pro-
duce is assured, the present generation of
workers know how to extract their share
as wages. This can be achieved by promot-
ing cooperatives for production, process-
ing and marketing.
Funding government expenditure
GoI, of late, has been dipping too deep
into the pockets of PSUs and GoI-owned
bodies like RBI to meet shortfalls in
revenue. This approach will definitely
get sympathy from taxpayers and
corporates. Taxpayers’ burden will be
less to the extent GoI mobilizes re-
sources from elsewhere and corporates
can delay or deny repayments, if GoI
makes good the losses suffered by their
creditors. But these are temporary re-
liefs and the country cannot delay map-
ping of domestic resources and ensuring
distributive justice beyond a point.
Works in progress on the
economic front
I think, we should listen first to experts’
views on what they think are the imme-
diate possible measures to put the
Indian economy on a high growth trajec-
tory. A beginner’s guide, which gives il-
lustrative notes on works in progress on
the economic front, is available in book
form authored by experts who were and
are associated with policy formulation/
implementation in their work areas. I
am referring to the book, What The
Economy Needs Now (April 2019), ed-
ited by Abhijit Banerjee, Gita
Gopinath, Raghuram Rajan and Mihir
Sharma, which lists out the issues that
confront the economy today and which
need immediate attention. These in-
clude rising unemployment, banking
crisis, falling GDP, farmers’ unrest, etc.
It also discusses solutions to the vexing
problems such as labor reforms,
healthcare, education and environment.
It is expected the second term of Modi
government would start from where
they left and make sure they work to-
wards reaching those goals in the true
spirit of what the Prime Minister said
in his first interaction with NDA’s
newly elected MPs: ‘Sabka Saath,
Sabka Vikas and Sabka Vishwas’. Let
us hope inclusive growth becomes a re-
ality now that would help realize the
dream called, new India, where no one is
illiterate, where everyone is skilled, en-
gaged in gainful employment, where ev-
eryone contributes to the development
and also benefits as the country
progresses. And that would surely pave
the way for making India one of the
most progressive and prosperous econo-
mies in the world.
****. ****. ****
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