Socionomics

There is a widely cited axiom that in a Democracy, whenever any of the three pillars of the democracy viz. the Executive, the Legislature, or the Judiciary fails to execute its duties responsibly, the other one steps in to fill the vacuum. The veracity of the axiom has been quite validated by the recent High Court order for immediate commencement of anti-encroachment drive in jharkhand where the government for the past 10 years has been playing just the role of being a nominal representative. I was more than happy when i had, what i would say a glimpse of reforms in ranchi, just before the national games. I was so excited to see the roads being widened, encroachments being lifted, vehicles getting parked at the right places instead of the roadsides, auto-rickshaws not being allowed to pick more passengers than is the rule and above all the overall sense of freshness and optimism in the air.For the first time i realised that even my city could look beautiful,but for the unwillingness of...

This article is an aggregation of the facts and figures circling the 2G scam and an attempt to simplify the whole trail of money as gleaned through various articles and news pieces.Also this article circles around just one of the many financial misappropriations which may have occured and specifically tries to unveil the shahid balwa-anil ambani-karunanidhi deal(i.e the DB realty-reliance ADAG-Kalaignar TV trio).But then the special attention paid to this deal is not unwarranted since at the core of it lies a financial chicanery so acute that it could have won it a nobel, had there been such a category and connecting the dots of which would be an arduous task even for steve jobs. So here lies the sequence of events which have made india poorer by a sum which runs into lakhs of crores of rupees. 1.Anil Ambani is lured by the looming massive profits in the upcoming spectrum allocation but cant ask for spectrum for a different company since his group ADAG already has a company by the name...

"Doodh mangoge, kheer denge. Kashmir mangoge, Tees mar khan dikha denge" is what the recent FB status update of one of my friends read like."Tees mar gae Tees Maar Khan dekh ke" was another. So comes this blog as a deliberate attempt to lambaste the image of the so called actor and superstar, Akshay kumar and there would be no attempt in whatsoever measures in using any soft words for him, for he has cast a gloom over the sanity of the people who dared to watch his recent release "Tees Maar Khan" in entirety. There have been reports of cinema hall owners shutting the exit gates during the movie lest someone escapes and then offering free refreshments to injured people during the interval. In fact the interval has been voted as the best scene in the entire movie and people pleaded to let the interval continue a little longer.The share markets are said to have reacted sharply after the initial reviews started pouring in and are said to have touched the year ...

"One man with courage makes a majority"- Andrew Jackson.  So does nitish!!! Nothing could be more heartening for a man living in the world's largest democracy to see  developemental issues win over casteism and petty politics in Bihar.It reaffirms one's belief  in democracy and in the cliched expression that ballot is more powerful than the bullet. Bihar,as a state had long been marred by myriad problems such as casteism, corruption at all  levels, a widely underdeveloped infrastructure & even natural disasters like floods.The only  industries that seemed to flourish during the past two decades had been those of extortion , kidnapping and mass massacres in the name of proving caste superiority. Every single representative sitting in the legislative assembly did seem to be struck by the lure of  corruption. The MLA's competed among themselves to amass as much wealth as they could in every single way possible. But then a king is a king and here also the king, th...

One can easily notice the spurt in the common man's interest in the fields of economics and  finance in the past decade or so, which has been fuelled by a number of factors. One of the  important attributable factors among them is the relatively simplified economic theories  presented these days by the contemporary economists such as Thomas Friedman,  Malcolm Gladwell, Steven levitt,Nassim Taleb et al, who rather classify themselves as popular economists.   Among those theories, some of the most interesting or rather amusing ones have been compiled  below. Amusing though, one cannot deny the veracity of the logics upon which these theories are  based: 1.Latte Factor:- The latte factor derives it's name from the famous hot coffee drink and has  been given by David Bach. It is used to describe the seemingly small daily expenses like  latte,cigarettes,magazines etc. which add up to a significant amounts over time.David further  argues that one can end rich, just by taking care of ...

"Information is the most expensive commodity on the wall street." - Warren Buffet Insider trading has become a prominent term not only in the financial parlance but also in common man's life given it's conspicuousness in the recent high profile cases such as the satyam fraud, mark Cuban (owner of dallas maverick's basketball team) case and Lehman brothers bankruptcy. In fact the central agencies all over the world have often been grappling with the problem of insider trading and looking for ways to curb it. Insider trading has also changed definitions since it was first recognized as a major problem during the great depression of 1929-33. However the U.S. could come out with a separate law prohibiting the practice of insider trading only in 1961. India was even more late and came out with the sebi(insider trading) regulations only in the year 1992. An insider can be defined as a person who is deemed to have been connected with the company or who is expected...

During the financial turmoil that has been characterizing the markets for over a year and a half now, everyone gets to hear a couple of experts' comments on the condition of the markets every now and then, suggestions for trading the next day and then obviously one's expert comments on how and when the market would recover. in fact people are never satiated by the tonnes of information already beaming in the market ,rather they would watch more and more television programmes and discussions, refer to newspaper editorials and articles on market trends and of course hundreds of financial magazines flooding the market today(thanks to the insatiable and ever increasing greed of the new age investors)on the future course of market to make sure they are thinking in the right way(known as 'confirmation bias' in the financial parlance) or that the decisions taken by them really matches the acumen of warren buffet or atleat the Indian warren buffet, rakesh jhunjhunwala. a rec...