VOX POPULI

by

 Aam Admi

Issue: 155                          Date:  13.06.2016

Contents:

1.       Hilary Clinton On Her Way To The US Presidency

2.       Where Is The Truth?

3.       Should Our Stock Exchanges Not Reflect India’s Economic Performance?

                      Hilary Clinton On Her Way To The US Presidency

With Hilary Clinton becoming the presumptive Democratic Party candidate for the 2016 US Presidential elections after winning the requisite number of delegate votes in the primaries, women’s liberation votaries among the female gender should be at an all-time high. After getting the endorsement of the incumbent President Barrack Obama, Hilary’s campaign has got a further boost in the opinion polls and now it seems that there is a definite chance of a woman making it to the White House and sitting in the Oval Office. From the bra-burning days of Germaine Greer, who has mellowed since, and others who fought for the equality of women in all spheres of life around the world to the likelihood of Hilary Clinton holding the most powerful office of the world has been a long journey for women in general. They had to fight all the way in different spheres of social and business activity to rise to the top. There have been other women heading their governments like we have had in South Asia itself, Sirimavo Bandaranaike in Sri Lanka to Indira Gandhi in India to Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan to Sheikh Hasina in Bangladesh. In Europe we have seen Margaret Thatcher in the UK to Angela Merkel in Germany, the latter being in her second term, and there being many other examples in the rest of the world but holding the Oval Office with the world’s most powerful democracy at your command is a completely different story. With America surely not going to elect a ‘glump’ like Trump to the Presidency, Hilary Clinton by all present indications should become the President of the United States of America. For all the grit and determination that Hilary Clinton characterizes she is known to have a furious temper and a stubborn attitude which she did manage to keep under check during her stint as Secretary of State in President Barrack Obama’s first term barring minor indiscretions like using private servers for email on State issues. That is why many are talking that the label of ‘Iron Lady’ made famous by Margaret Thatcher would suit Hilary well. All said and done after the first black President, USA deserved another first in the form of the first woman President which is well its way to be happening with Hilary Clinton having made a head start.

                 Where Is The Truth?

Lately we have seen in our Indian polity that the habit of taking intractable adversarial positions has come to the fore time and again. The concept of the national good is given the go-by at this time by the opposing parties and they concentrate on raising the pitch of clamour and discord to seemingly absurd and meaningless levels. If the issue is bipolar, that is in between two parties, then this is what happens but in case three parties or more are involved then the issue completely spins out of hand and takes bizarre turns begging the limits of one’s imagination. In all these situations the emphasis on maintaining law and order or trying to solve the problem is the last resort of the involved persons/parties. What they desire to achieve by this is not understood since apparently no purpose is served. Examples of this abound like the JNU video case involving Kanhaiyya where he was booked for sedition. Sometime back with conviction it was said that the video was a ‘fake’ and maybe it formed the basis for Kanhaiyya and his co-students getting ‘conditional’ bail. Now it is being said that the video is genuine. With these changing positions where does the truth lie? This case is a straightforward since it is bipolar that is between Kanhaiyya and the authorities or the BJP. Consider the Dadri lynching of the Muslim gentleman on the suspicion of them possessing beef which was at one point of time said that the offending meat found in the victim’s house was not beef. But now it is stated that it is beef after having gone through forensic tests while the earlier comment was made based on visual examination. The spin being given by the Samajwadi Party (SP) which is in power in UP to this incident is that the meat now stated to be beef was not the one found in the victim’s house. Thus again the question arises as to where is the truth? And for this doubletalk the town of Dadri has developed communal tension.  Here again notice that if it were a bipolar issue between those involved and the authorities the matter would have seen action but with the SP stepping in to defend the victim and project their secular image the matter is turned on its head. There are many examples like this where matters are twisted which makes it extremely difficult for a rational person to unravel them with the intention of getting at the truth.

                Should Our Stock Exchanges Not Reflect India’s Economic Performance?

There was a time earlier to the 1960’s that investing in the stock market was considered akin to gambling and was socially equated to betting at the horse races. The phrase used for such activity was - ‘playing the stock market or playing with shares’ - suggesting that it was nothing but gambling. It was somewhat looked down upon until Reliance led by Dhirubai Ambani made owning shares somewhat respectable and broadened the base of shareholding in companies. Later it was the infamous Harshad Mehta in the early & mid – 1980’s who showed that by investing in shares one could really make money on a regular basis, though you could lose as much. By this time putting your money in shares had gained acceptance and the common phrase now used was  ‘investing’ in the stock market, rather than playing though this phrase remained for those who were more adventurous or specialists like day traders. With more and more Cos. going public one could say that the 80’s were the boom times for stocks in India.  The Rupee was not convertible then and the Indian stock market remained relatively insulated from the ups and downs of the foreign stock markets be it in the West or the Far East. Thus one would say that India emerged relatively unscathed from the crash of the stock markets in 1997 which started from Thailand moved to the Far East and then hit the markets of the West. Compared to the tsunami-like hit that the economies of Thailand, Japan and South Korea took, India was buffeted by a mild impact as one would experience gently moved by the waves if you go out a bit into the sea from the relatively safe position on a beach. Then the Rupee was made partially convertible about a decade ago. By this time the stock market had became the alternate income earner for a large number of investors, if not the only income generator for some. The Indian economy was also going through its cycles of normalcy with the Hindu rate of growth, since revised to 6% from the earlier 4%, and the sluggish trends when the monsoons failed. The stock market kept pace with these movements and was again relatively unfazed when the financial markets crashed around the world in 2007 though not to the extent of 1997. There was more of an impact of this ‘dot com’ bubble burst on India than in 1997. But lately if you see the BSE index, it moves more with the amount of money coming into or being withdrawn from Indian stocks from overseas like FII’s and on what the Dow Jones is doing or the FTSE is not doing or whether the Federal Reserve in the US is planning a rate cut or not. Thus in the last week the BSE went past the 27,000 mark when the news about the Indian economy was that the IIP which is the Indian manufacturing index was in the negative and that Raghuram Rajan, the RBI Governor was unlikely to propose a rate cut. Thus one is compelled to ask does the Indian stock market reflect the Indian economy, its manufacturing and services industries or whether it is like the tail of the kite of the foreign stock exchanges more New York than anyone else which it follows but with lesser pendulousness. Maybe those of you who will read this will say that I do not understand the stock market to whom I must say frankly I do not, but my question remains that should we not have a stock market that follows our economic trends rather like in colonial times play tag to Big Brother.

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