50 Days of Demonetization – 'Things Gone Right / Things Gone Wrong' - Analysis

Demonetization

Today (30^th December 2016) marks the 50^th day after our PM Shri Narendra Modiji announced a historic move of demonetization of high value currency notes of ` 500/- and ` 1000/- on 8^th of November 2016.

In his high-octane speech on 8^th November, Modiji urged citizens of India to bear the brunt of demonetization till 30^th December (for 50 days) by which he expected the things would return to normalcy. As promised by him; indeed situation is improving as I like many others could withdraw 5-6 thousand rupees in 2 days from ATM and our waiting time was not more than 5 -6 minutes each day.

Much has happened in these 50 days right from the doors of government to opposition and from public to media. So this attempt is to list down “Things Gone Right” (TGR) and “Things Gone Wrong” (TWG) from a point of view of lay man like me who is a Modi supporter.

New Notes of Rs. 500/- and Rs. 2000/-

No.	TGW (Things Gone Wrong)	TGR (Things Gone Right)
1.	Unpunished, ever-growing and socially acceptable corruption and black money since past 70 years of Indian Independence	Guts shown by our PM to take steps against such menace of a corrupt system and black money
2.	a) Long queues, cash crunch, inconvenience to general public all across India. b) Few stray incidences of public unrest.	a) Support given by citizens from all walks of life even at the cost of huge inconvenience to them. b) Support of citizens arrested by our PM through no. of public speeches with no major incidence of public unrest against overwhelming and inevitable problems of demonetization. c) Initial support given by almost all of the opposing parties
3.	a) Unpreparedness of GOI seen through stalled micro economic activities due to crash crunch. b) Frequent policy changes by GOI and RBI and c) some time complete reversal of its policies.	a) Nothing would have prepared anyone for the herculean task of scrapping 80 – 86% of the currency in circulation in the vast country like India. b) It reflects agility of the system (big difference from Manmohan era) in spite being a ‘Sarkari’ system and speed of decision making of GOI. c) Policy reversal reflects willingness of GOI to accept its mistakes and do the course correction.
4.	a) Nothing was done by the GOI (like printing more currency notes of low denominations) in anticipation of the cash crunch in cash driven economy of India. b) Even in his speech on 8th; Modiji fell short of portraying the severity of the entire overhaul and most of the commoners especially from metros inaccurately considered money exchange and cash withdrawal would return to absolute normalcy within couple of weeks.	a) High level of secrecy and surprise was at most important to arrest black to white conversions of politicos and corrupts.
5.	Life came to a standstill with no cash to spend on daily necessities particularly in villages and more so for the remote villages where there is zero or limited exposure to financial institutes and internet.	Remarkably reduced naxalism, terrorism, human trafficking etc. In fact economic activities began to normalise in Kashmir after demonetization as separatists are left with no money to entice Kashmiri youths in to stone pelting and other anti-national activities.
6.	Still lot of them were able to convert black money in to white through illegal means.	These cases coming in to light shows how strong the system has become and how determined the government is to win this battle against black money.
7.	Agitations of opposition parties against government with the aim to get a traction to stop Modi wave	Modi wave is far from dying. BJP is a clear cut winner in local gram panchayat and municipality elections.
8.	Most of the media (presstitutes) being against Mr. Modi and BJP were busy telecasting only the negative impacts of demonetization.	Still there were couple of news channels which were firmly supportive of the decision.
9.	Normalcy is still a distant dream as cash crunch is going to bother us for couple of more months.	a) Cash crunch is easing out for sure and as explained in the introduction, I have experienced it myself. b) Cash crunch is turning out to be a good push for the digital / cash less or limited cash economy - though this might not have been the initial aim.

Finally, in the short term it might be easy to conclude that demonetization was a 'poorly executed - correct decision' (economic indicators like GDP, IIP might support this statement) or nothing on the balck money / corruption front will actually change in the long run; making this entire exercise of demonetization a futile one but I am more happy that my PM elect believes in action.

Action with an intention of correcting it if gone wrong is better than the inaction of decades! 

Amar Photo Studio - A Magnificent cinema that is played on-stage.

You have always herd and experienced that cinema as a medium is stronger than drama. But this notion of yours will be proved absolutely wrong when you will watch Amar Photo Studio and it indeed is that brilliant!

It actually starts with a scene which gives a feel of an extension of Z Marathi daily soap 'Dil Dosti Duniyadari' (for the obvious reason of the same artists) but as soon as the protagonists with a heavy baggage of their emotions enter the wonder land of 'Amar Photo Studio' you literally don't remain in this world. Literally!

The cast - Suvrat Joshi, Amey Wagh, Pooja Thombare, Siddhesh Purkar and Sakhi Gokhale mesmerize you with their acting prowess and comic timming. Except Sakhi, rest of them play more than one character of different length and all of them skilfully and effortlessly mould in each of their character. Amongst them all, Siddhesh is the master of disguise, and as he is still not a well known face you might not recognize him in all his roles.

Scenes of Chandrika (Pooja) and Appu (Suvrat) are the highlights of 1^st half. Amey is damn good as a veteran fillm personality he portrays. Rendition of ‘Char bottle vodka’ with a twist is catchy too. Sakhi’s sheer energy is contagious. But Suvrat’s double role as Appu and his father in a single scene is hands down the best of all.

Kudos to Manaswini Lata Ravindra – the writer of the play – just for thinking of writing a play on the very concept of Amar Photo Studio (I won’t disclose it’s one line theme here as you have to watch it yourself). Lights by Shreyas Talpade – Bang on. Dicto for the music and background score by Gandhar (and Akshay Vaidya). Applause for set design and set changes.

And finally star of the show is the director – Nipun Dharmadhikari (yes he is the one who is listed in the top 30 theater personalities in the world for the year 2016 in Forbes list). He is the to be credited for presenting a 'play' with a 'cinematic brilliance'. He has definitely blurred the line between a drama and a cinema. 

His idea of using black white and retro colours right from set to costumes to lights is praise worthy. Presentation of fight sequence between Suvrat and Siddhesh and Suvrat’s double role are just fantastic.

 Nipun and all the artists have preserved the subtle comedy (no puns (कोटी) or heavy body gestures (अंगविक्षेप)) in the writing of Manaswini ;making this play a delight to watch.

The marketing and social media strategy adopted by them (Gandhar) to promote this play will give you an idea of how ‘hat ke’ this play is. Right from their teaser; challenging well known Marathi artists to upload their age old photographs to their ritual of clicking the photos of audiences after each play and uploading it on their FB page Amar Photo Studio requesting audiences to comment on the photo with their seat no is simply out of the box.

Teaser Challange

 So basically I have all the praises for this play. May be I will have to watch it again to appreciate all its nuances.

So? go and get lost in the fantasy world of ‘Amar Photo Studio’!! and please please please don’t miss this fabulous play produced by Sunil Barve! 

From Left: Pooja Thombre, Nipun Dharmadhikari, Amey Wagh, Sunil Barve, Suvrat Joshi, Sakhi Gokhale, Siddhesh Purkar

Facts Vs Speculations about drop in real estate market

Instances of speculations indicating drop in real estate market:

1.     2008-10: During sub-prime crisis which hit developed nations in 2008 and India in 2010

2.     Early 2016: Law for Real Estate Regulatory Authority

3.     Nov 2016: Demonetization of Rs. 500 & Rs. 100 Notes

Now let’s quickly visit the Facts:

1.     2008 – 2014: Contrary to the expectations, property rates have steadily gone up (yes, increase was not as magnificent as it was from 2002 – 2008). In fact it doubled in or around 2014 as compared to what it was in 2008.

I have seen lot of customers who were sitting; on fence in 2008 - 2010 speculating the rate drop had to buy the same property for double the cost.

2.     Early 2016: As soon as government announced the act to regulate real estate sector, media started speculating drop on following points:

a.     Huge inventory: Due to substantial profits in the boom period which started from late 90’s and continued up till 2012-14; supply increased multi fold where as demand couldn’t keep up the pace.

b.     High end apartments: entire real estate sector was focusing on making high to ultra high end apartments where as no one paid any heed to the dire need of affordable housing projects.

Even though demand-supply mismatch was on all time high; except for the small unorganized and noob developers or the developers operating in the fringe areas of the city; organized builders held on to their rates.

They surely came up with schemes and tie ups for zero down payment / no EMI till possession / free rent till possession etc which basically enticed or forced customers to buy by giving some respite a. in payment or b. in time to make that payment. With this by holding the price at same level; they ensured the sale.

3.     Nov 2016: With government’s surgical strike on black money; speculations are rife about drop in real estate prices. But let me tell you reasons to counter this argument:

a.     Drop in supply: With situation explained in point no 2 above, there are fewer new launches and thus supply side has finally started taking cognizance of demand side.

b.     Lesser project sanctions: It’s an open secret that no real estate project could start without bribing government officers. In absence of black money with builders to bribe them; lesser no of projects will get through red tapism of  Government babus which will further reduce the supply.

c.      Cheaper loans: With huge money getting parked in banks, interest rates on loans are sure to come down. Housing loans would be no exception to this.

d.     Unattractive interests on FD: Higher the money with banks, lesser is the need for more money from retail investors like us and lesser would be the interest rates for FD’s / RD’s. Thus making FD’s unattractive for investments.

e.      Volatile gold prices: Gold was considered most liquid investment but with frequent ups and downs in its prices; it has become less reliable option for investments.

With further push from government against black money, gold smiths might have to stop paying in cash for the gold sold by the retail investors like us; thus further reducing the liquidity and major reason for gold investment.

f.       Profits is the motive behind any business and not charity: Let’s look at the cost implications of typical real estate project in the newly developing real estate pockets of Pune:

Head	Approx Cost in Rs. / sq. ft.	Remarks if any
Land Cost	1000	For a land not laying in the heart of the city (includes its price and necessary permissions and higher FSI bought with TDR)
Construction Cost	2500	With customer’s expectation of top end specifications and increased prices of raw materials; construction cost has gone up substantially.
Admin / Running Cost	500	Includes office, staff, marketing etc costs necessary for smooth running of the business.
Total	4000

So now don’t you think any builder would charge 1000-2000/sq. ft. more as his profit and provision for future projects?

Thus this increases per sq. ft. rate to 5000-6000 which is a norm these days.

g.     Builders who don’t take black money: Yes; even they exist! From past 6 years I am working with a builder where not a single naya paisa is taken in black and we are surviving this way. I also know quite a few builders in Pune who strictly follow this principal.

With current scenario builders who used to accept black money will also start accepting white money as losing a client would be far worse than losing few lakhs (per customer) in black.

h.     Presstitutes: Press is ought to write catchy headlines in newspaper. You must have read ‘Real Estate prices to drop by 30%’ in all the newspapers. But if you thoroughly read the entire article, you will understand that they are talking about a sharp fall in secondary markets (resale apartments) where black money transactions are very common.

Now the next question would be; will there be no impact of the government decision on real estate sector? I would answer this question in following points:

1.     Resales and land deals: As explained above resale and land deals where black money transactions are rampant will be hampered.

2.     Fresh sales: As explained in point no. 2; builders who have holding capacity will come up with some enticing offer without reducing the costs. The new launches will see small apartments with moderate specifications so as to reduce the total package.

Small builders will be left with no other option but to sale at discounted prices.

3.     Rising incomes: Real estate prices will plateau for few more years and by that time income of an individual would have increased to such an extent that real estate investment again becomes affordable to him.

So what you should do now?

1.     Investors: Refrain from the market as real estate won’t see phenomenal growth in near future.

2.     Actual user: I don’t foresee massive deep in real estate market unless and until this sluggish cycle stretches beyond couple of years and builders are forced to book the losses.

Avoid fancy projects with high level of automation / high end specifications / long list of amenities as you actually don’t need / use all these fancy features / amenities. If possible go for a single building project with no amenities like pool and gym as hardly any person in a family will use these amenities throughout the year.

P.S.: Above article is the compilation of views / thoughts of people employed in real estate sector and you would relate to it with a simple test of logic or common sense.

Few articles from Rediff supporting this view: why-you-should-buy-your-dream-home-now
                                                                           i-dont-see-real-estate-prices-coming-down

Gaurakshak aur Gyani Part 3 (गोरक्षक और ज्ञानी भाग ३)

Swami Vivekanand

Gaurakshakaur Gyani Part 1 (गोरक्षक और ज्ञानी भाग १)
Gaurakshak aur Gyani Part 2 (गोरक्षक और ज्ञानी भाग २)

गोरक्षक और ज्ञानी भाग ३ ज्ञानीः अगर ये तर्क तुम्हे नही मना पा रहा तो स्वामी विवेकानंदजी और स्वातंत्र्यवीर सावरकरजी की सीख जरूर मना लेगी। गोरकक्षकः विवेकानंद और वीर सावरकरजी! ज्ञानीः हॉं हॉं, सुने तो हैं ना ये दो नाम? गोरकक्षकः दुनीयांमे कोईभी इंसान जो अपने आपको एक सच्चा हिंदु समजतां हैं, वो ये दो नाम भगवान के बाद लेगा। ज्ञानीः खाली नाम लेकरही रूके हो की इन दो महान व्यक्तीयोंका कुछ साहीत्य, कमसे कम उनके बारे मैं कुछ पढाभी हैं? गोरकक्षकः जी हॉं, नेताजी केहेते हैं... ज्ञानीः यही परेशानी का जड हैं मेरे वत्स! दो-चार सनकी लोग तुम्हे कुछ बताते हैं और तूम ‘बाबा वाक्यम् प्रमाणम्’ बोलके मान लेते हो। कीसी भी चिज की तरफदारी या विरोध उस चिजके बारेमें पुरी जानकारी लिये बगैर कैसे करते हो? खैर, इन दोनोंने गोरकक्षाके बारेंमें बहोतही क्रांतीकारी विचार प्रदर्शित किये हैं। गोरकक्षकः और वो क्या पंडीतजी? ज्ञानीः उस वक्त बोहत बडा सूखा पडा था। विवेकानंदजीके पास एक आद्मी अकालसमे गोसंवर्धन हेतू चंदा मांगने आया। तब स्वामीजीने उसे कहा की “गाय का तो ठिक हैं लेकीन तूम सूखेसे पिडीत लोगोंके लिये क्या कर रहे हो?” सावरकरजीने तो हिंदु धर्मको उसका खोया हुआ वैज्ञानिक दृष्टीकोन यानेके scientific base वापसदेने हेतू काफी विस्त्रुत लेखन कीया हैं। उन्होने यहॉं तक कहॉं हैं की दुध ना देनेवाली बुढी / बीमार गायोंसे अगर कोई गरीब छुटकारा पाना चाहे तो उसे गुन्हा नहीं सिर्फ गलत माना जा सकता हैं। कुछ समजे नेताजीके अनुयायी? गोरकक्षकः हॉं लेकीन... ज्ञानीः और एक बात, कीसीभी धर्म की ताकत किसमें होती हैं? गोरकक्षकः वो धर्म मानने वाले लोगोंमें पंडीतजी। जितने जादा लोग, उतना बलशाली वो धर्म। ज्ञानीः सही कहॉं। और अगर किसीभी चिजको तूम डिव्हाईड करते हो या बाटते हो, तो वो चिज बढती हैं या घटती हैं? गोरकक्षकः आसान हैं घटती हैं। ज्ञानीः तो फीर यहीं आसान बात जब तूम गोहत्या के आशंकाके कारण किसी दलीतकी – जो इस हिंदु धर्म का अभिन्न अंग हैं – हत्या करते हो तब समझ नही आती? पेहेलेसेही सवर्ण लोगोंने धर्मके खिलाफ इतने सालोंसे जो उनपें अत्याचार किये हैं उससे वो हिंदू धर्मसे दूर जा रहे हैं और उसमें तूम जैसे लोगोंकी हरकतोंसे दूरीयॉं और बढ रही हैं। वक्त रेहेते तूम लोग अभी सुधर नही गये तो एक समय ऐसा आयेगा की हिंदू धर्म पर रोने के लीयेभी कोई हिंदू नही बचेगा! गोरकक्षकः हॉं सच कहॉं पंडीतजी! ज्ञानीः और दुसरी तरफ तूमलोग अपने मुस्लीमबंधूओंको तकलीफ देते हो। इससे बाकी कुछ नही पर तूम आयसीस जैसे आतंकी संघटनोंका काम आसान कर रहे हो। वो तो चाहते हैं की ज्यादासे ज्यादा मुस्लीम युवक उनके तरफ आकर्षित हो। गोरकक्षकः तो इसका मतलब हम कुछ ना करे? हॉंत पर हॉंत धरे बैठे रहे? ज्ञानीः तुम्हे अगर कुछ करनाही हैं तो हमारे आदरणीय पंतप्रधानजी का केहेना मानो. गायको प्लॅस्टीक बॅग्स् खानेसे रोको। ईश्वर तुम्हारा भला करे। शुभम भवतू। समाप्त

Gaurakshak aur Gyani Part 3 Gyani: Wait my boy! If reasoning doesn’t convince you then teachings of Swami Vivekanand and Swatyantravir Savarkar definitely will. Gaurakshak: Vivekanand and Veer Sawarkar? Gyani: Yes! I hope you have heard these names! Gaurakshak: For any proud Hindu these two names are next to the God! Gyani: Great! So you must have read their books or at least have read about their teachings? Gaurakshak: Yes of course! Netaji says... Gyani: Here lies the root cause of the problem. Couple of mad leaders like him brain-wash you and then that becomes the universal truth for you! How can you support or oppose any thought, thing or person before being 100% sure about it/him? Anyways, Swamiji and Sawarkarji have expressed revolutionary thoughts in context of Cow protection. Gaurakshak: And what are those Punditji? Gyani: It was a time of great drought when one person came to Swamiji asking for the fund for the welfare of cows. Then Swamiji told him “That’s fine. But what about the welfare of drought affected humans?”                           Even Veer Sawarkarji has done extensive writing to give back the scientific base to the Hindu religion. He has said that, it cannot be considered a crime but just a mistake if a very poor owner of a cow thinks of getting rid of his old useless cow. So have you taken any lesson netaji’s follower? Gaurakshak: Yes but... Gyani: One more thing - tell me; what is the real strength of any religion? Gaurakshak: It is in number of its followers Punditji. Gyani: Absolutely correct! Now tell me if you divide anything then will it increase or decrease? Gaurakshak: Obviously it will decrease... Gyani: Then why don’t you apply the same logic when you think of harming any dalit just on the suspicion of killing a cow or eating beaf? Do you forget that this dalit too; like you and me is undisputedly a Hindu? Atrocities forced upon these downtrodden by the so called upper casts in the past have already made them wary of Hinduism and to top that people like you still deny them the respectable life they deserve. Allow me little exaggeration; if you continue this way, very soon Hinduism will be an extinct religion. Gaurakshak: Yes, true Punditji! Gyani: On the other hand you trouble Muslims too. Don’t you see by doing this you are making it easier for terrorist organizations like ISIS to recruit our Indian brothers? Gaurakshak: So in short you are suggesting us not to do anything for the well being of a cow? Gyani: No my boy; our honourable Prime Minster has recently made a profound statement on this. He said, if you want to protect a cow, protect it from eating plastic bags. What a realistic thought my boy! Do work on it! May god be with you! Shubham Bhavatu! The End

Swatyantraveer Sawarkar