Tuesday, October 09, 2012

China 1989-2009 Heading for TIANANMEN Square part-II?

The memories are scattered and yet intense in fragments. We (a few young journalists) were sitting inside the decrepit and fashionably shabby Press Club of India in Delhi. The debate was about what exactly was happening in Eastern Europe and China and how Mikhail Gorbachov was bringing radical changes in the world of Communism. The discussion inevitably veered towards China where a group of students had led a protest movement demanding more accountability and more democracy from Chinese leaders. Most of us thought that the presence of hundreds of thousands of protestors at Tiananmen Square would inevitably lead to democracy in China. Just then, a senior sauntered in and gave us a lesson in realism by announcing that tanks had rolled into the square and hundreds of protestors had been killed.

The day was June 4, 1989. The bamboo curtain came crashing down on the Middle Kingdom and censorship ensured that not much was known about what really triggered the Tiananmen Square protests. It is only subsequent research by scholars that revealed why China was ready to explode in 1989. After ten years of rapid growth and growing employment opportunities since 1978 when Deng Xiao Peng unleashed economic reforms, the Chinese economy tanked in 1988-89. The GDP growth rate crashed and unemployment soared. Rapidly rising inflation too added to the woes of the Chinese. Then, there was massive anger at widespread corruption and cronyism in the Communist Party. Educated Chinese started thinking seriously that they were paying a heavy price for the economic downturn while those favoured by the party were having a ball.

The most agonising question that must engage all those who care about the future of the world is: Are conditions in China in early 2009 similar to what prevailed 20 years ago in 1989? The more important follow up question: how intense and widespread will the protests be in 2009? The most important question is this: How will the Chinese State now handle the protests? Will Tiananmen Square of 1989 be repeated or will China ‘manage’ to control the looming unrest by moving towards ‘more’ democracy and personal freedom?

Even die hard supporters of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) agree that trouble is looming over the horizon. Says, Zhou Tianyang, one of the most well known scholars of CCP, “Unquestionably, at present, we are inward bound to a peak stage of mass incidents. This year, Chinese people may face even more divergences and spars that will test all the more the governing skills of all levels of the CCP and administration.” Incidentally, ‘Mass Incidents’ is Chinese State speak for riots, protests and unrest! Adds Mao Shoulong, Public Administration expert at Renmin University in Beijing, “The social unrest is gathering. It may well prove as the most severe test since 1989.” Such comments coming from within the establishment in China show how ominous the signs are for the Middle Kingdom.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

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Monday, October 08, 2012

A new form of social ‘Capitalism’

Muhammad Yunus, Nobel laureate, explains why creative capitalism in fact holds all the answers to improve human life, as told to B&E’s Neha Sarin

This Chittagong University economics professor is better known as the man who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his thirty-three year old dream venture – Grameen Bank. Muhammad Yunus, the Father of Micro-credit and a staunch believer in the principle of the ‘social business enterprise’. So while the world hails ‘conventional capitalism’ and accepts the modern theory of ‘creative capitalism’, Yunus – can boast of his brainchild Grameen Bank’s 2,422 branches with aggregate loans of more than $6.8 billion (lent to more than 7.4 million people) – believes that he perhaps had always been a ‘creative capitalist’! The only difference is – he called it a socially favourable economic act. Business&Economy presents an exclusive one-on-one with one of the ‘Greatest Entrepreneurs of All Times’.

B&E: What are your viewpoints about creative capitalism? Is it necessary?
MY: It’s good to be creative and there is no doubt about it. I am very happy that Bill Gates is promoting this idea of ‘creative capitalism’. By doing so, he has recognised that the current form of capitalism is not doing its job as we all expect it to do and what we want to see happen; it is not addressing poverty, healthcare problems and many more social issues. He is mentioning and highlighting, and he is admitting that we need creative capitalism to do the job, and do it well. However, it really doesn’t come with a guarantee of how well it will be done.

If you just look at the word ‘creative’, it means the very essence of progress. So capitalism has to be creative too. But the question is whether this creativity should be put in the present restrictive format that we drive or rub-in this format and define newer boundaries for capitalism. We simply need to look at the term in a new way, perhaps just like the one when I started by trying to bring in social reforms.

Today, ‘social business’ is the missing element in capitalism, and therefore should be included in the system well. The present system is in the business of making money, and textbooks say that the very mission of business is profit maximisation… so no matter what else you want to add with it, the mission remains unchanged. Why don’t we clear-out the sole motive of profit maximisation from business and include social business in it as well; something which will exclusively do good to people. When it comes to me, it was all about ‘others’ and nothing for me as an investor. In no way do I want to benefit myself. As a person, I will be investing in both types of businesses – one in which I will make money, and another in which I would be investing that money to change the world… and that itself should be the ultimate goal for capitalism.

B&E: What, as per you, are the benefits of ‘creative capitalism’?
MY: Honestly speaking, I don’t know if I am really following any kind of creative capitalism. I don’t believe in creative capitalism! I am talking about a new form of capitalism here, which is a nouveau form of completely redesigned and restructured capitalism, where there is room for two kinds of businesses and not just one. So what I have done is that I have created space for new types of businesses like the Grameen Bank where investors don’t really make any profit. Also I have designed a profit maximising business which is all by poor people & is also a social business within the Grameen Bank. I don’t make any money out of that, I don’t own any share or whatsoever in any of the social business I have created. Coming back to your question of creative capitalism; No! I haven’t done any creative capitalism yet and haven’t benefited from it.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

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Saturday, October 06, 2012

ANIMATION & GAMING INDUSTRY: INDIA LAGS BEHIND

Despite Tremendous Potential, Indian Animation and Gaming Industry is still at a Nascent Stage as Compared to the Global Market calling for Some Quick and Radical Steps to Get Going.

There is another key factor that is working against the Indian animation industry at the moment; and that is lack of support from the domestic film industry. Though many of the industry people still believe that the Indian audience is not yet ready for such movies, box office reports have a different story to say. For example, while no Indian animation movie (with due apologies to Bal Hanuman, Ramayana – The Epic and Toonpur Ka Superrhero) witnessed a proper all India theatrical release in the past couple of years, Hollywood animation movies like Ice Age 3 and Monsters vs Aliens enjoyed huge success on Indian soil. For that matter, Avatar mopped up over Rs.1 billion from India and did really well even when it was launched in regional languages. And the less one talks about Indian animation movies in US, the better – there’s none in history that has ever released in the US.

Smita Maroo, VP – Animation, Shilpa Shemaroo Entertainment, tells B&E, “Budgets are a problem in India, whereas Hollywood films like Avatar have good financial backing.” A Deloitte research report corroborates the viewpoint, mentiong, “Indian animation movie are low budget (Rs.100-120 million) movies, primarily meant to hedge the involved financial risks. In doing so, the quality takes a beating and the movie fails to compete with a $100-200 million Hollywood production.”

Meanwhile, the next big thrust for the animation industry is expected to emerge from the domestic gaming industry, which is expected to grow at a CAGR of 53% over the next few years to reach $1.3 billion by CY 2013 from just $239 million in CY 2009 backed by higher Internet penetration. Furthermore, with 3G services set to spread wings across the country, the mobile gaming industry too is all set to catch up fast. Going by a research report published by Tata Strategic Management Group for Italian Trade Commission, Indian mobile gaming market, which was estimated at $66 million in 2009, is expected to grow at a CAGR of 66% to $496 million by 2013. Even in the Internet gaming and social media sites, the gaming culture is widely increasing and on an average, players are now spending 40% of their time on these sites.

However, despite this growth, Indian animation and gaming industry will still be less than 2% of the global industry by 2013. While on one hand, this recognises a huge and long term growth opportunity for India in this field, on the other hand, this also implies that we are lagging behind the global growth model. Says Shubhoshekhar Bhattacharjee, CEO, Planman Motion Pictures (whose superhit movie, Do Dooni Char, was the first movie distributed by Disney in India), “Another aspect that can be of great use for the Indian players at present is that overseas giants like Sony, Imax and Walt Disney have started outsourcing their major work to India.” An example is Rainbow Production, an Italian producer has outsourced an entire film Tommy and Oscar to Toonz Animation Studio from Kerala. Similarly, Nipuna Service, a subsidiary of Satyam Computer Services, is now handling almost 90% of New Zealand-based animation company Applied Gravity’s works. But, the scale is still very miniscule, which clearly points out that Indian animation and gaming industry has to first deal with its inherent problems including manpower crunch, funds and lack of government support before it can match up with the global growth trajectory.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

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Friday, October 05, 2012

Obama Barac‘ked’! is Hope Fading?

The Tea-Party Tidal Wave has Managed to undo the Gains of Democrats; The Shellacking Serves as a Massive Rebuke to President Barack Obama. As Republicans gain Majority Control of the house, Obama needs to Strategically Re-Align his Policies, Priorities and recast his Presidency keeping the 2012 Re-Election in mind

It was on Tuesday, November 4, 2008 the world witnessed and welcomed an unprecedented change in the history of American democracy. A 47 year old, first timer Democrat senator from Illinois, Barack Hussein Obama, who campaigned as a technocratic agent of change, shattered more than 200 years of history by winning US Presidential elections (defeating Republican John McCain) as the first African-American president of the US. Reeling under what was termed as the worst time after the Great Depression of 1930s, the entire historic episode was dubbed as a ‘national catharsis’ – an apparent repudiation of a historically unpopular Republican president, George W. Bush, his economic and foreign policies and most importantly an embrace of Obama’s ‘audacity of hope’ and call for change. Well, those were the days; in a classic case of role reversal, exactly two years

after US embraced change, the same American people have voted against the policies of the change agent. The result of the mid-term elections (held on Tuesday November 2, 2010) was indeed a ‘stinging setback,’ for Obama who was elected with so much hope and exuberance

(see pie charts on the right). Obama’s soaring ascendency is visibly crumbling down, he is essentially facing a bleak political landscape, and one is bound to wonder and ponder if ‘change and hope’ are fading away.

As Republicans celebrate their most historic victory in 62 years, (it was in 1994 when President Bill Clinton’s Democrats lost 54 house seats, which was the biggest shift in power since Democrats lost 75 seats in 1948), Democrats led by President Obama are perhaps coming to grip with what probably went wrong. The shifting blame game has already been initiated – should the blame lie entirely on recession and a series of miscalculations or on the perceived weakness of the President or on the strength of a resurgent Republican party whose hurricane succeeded in dismantling the Democrats’ majority in the house? Probably, the stinging blow and consequently the electoral loss was fuelled by a number of parameters; on the face of it, it was the anger against President Obama’s failure to turn around the slumping economy, the frustration at the ever increasing unemployment statistics (9.6% as per available statistics), and outright fury over the billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money spent on saving the ‘too big to fail’ institutions. Statistically speaking, over $800 billion were spent on the fiscal stimulus package, while commoners lost their homes and struggled to pay their bills. According to Yardeni Research’s communiqué sent to B&E, “Apparently, lots of voters believe that Democrats’ policies over the past two years not only failed to create jobs as promised, but also might have hindered the recovery in the labour market.” Also, the fact that no ruling party has flourished politically in challenging economic times, can’t be dismissed either. Whatever be the case, the Republican avalanche has fallen on the shoulders of Obama; the voters for their part have sent a clear message to Obama and his coterie – they want sincere and consistent efforts as well as a focus on the state of economy and jobs.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
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Monday, September 10, 2012

Frog odours, anyone?

A number of worthless and frivolous researches are giving the World of science and reason a boorish tinge; we say ban them!

Research and development across fields and disciplines has achieved great heights in its outcomes. But at the same time, some exercises and endeavours have also breached the depths of naivety. Consider this: Professor J. Mack and D. Jacobs of Harvard Medical School and Temple University published a paper that made a startling conclusion with respect to the people who believed they were kidnapped by aliens from outer space. They concluded from their pathbreaking research that “the focus of abduction is the production of children”.

This is not an exception. The University of Michigan (ranked 15th in the world) conducted a research in 2008 that attempted to find out whether doing exercises helps reducing weight rather than sitting and watching television all day long. No marks for guessing what they found. Or if you’re dying to find out this, consider the University of Alberta (ranked 127th), which came out with a research on the relationship among height, penile length and foot size. One is left guessing which industries such a research would benefit. Or take the ‘Technical’ University of Denmark (ranked 122nd), which published a paper on the impact of wet underwear on thermoregulatory responses and thermal comfort in the cold.

University of Adelaide (ranked 73), Australia, published a paper that researched odorous secretions in 131 species of frogs, and found out the odours that frogs produce under stress. Which biological benefit to mankind would this serve, is left to suspense. Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organisation calculated the number of photographs one must take to more or less ensure that nobody in a group photo has his/her eyes closed.

University of Spain calculated ultrasonic velocity in cheddar cheese as affected by temperature; Stockholm university (ranked 168) established a relationship between chicken and humans by proving that chickens prefer beautiful humans; Newcastle University (ranked 152) shows that women prefer taller men for good one night stands and shorter men for committed relationships.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
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