Identity theory & Sports management

Having managed one of the biggest sports brands & guiding quiet a few business to take advantage of sports associations, I think it’s time to understand why sports works for brand building in our context. More so because I was suggesting an isight yesterday and have continued to refine it over the night.

"Consumers believe that automobiles have continued to be our “freedom machines,” a means of both transportation and personal expression. Such long drives/races are a pinnacle of performance for man & machine. While they may not have the necessary skills or perseverance to participate but social causes and associated activities helps them with a fan identity, as with any group identity, being beneficial to the individual in that it may provide a sense of community thus triggering imitation syndrome.”

It’s time for me out down my thoughts on identities and how they build from strictly a sports/celebrity perspective & how it becomes important for brands to learn to distinguish between fan and spectator. We must understand the root of word ‘ Fan’. It comes from ‘Fanatic’.

Within social psychology, there are two dominant theory of identity – 

• Identity theory and 
• Social identity theory

Identity theory is a direct derivation of McCall and Simmons (1978) role-identity theory, which suggests that individuals will base their actions on how

• They like to see themselves 
• They like to be seen by others. 

Therefore, the role-identity requires two components, specifically, the role itself and the identity to be associated with that role. With this in mind, identity theory is rooted in the concept of roles and role-identities. 

Social identity theory, however, is based on Festinger’s (1954) social comparison theory, which suggests that individuals will strive to attach themselves to other individuals who are similar or slightly better. Social identity theory, therefore, focuses on the ways in which individuals perceive and categorize themselves, based on their social and personal identities. Rather than emphasizing role and role behaviors, social identity theory emphasizes group processes and inter-group relations. Both of these theories posit that, theoretically, the self is multifaceted, dynamic, and is generally responsible for mediating the relationship between social structures and individuals behaviour. However, the social identity theory has come to dominate the study of intergroup relations (Brown and Capozza, 2000), while identity theory focuses on the concept of role identities. 

Most sport fan researchers have focused exclusively on social identity theory; however, I argue that identity theory should be used as well. Within identity theory, the process of identity formation requires the individual to define him/herself in terms of the social relationship. In the creation of a fan identity, the individual will develop either a personal identity, a social identify, or both. Identity theory suggests that individuals have choices and it examines why they make the choices they do. The questions that arises and remain to be answered are, why, and how have they chosen a specific team? Furthermore, if identity is created through interaction, what types of interaction led the individual to make the choices he/she made? why individuals find sports to be enjoyable. These reasons include benefits associated with self esteem, an escape from everyday life, entertainment, economic factors, aesthetic or artistic qualities, group affiliation and family needs..

As for the differences between spectators & fans, the former will observe a sport and then forget about it, while fans will have more intensity and will devote parts of every day to the team or the sport itself. Fanship has also been defined as “an affiliation in which a great deal of emotional significance and value are derived from group membership”. Key here is word “group membership” so it makes sense to create communities of like minded people for us i.e. Superbike racing, Endurance racing. In that sense social media becomes very important.. remember its a community of like minded people.

Every activity that we plan must have an objective linking up to one grand idea. It must reinforce the brand relationship with subjects of adulation & create a favourable neighbourhood in consumer mind.

May be this is theory but has been basis of building brands in past i.e. Gillette Mach3, Smirnoff, Captain morgan, Chennai Super kings as I have seen

Decoding children of Saraswati, their thoughts & goodness!

A lot of indians are literally hypnotised, mesmerised or suckered by certain English terms. One of these is:Introspect/Introspection: Examine one's own thoughts or feelings. 

Now very few native English speakers or writers use this term, as it tends to have deep psychological or philosophical elements, but it is among the Indian press and pseudo-academics where it comes to the be used very often, as a term for shutting down any cogent discussion or rebuttal. For example Indians are often asked to 'introspect' which really translates to know your place, and don't get ideas above your station..

I had always looked Indians asking for introspection as a very Hindu thing which is summed up best by a couple of lines from the Bolywood song from "Guddi" - "Hum ko mann ki shakti dena"

The lines are (I copy paste)

दूसरों की जय से पहले, खुद को जय करे 

or

"Conquer yourself before trying to conquer others"

This requires introspection and Indians are stuck in a cycle of introspection about themselves like a program that loops on itself or a scratched record. But your point about asking others to introspect is valid because there is a naive (Indian) assumption that every human is grounded with the basics qualities of right and wrong as we see them (typically dharma values - truthfullness, sanctity of all life including prevention of cruelty to animals etc). There is a huge cognitive bias in imaging that "The other guy surely thinks like I do and if he introspects he will see the logic exactly the way I see it' 

This Indian tendency may well be related to several millennia of not having to face invasions from people who are brought up with ideas so different from our own that Indians stiil don't understand what hit them. Typically Abrahamics from outside India (or those who grow up in a non Indian environment) have no foundational training in the values of introspection. In fact in the religions Islam and Christianity, introspection has already been done for the aam Abdul and he already knows that those who don't agree with his world view are wrong. No introspection required. Nothing to look inside. Nothing to discover. It's all there in the book.

It reminds me a thing from past. Whenever any guests would come home my mom would ask me to adjust n compromise on my things so that the guests be given preference and be kept as much happy as possible. When we used to go to some relatives as guests, then also she would tell me to compromise and be least intrusive and demanding so that the host should not be troubled. As a kid, I would ask when the hell then I get preference???     

What does this tell you?? This is a tendency I have seen in many dharmik desi people. Ans I see this as a part of equation why we give a lot of importance to others i.e. outsiders and what they think, do or say.

Looking internally is a very Indian thing and it certainly results in some unique social consequences. Indians have been bringing up children to look internally for so many thousands of years that it is almost in our genes. It results in interesting social consequences - especially a phenomenon that has been remarked upon by many - that is areas of Indian cities, towns and villages that are secure and law abiding despite the near-absence of police.

Indian "inward thinking" has never been empty of aims - it prompts one to judge what is right and wrong for others based on what is right and wrong for oneself. One significant consequence of the "ideal" of searching within oneself is that the idea of forcing one's own beliefs on others, or even using violence to make a point on someone else except for self protection comes out looking as unnecessary because it is expected that the other guy too is looking inside himself and has found answers which can be discussed in debate.

This mental attitude is suicidal when faced with an ideology that does not require any thought. Thoughts have already been thunk by others and put down in a rule book. All you need to do is follow the rule book. One of the reasons why people find India to be anarchic is because no one sees "rule books" as the ultimate source of wisdom that trumps self examination and eternal truths of dharma. What Indians forget is that having a constitution and a "rule book" of laws is essential for self protection of a nation in a world where everyone has retreated into his own "nation". The Indian concept of "vasudaiva kutumbakam" has been chopped up into multiple cake-slices called "nation states" each of whom claim superiority, moral ascendancy and unique laws that exclude others.

Our philosophy has always put a lot of emphasize on understanding yourself to understand the universe, look inwards, conquer yourself etc etc. I have argued with many dharmik and libtards over this that how this is alright when everyone is doing this. But this necessarily introduces some kind of passivity in the system. When your neighbour is hell bent on killing you, introspection does not help. Precisely because of this, when we have Arjun complementing over killing his own relatives, we have Krishna to make him understand that it needs to be done. The way I see it is, we have a balanced system where if the first and foremost importance is given to the virtue of knowledge and wisdom, the second in line is Kshatriya Dharma which ensures that our way of life be preserved. Sadly we lost this one. As the Kshatriya dhrma was eroded, we became more and more vulnerable and ultimately total slaves under brishit rule.

Today this tendency to introspect has become a bane for us where we are contemplating everything we are doing but we do not question worse things from others because perhaps we think its none of our business. There are countless Hindus who vehemently oppose animal sacrifice to some local deity in some small community but tend to discount large scale sacrifice on Eid (And I am not even talking about libtards). It is truth that we are not raised to follow rule books and we are free to question anything and everything. Anyone can accept or discard any belief and still be a Hindu. Its not very difficult to find pakka religious, agnostic and atheist persons in same family, but all of them be happy Hindus. We are not raised to blindly follow something. And its one of the biggest strength of our civilization. But the passivity that comes with this is suicidal and to balance this Kshatriya dharma is defined. We need to revive the system in its entirety to make it work properly. 

Everytime some outsider comes and points a finger at us, we sit down and introspect what wrong we are doing. And the outsiders have exploited this to the fullest.

Have you ever noticed this in past - a couple of decades ago perhaps - if some outsider comes complaining about a kid, the kids parents would slap the kid first and ask why he did it rather than first trying to figure out if that outsider is even telling truth or not. In general more trust would be shown on outsider than one of your own family member

The lunacy of fixed fiscal deficit targets

Fiscal deficit is the excess of payments over receipts of the government. The quantum of fiscal deficit in budgets in India is fixed by law — the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) law enacted in 2004 by ABV government in order to balance the budget. The FRBM law has mandated that, in every budget from 2005, the fiscal deficit should keep coming down till the 3 per cent limit is achieved by budget 2009. But because of the global financial crisis in 2008, the UPA government deferred the target date, justifiably. But with the passage of FRBM law, the rate of fiscal deficit has come to play determinative role on budgets. If a budget moves on the road map to get to 3 per cent fiscal deficit, the finance minister is glorified. If not, he gets demonised.

I have been saying for long that fiscal expansion or contraction should be aligned with credit contraction or expansion respectively, in the economy. There is an inverse correlation between fiscal deficit (fiscal expansion) and bank credit (monetary expansion). That is, if credit growth falls, fiscal deficit may need to rise and if credit rises, fiscal deficit ought to fall — to ensure adequate money supply to the economy. I have been pointing out for some time that the current strategy of “loose monetary “ policy with tight fiscal policy (taxation/spend policy) is not going anywhere and will lead to perpetual stagnation by keeping asset prices high while limiting the means of middle class to buy them. 

Not many people even know how this limit of 3% came into existence? Is there any mathematical reason or logic behind it? Nope! It was just accepted as as number to align with EU target, which too was not an arithmetical deduction but  a negotiated one between various countries of EU. It made its advent in fiscal economics when European nations signed the famous treaty at Maastricht in the Netherlands to form the European Union (EU) as an economic and monetary union in 1992. The treaty named after the university city Maastricht was preparatory for the EU to evolve as a single currency — the Euro — zone from January 2002. A national currency is the product of a politically sovereign state in exercise of what is known as its “seignorage power”. Put in layman’s language, seignorage power is the authority to print nation’s currency or borrow from central bank. In monetary economics, this means creating money if the economy needs it.
It is critical for survival of Euro as currency because if the individual nations do not comply with the package, the Euro will not survive as a common currency. The package agreed stipulated that a member’s inflation should not exceed 1.5 per cent over the average of three member states with the lowest inflation; its public debt should not exceed 60 per cent of GDP, and importantly, its fiscal deficit should not exceed 3 per cent of its GDP. For Eurozone’s survival as one monetary unit, individual nations cannot have inflation, debt, interest or fiscal deficit beyond the agreed limit. This is how the magic figure of  ‘3’ made its way in the fiscal greatness parameter discourse.

But how did the Eurozone honour the deficit figure 3 per cent of GDP? Of the 12 members, 10 breached the 3 per cent limit during the twelve years, 1999 to 2011 — Greece, every year; Portugal,10 years; Italy, eight; France, seven; and the strongest one, Germany, five. Also the ceiling 60 per cent of debt to GDP, inherently linked to fiscal deficit, too was violated by most including France, Spain, Belgium, Austria, Italy, and Germany. The Maastricht treaty, including the 3 per cent rule, is observed more in breach.

How did this farce made it's way to India?

Our economic gurus of UPA devised a formula to deflect criticism of copying EU. It was first reported that the magic figure was recommended by a committee of the finance ministry, but no such recommendation seems available on record. Later, somewhere in 2006, long after FRBM law had adopted the 3 per cent limit, Dr S Rangarajan and Dr Subbarao explained the logic of the magic 3 per cent thus: out of the average financial savings of India, which was 13%, 5% would “go” to private sector cos and of the balance 8%, 2% would go to public sector undertakings — “leaving” 6% for central and state govts to be appropriated 50:50 between them to fund their deficits. That was how the 3% limit for the central govt in FRBM was rationalised. What if the pvt sector refuses to utilise 5% of the allocation or doesn't have the capacity to use As evident from the decreasing credit to GDP ratio? What if the pvt sector needs more? Is the basis for fiscal deficit not linked to the extent of credit demand by private corporates rather than by the amount of savings notionally allocable to them?

See what S Gurumurthy has to say about this madness of fiscal responsibility and needs..

"The logic of correlation between credit expansion and fiscal deficit has five sequential limbs.

One, money is the blood of economic growth.

Two, most money that fuels the economy is created by banks, not by government.

Three, banks and financial institutions fund business and others, and it is that credit money which drives the economy.

Four, if, for whatever reason including lack of business confidence, the bank credit to the economy does not adequately grow, like it did not in the last few years, economic growth will suffer for want of adequate money.

Five, that is when the Budget needs to step in, to pump money into the economy by incurring deficit (spending more than the income), and, for the purpose, borrow the money lying with banks or even by printing more money, if that is needed.

The fifth limb ensures that growth does not decelerate for want of enough money circulating in the economy. Otherwise, it will. The FRBM law has ignored the fourth and fifth limbs of the logic and fixed the 3 per cent fiscal deficit as inviolable. The time has come to uncover how far its intents match with the reality and how rational its fixation with the 3 per cent limit is. The working of the FRBM law, particularly in the last few years, needs a reality check." 

It seems that for their own very selfish reasons a Group of economist now being promoted by Bloomberg Group called “Modern Theorists” (?) have started calling for higher fiscal deficit limit.

Eventually loose monetary policy + loose fiscal policy will convert the present stagnation to stag-inflation (stagflation).

" Money supply growth had averaged 17.8 per cent between 2006-7 to 2010-11. It began declining later. It declined from an average growth of 16.5 per cent in the two years ending 2010-11 to an average growth of 13.5 per cent in the three years ending 2013-14. In 2014-15 its growth had come down to 11.5 per cent — a fall in growth of 45 per cent as compared to 2010-11. The money supply growth is less than the growth of nominal GDP for 2014-15. The year-on-year growth in bank credit too more than halved from 16.7 per cent in 2009-10 to less than 8 per cent in 2015-16. As a proportion of the growth of nominal GDP too bank credit growth has fallen. The credit growth, which had equalled the growth of nominal GDP in 2010-11, almost halved in 2014-15. The credit expansion as related to GDP too fell to 5.6 per cent in 2014-15 and to 4.4 per cent in the nine months of 2015-16, from 11 per cent in 2009-10. This establishes that, in the last six years, both money supply growth and credit expansion have halved absolutely and in relation to GDP growth. Even the combined fiscal deficit (fiscal expansion) and credit growth (monetary expansion) as a percentage of GDP has halved from 17.4 per cent in 2009-10 to 8.8 per cent, which is less than nominal GDP growth. Three things are obvious. Money supply growth has reduced. Credit expansion has fallen. And even fiscal deficit and credit growth put together have declined, all pointing to the growing economy being starved of the needed money needed, in which the FRBM Act has also lent its hand. "

We should have reasonably loose fiscal policy but tight/controlled monetary policy. The artificial limit of 3% GDP for fiscal deficit has to be replaced by dynamic limit based on :-

1. Rate of GDP Growth
2. Velocity of money , CRR/SLR Ratio, Monetary policy etc
3. Amount of Budget invested in productive assets
4. Reasons of inflation whether it is cost push or due to excess moeny in the system

For India I think that Prime Interest Rate hovering around 10% should be around 8% while Fiscal deficit limit should be 5% with massive Govt Investment in Infrastructure and seed money for high tech industries. 

Quotes from S Gurumuthy's article in The Hindu

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/frbm-acts-3-limit-on-fiscal-deficit-hinting-at-paradigm-shift/article8320964.ece

नयी घास के नए फर्श पर नए पाँव इठलाएंगे : Phantom pains

वह: आपने लिखना छोड़ दिया, लोगों से मिलना छोड़ दिया, गुज़ार सकेंगे इतनी बेमतलब की ज़िन्दगी?

कवि : गुज़ार सकेंगे क्या, गुज़ार रहा हूँ और भरोसा कीजिये इतनी बेमतलब की भी नहीं है ये ज़िन्दगी!
वह : हमने सुना है कि हर कवि की ज़िन्दगी मैं कोई न कोई लड़की होती है जिसके कारण वह कविता शुरू करता है ..
कवि : या छोड़ देता है ..आपने सुना है या ये आपकी अपनी राय है ..?
वह : आपने जवाब नहीं दिया
कवि : मैंने दे दिया

Heard people talking about phantom pains when they loose a limb. Even though I empathised with their loss but could never bring myself to understand their pain, Now I do having experienced loss.

You believe that the limb is still there & it requires a phenomenal mental adjustment to let go, accept & make peace with what you are at that point. Phantom pain in arms, legs must be unbearable for sure. what about gut & loss of trust, belief? What about loss of capability to love? People can't even understand or see your pain while u grimace in agony at own inability to trust/love anymore..

I thought of you with love today

but that is nothing new

I thought of you yesterday too.

Shall summer's warm brilliant sun bring new light,

And free my anguished mind of its terrible plight?

Will its gentle breezes chase grief's dark clouds away,
And show me a clear path towards a better day?

can hear immortal voice of Mukesh..

.. मैं जानता हूँ कि तू गैर है मगर यूँ ही ...

Time to sleep

Economics: Coffee, Scarcity, property & relationship

The other day I was having coffee with a new friend, a retired businessman.. I mentioned I had studied economics for many years, especially Austrian economics & remained student.

Like so many people, he said, “I really don't understand economics and always have been confused by it.”

To which I surprised him with, “Of course you understand economics; it is the thought process you use every day to deal with three things: scarcity, property, and relationships.”

His eyes got big and he said, “Whoa! Say that again.”

“OK,” I said, “Everything in human life is organized around how we make decisions about three things: scarcity, property, and relationships.

“First let’s talk about scarcity which you’ve known about all of your life — you notice when something is missing or about to be missing; it is how you decide when it’s time go to the grocery store, do your laundry or whether you should drive your car faster so not to be late for an appointment.

“Every human being is an expert in the decision process of scarcity. It is something we all naturally do whenever we act and choose — which, by the way, we are doing all the time, every day, all day long.”

I smiled, “I could go on and on. You want more?”

“Sure,” he smiled back.

“All humans make action and choice decisions that automatically weigh the following factors. Knowledge: what do we know? Risk and uncertainty: what is our estimate of the risk we can foresee? What do we not know? Time and priority: when do I want or need this? And, how important is this to me right now in relation to other options? Value: what am I willing to give up to have this thing right now?

“This is the personal way you understand economics; it’s the decision process that every human being goes through every time they act and choose, even if it is only for me, alone.

“But there is another important way you already understand economics, which is how we interact with others. That is why I mentioned property and relationships because here is where the decision process I outlined above takes into account other people.

“Economics is also about how we decide how we will think about — and therefore organize — our property and our relationships.”

After a long pause my new friend then said, “Wait a minute. You haven’t talked about money. Even I know that economics is the study of money.”

To which I said, “The study of money and monetary exchange is the most applied use of economic theory. And this is to be expected.

“Why? Because of property.

“You probably already know that money is a medium of exchange. But what are we exchanging? We are exchanging property, your property for my property.

“It is most valuable to think that there are two conversations happening during every monetary — or property — exchange.

“The first conversation is the one I am having with myself; when I give $3 for this fancy cup of coffee I am saying, “I value that coffee more than the $3 in my pocket.”

“The second conversation is the one the café owner is having with himself. He is saying, “I value your $3 more than the coffee I have for sale.”

“Money is the handiest form of property so I don’t have to try to exchange a fish or a chicken for a cup of coffee, for example.”

I continued, “the real use of economics is in the conversation of how we organize ourselves in groups. Do we peacefully respect each other’s property? Do we peacefully cooperate with a shared sense of peaceful-values or is it that fearful-values are forced on us by some Single Dictator, as in a single person, or a Group Dictator, which is otherwise called democracy, by the way.”

At this point my new friend was squirming and said, “So, really economics is based on politics.”

I said, “Actually, it’s the other way around. If you like, I can send to you a great little essay written in 1850 that clarifies this. The writer’s name is Bastiat and he explains that economic architectures precede political architectures.

“In other words, if you look at politics as simply an argument of how we should organize ourselves, then it becomes obvious that it really boils down to how we know, or don’t know, what property is and how we should deal with it as we relate to each other in life and living.

“This is what I was referring to when I said that economics is also about relationships. The connection between economics and politics is how we organize our relationships and whether our ‘shared values’ assume we can have (and want to have) a society based more on peaceful cooperation — or not.”

As all conversations go, it became apparent that it was time to wrap this up, so I said, “Well, there you go. I have been studying this for a long time. If you would like to learn more I can direct you to learn about these things in a step-by-step way.”

To my surprise, he said, “No, let’s continue. This is very interesting. But one thing bothers me. Are you also saying that humans don’t need rules and laws and that our so-called ‘self interests’ are enough to keep us humans interacting in a more peaceful way? The news is too full of the horrors of humanity to swallow that one.”

I replied, “Well, it is true that the media is mostly reporting bad news. And there are definitely places and times throughout the world where the balance was and is greater violence of man against man.

“But it is also true that this exists against a backdrop of a pretty darn peaceful world overall. On any average day, you are more likely to end the day peacefully in bed than being the victim of some violent or unfortunate occurrence.

“There are many, many examples of shared peaceful values that we — the world over — rely on in our daily life, that show this to be true. My favorite is the freeway. Here we move along at speeds that easily can kill us and yet we all — mostly and most of the time — peacefully cooperate.

“But let’s talk next time about whether we need to organize ourselves around an assumption that the only way people will peacefully cooperate is via some agency being given the exclusive use of force or whether there are other ways that we can both have rules, laws, and remedies and — at the same time — a higher order of peace, prosperity, and freedom.

“Because there is a way.”

Conversations: Michael J. McKay

Internet & the emerging banking crisis

With a $10 billion+ sale on single's day for Alibaba.com & even Flipkart clocking a billion $ sale on mega sale days, which geniuses are building malls? Have no utility beyond movies & restaurants. The day Chinese became the factory of world, including clothing along with digitalisation of western populace, malls were doomed. Who wants to pay inflated prices for brands when poor IP law implementation allows same Chinese manufacturer to churn out clones for 1/5th price to consumers.

If you take the point that public investment in infra follows GDP boom and not vice versa, then it's bad news for all the ghost towns and public infra like airports that China has built up. They will not spur economic growth and unless there is some other form of stimulus that spurs growth then this infrastructure will be sitting there for a long time before it gets utilised. One example that I keep on citing for India is Noida toll road. It started in 2002 ( If i remember correctly) has not turned operationally profitable till date. 

Similar case can be built for Bandra-Worli Sea link. There are simply not enough car commuters to pay fee & thus enabling return on investment for this project.

The problem with public infrastructure is very similar to your car. Its starts to depreciate in value from Day 1. Since all of this infra was built with public money, the loans are not being serviced or there is an increased interest component, which means there's no money for the upkeep of the infra.

Politicians often prefer dams, interstate highways and bullet trains that make the news, critics add, rather than schools, hospitals and smaller projects that may be more economically productive.

India is now pushing high-speed rail between urban centres,Which may have returns but putting 4 lane roads doesn’t do much for villagers. They really need a one-lane road only that can be maintained & livelihood sustained. Economics is really simple. If you have no money and you want to build a house, pretending that you do have money still won't allow you to build a house. That's because you need actual capital to buy material and labor. Pretend money won't work otherwise every third world will get first world infrastructure just by pretending. 

Now you can pretend and fool an external money source but that won't last long because monied people and nations don't get to be rich by being stupid. Look at Argentina. No one lends to them anymore. Now you can look around & see how struggling malls, unsold housing stock & then look at bank balance sheets with roughly 11lac crores as CDR & NPA. This is almost 25% of total lending amount of India's banking system.

Infact the success of ecommerce in china indicates mega malls of unsustainable size might struggle even more in future. malls can only serve a certain radius be it 50km or 100km. ecommerce can serve the whole country from a dozen warehouses in low cost locations but near highways/airports/railways for logistics.

The internet has become a critical element of China’s economic progress in the past five years, accounting for seven per cent of the world’s second largest economy’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2014, a percentage point higher than the US, state-run Global Times reported, citing a report issued by China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC).

China has exceeded the US to become the world’s largest online retail market, it said as the online retail transactions reached 2.79 billion yuan (USD 439 million) in 2014, one of the key economic achievements of China’s Internet development during the 12th Five-Year Plan period (2011-15).

However, according to US journal Statista, US online sales last years accounted to about USD 290 billion.

In 2014, the number of online shoppers climbed to 361 million, representing 55.7 per cent of the nation’s shoppers.

Online shopping represents 20 per cent of all consumer demand, the report said. For the first time mobile phones have become the most commonly-used platform to access the internet, followed by computers. Some 594 million people in China can access to the Internet through mobile phones. In India the same number is around 350 million & almost 65% access through mobile phones.

And when it's pointed out that the total e-commerce $ value in China was just 8.3 per cent in 2013 and projected to be just 12 per cent in 2015, you turn that around to see how US/Indian/Chinese malls are doing bad!! 

Are baba or shall I say Alibaba!! 

If Love is the answer, could you please rephrase the question?

Ever since I have been writing nothing has fascinated me more than human relationships & why not? relationships based on love make for an interesting read even though why love happens itself has been dissected thoroughly by medical sciences. Brain must be most fantastic organ of all.. works 24X7 from the time you are born till you fall in love..

La Rochefoucauld said "True love is like seeing ghosts we all talk about it, but few of us have ever seen one" & at this ripe old age 40, I do concur. Being a behaviour addict, i just see so many of known/unknown people in agony, rarely happy for a longer duration. We are remnants of an age wherein we got into marriage or relationship with not much expectations except for companionship & raising a family together. Times have indeed changed!

I see lot of young women who complaint of not being able to find love but constantly going out with the same man who more often than not, picks them from office/home and tabs too. Gives gifts on birthdays, throws parties but is kept hanging like a cur waiting for something sweet while 'They' are looking for someone to love. Lot of man are no different in their behaviour. 

Jack Nicholson once said, “Almost everybody's happy to be a fool for love."

It's highly doubtful that he had evolutionary psychology on his mind when he made this statement, but nonetheless he tapped into a fundamental human foible: When it comes to dating, mating, and relationships, it can be hard for us to see straight. While we may have few 100 thousand years between our forbearers (primitive men) & us, we continue to exhibit same behaviour with regards to dating,mating & seeking. 

This shows evolution of man.It also means that our sages were indeed truthful & brave to write, mention the trials and tribulation as a society that we went through. they have recorded the 'Yug Dharma' as it changed over the years.Greatest of the warriors & one of the most learned mind 'Pitamaha Bhishma' said the following in 'Shanti parva' .. dialogues between him and Dharmaraj Yudhsthir

न चैषां मैथुनो धर्मो बभूव भरतर्षभ
संकल्पादेवैतेषां अपत्यं उपपद्यते - 37

ततः त्रेतायुगेकाले संस्पर्शात् जायते प्रजान
ह्य भूः मैथुनो धर्मस्तेषां अपि जनाधिप - 38

द्वापरे मैथुनो धर्म प्रजानां भवन्नृपःतथा
कलियुगे राजन द्वन्द्व मापेदिरे जनाः - 39

"In satya yuga, intercourse happened as desire arose in minds of fertile men and women. There were no words for mother, father, sibling etc. In Treta Yuga, when men and women touched each other and welcomed the touch, dharma allowed them to copulate for time-being. (this is stage where concept of "favourite" mate started emerging). IN Dwapara Yuga, Men and women started cohabiting as couples but not as stable and committed pair-bonding couples. In Kali Yuga, the stable pair-bonding (what we refer to as institution of marriage) emerged."

Why is making accurate assessments so fraught with difficulty in todays romantic contexts? From an evolutionary perspective, these biases helped our ancestors achieve reproductive success in a prehistoric environment in which that was difficult to do. In a thinly populated world, there were far fewer mating opportunities in a relatively short lifetime. They were also under great threat from infectious diseases and starvation.

Our memories have stories when there were no "names" for relations. Only relation was that between a fertile man and woman. In fact here have been references to The references of free cohabitation, sibling cohabitation, offering one's "stri (woman)" to friend OR guest" (Kindly note that the word "patni" had not evolved), references towards intercourse with alive and dead animals, intercourse with wife of one's guru, cohabitation with multiple males, temporary cohabitation, contract marriage all these are mentioned in Puranas & is the history of Indic people."You can also add Shiva's Aasakti on Mohini & the chase. Subsequently the birth of Harihara.

I return to the fundamental question, what is love and where are the origins of this word? Did we actually confuse this word with what we call " आशक्ति " or lust ? 

In other words, there's a mismatch between our ancient genes and our modern lives—in our diet, and in the romantic realm. Here are four common biases when it comes to love: See what an award winning psychologist Dr Mehta had to say about man women relationships in modern times...

1. We pay too much attention to looks. According to research, physical attractiveness in the romantic realm is an advertisement of health and fitness. In the ancient world, infectious diseases were far more prevalent than they are today. Muscular men with chiseled features, and women with an optimal waist-to-hip ratio were advertisements that their offspring stood a greater chance of surviving and reproducing. Studies show that we still have an attentional bias for beauty.
2. " Women underestimate commitment. Pregnancy and lactation are costly for women, which likely encouraged their preference for mates who demonstrate clear signs of long-term commitment and the provision of resources during pregnancy and breastfeeding. Indeed, research shows that women tend to underestimate the level of commitment on the part of men. After all, it would be more costly for a woman to have sex with a man who will love her and leave her than to underestimate a man's interest and wait until a more committed partner comes along. This may explain why some women may debate for stretches of time whether the number of calls, texts, emails, and dates initiated by a suitor add up to real signs of interest and a possible long-term relationship."
3. Men overperceive sexual interest. Like their counterparts in the animal kingdom, human males invest less in reproduction and can potentially produce far more offspring in his lifetime than women. Thus it is to their reproductive benefit to have a variety of mating partners, which likely encouraged a keener ability to pick up on signals of interest on the part of women. After all, there's more to lose in underestimating sexual interest and missing out on a sexual opportunity than there is in overestimating sexual interest and losing time pursuing a woman who isn't interested. Research consistently shows that men are biased toward overestimating the degree to which a woman may be interested in him. Perhaps this explains why some guys come on too strong, or don't give up when it seems it's time.
4. We all get jealous way too easily. The green-eyed monster may not be a flattering human emotion, but has served a useful function over the course of human evolution. In women, jealousy serves to prevent their mates from providing resources for other female rivals. For men, jealousy prevents cuckoldry, i.e., investing in genetically unrelated children. The consequences for both genders would be, evolutionarily speaking, costly. Yet today, both resources and paternity certainty can be more easily accessed, and thus jealous responses can unfortunately misfire." 

Pitamah Bhishma also said that 'Kama' is the जननी (mother) of all 'purushaasrtha'.. Let me go back to the root of it all. The root is 'Sanatan' . the word itself can be broken down to Sat -anant or as some bifurcate it as, Sat + Aa + Tan.The meaning is, 'Pursuit since Sat' . Wherin Sat can be construed as Satyug or Truth. So the continuity of civilization is the 'Dharma'

Between all this, where is love? what were you saying, can you repeat that love thing?

Viagra, religion of individualism & looming pension crisis

There has been a chorus of economists who blame everything from excessive borrowing to cheap loans to early retirement with generous pensions that triggered the greek debt crisis in the first place to the political system that allowed this to happen. Not many have looked into the causes of low saving rates in western countries i.e. US/EU. There are many Points that one must ponder over..

1. They are all liberal free enterprise systems

2. EU has some form of state ownership & spends considerably more on welfare/Doles & aging population is not earning enough to sustain the spends

3. Political pressure or oversight led to easing of norms to land to unscrupulous & low credit worthy consumers in US.

4. Banks converted this debt into securities and sold them to other banks on bond market

All these no doubt are important but obvious causes.

In case of countries like Greece/Portugal/Spain or later in UK & france, pensions have been a huge drag on state exchequer. So isn't time we look at other datapoint/factors that may have an impact on nations finances..

Its time we start looking at basic unit of economic activity - Family

There is another issue that has not gained the attention it deserved with respect to state finances. All these governments employ an army of bureaucrats to run the system & most of them retire with a lifelong, inflation indexed pension. Greece, citizens were retiring at age 45 with full pensions. Take a case of UK/France, where citizens (govt employees) retire with pension benefits & pass on the benefits to spouses post their death. UK pension shortfall for the month of August 2015 was 358 bn Pounds. Overall shortfall is around 5Tn pounds. 

Now is the tricky part comes with spread of new age religion called 'Individualism' ..

The core tenets of 'religion of individualism' as i see it responsible for wrecking the family system (smallest economic unit) are..

1. Sex for pleasure not for procreation

2. State responsibility to take care of citizens (welfare/doles)

3. Removing ethical/moral restrictions from sex outside marriage

The religion of individualism aka individual rights & femi-nazi movements has brought a situation that..

1. More and more children are being born out of wedlocks

2. High divorce rates

3. late marriages or no marriages

With the looming economic crisis, younger generation is finding it hard to find jobs & they are not leaving parents houses as they can't sustain their lifestyles. when pushed out there is another disturbing trend as this generation has lost the capacity to work hard (like their forebears). You see lot of young women marrying older man in these countries, even a country like Brazil is going through this phenomenon.

older man riding on the temporary testosterone high of viagra aka the blue pill is enjoying his sex life till late and are dumping their older spouse/partners for younger ones. Why do the young women choose to do so? Well, ageing & retired have money (lot of them) & these young women get enrolled in the pension system as beneficiary post the man's death. 

Do you see the implication? The government that was planning of an average 18-20 years of pension duration lands up paying for 40-50 years to the spouse/partner of deceased pensioner. It is wrecking the finances of brazil/UK/France.    

Take the case of India, we have around 3.1Mln central govt employees & another 18 million in state & other PSUs. Its true that majority of them may be in Group C or D category thus low paid but they do get inflation indexed pensions. With increasing life expectancy, state lands up paying pensions for longer. Luckily we have a growing population but unfortunately most are either underemployed or unemployed. 

Unless Prime minister Modi pulls a miracle of getting manufacturing (big time) in India, we are staring at abyss with huge pension bills (recurring) for military personnel or other govt employees. our 55% population (engaged in agriculture) contributes around 12-13% of GDP. It will further come down to 5% in 10 years. Its time we have to shift this large manpower to productive usage. 

What do we do the disease called individualism creeping in our society with similar western issues creeping in urban landscapes. Rising divorces (generally at older ages too), Children abandoning parents in villages or small towns & not taking care of them in old age will raise more demand for pensions or state support.

Government has a tough choice, tackle Viagra fuelled youthfulness & children's apathy towards old parents. India has just taken on roller coster of pension issues. we need reform right now before Viagra finds our retirees.

Economic freedom and the Zilch value Indians place

Economic freedom as a value and a principle finds very little resonance with the Indian public and intelligentsia. Unfortunately the Indian constitution too doesn’t satisfactorily enshrine and uphold the ideal of economic freedom. It fails to firmly establish this ideal either as a part of the fundamental rights or as a part of directive principles of state policy. Even the politically popular slogans of social justice do not identify economic freedom as a part of social justice. The Supreme Court in it’s recent judgment on the issue of Right To Education (RTE) by placing socio-economic rights of individuals above Art 19(1)(g) [1] further weakened the already shaky constitutional foundations of economic freedom in India. The Congress led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) ruling in Delhi has recently undertaken a series of measures via executive decisions – allowing 51% Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail, Aviation, hiking of fuel prices and legislative proposals to increased the cap on FDI in Insurance and Pensions. These measures, though desirable, have been pushed through with very little political clarity by the ruling coalition. These ad-hoc executive decisions have been labelled as reforms solely with the motive to score a PR point with very little political commitment to the principles of what a political party imagines as reforms. It is with this background that we examine the Economic Freedom Of The World : 2012 Annual Report [2] brought out by the CATO institute and specifically focus on the free fall in the levels of economic freedom in India since 2005.

The importance of economic freedom from the point of view of its importance to the sustenance of basic political rights [3] was argued by none other than free-market economist Milton Friedman. However, it must be admitted that the biggest reason for a vast majority of the sympathizers of the market economy coming from the general public, the academic world or the political world to support economic freedom (a feature shared to different degrees by the various mixed economies in the world today) has been the superior ability of Capitalism as an economic system to produce wealth compared to its alternatives. In fact, Milton Friedman himself won most followers to the system of Capitalism by preaching all through his career the superior ability of the system to produce wealth and improve the living standard of the vast majority of the masses.

Recently, there have been attempts by various pro-market organizations in the west to gauge the relationship between economic freedom and quality of life. As it is shown here [4], countries with better economic freedom also perform better than others on a huge number of social prosperity indicators. The ‘Economic Freedom Of The World -Annual Reports’ is an initiative by the CATO Institute in this direction to quantitatively enumerate and establish the advantages of economic freedom. Some of the major underpinnings of economic freedom are – personal choice, voluntary exchanges facilitated by markets, freedom to enter and compete in a market and the protection of persons and their property. The latest CATO report on Economic Freedom in the World considers the following five to be the major contributors to economic freedom:

1. Size of Government
2. Legal System and Property Rights
3. Sound Money
4. Freedom to Trade Internationally
5. Regulation

The very first chapter [5] of the report deals with the framework and the methodology used. Interested readers can read it for a more thorough understanding.

The following extract from the report presents a good snapshot of the global trend in economic freedom.

Economic freedom from around the world: In the chain-linked index, average economic freedom rose from 5.30 (out of 10) in 1980 to 6.88 in 2007. It then fell for two consecutive years, resulting in a score of 6.79 in 2009 but has risen slightly to 6.83 in 2010, the most recent year available. It appears that responses to the economic crisis have reduced economic freedom in the short term and perhaps prosperity over the long term, but the upward movement this year is encouraging.

In this year’s index, Hong Kong retains the highest rating for economic freedom, 8.90 out of 10. The other top 10 nations are: Singapore, 8.69; New Zealand, 8.36; Switzerland, 8.24; Australia, 7.97; Canada, 7.97; Bahrain, 7.94; Mauritius, 7.90; Finland, 7.88; and Chile, 7.84.

The scores of the bottom ten nations in that year’s index were: Venezuela, 4.07; Myanmar, 4.29; Zimbabwe, 4.35; Republic of the Congo, 4.86; Angola, 5.12; Democratic Republic of the Congo, 5.18; Guinea-Bissau, 5.23; Algeria, 5.34; Chad, 5.41; and, tied for 10th worst, Mozambique and Burundi, 5.45.

Another important fact to note in the report is the performance of the United States which has seen a steady drop in its economic freedom ranking in the last decade:

The United States, long considered the standard bearer for economic freedom among large industrial nations, has experienced a substantial decline in economic freedom during the past decade. From 1980 to 2000, the United States was generally rated the third freest economy in the world, ranking behind only Hong Kong and Singapore. After increasing steadily during the period from 1980 to 2000, the chain-linked EFW rating of the United States fell from 8.65 in 2000 to 8.21 in 2005 and 7.70 in 2010. The chain-linked ranking of the United States has fallen precipitously from second in 2000 to eighth in 2005 and 19th in 2010 (unadjusted ranking of 18th).

The rankings and the analysis are based on the data obtained till the year 2010. The India specific findings of the survey shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who takes even a basic interest in the nation’s politics and economics; but the broad trend of the numbers from the year 2000 to 2010 can help us understand and reflect upon how the priorities set by the national political leadership have impacted the trajectory of Indian economy. The index rating and the ranks of the nations are available for the years 2000,2005,2009 and 2010, the following table presents the score on a scale of 0-10 and the ranking (within brackets) of India on the chosen parameters at various points in time

Parameter                          2000       2005         2009       2010
Summary Rating(Rank) 6.32 (75) 6.89 (64) 6.47 (82) 6.42 (90)
Size of Government         6.83 (41) 7.42 (38) 6.33 (63) 6.37 (63)
Legal System and Property Rights 5.99 (59) 7.29 (32) 6.48 (50) 6.22 (53)
Sound Money 6.88 (86) 6.84 (91) 6.55 (108) 6.42 (111)
Freedom To Trade Internationally 5.51 (99) 6.35 (84) 6.48 (83) 6.57 (87)
Regulation 6.40 (56) 6.65 (72) 6.59 (76) 6.60 (81)
( Source : ‘The Economic Freedom Of The World – 2012 Annual Report’ Chapter 2, pg no 88 )

Does it really surprise anyone that the size of the government has gone up since 2005 ? On the whole the trend seems to quiet clear and categoric. Between the years 2000 and 2005 all indices of economic freedom improved significantly, as a result the overall rating of India improved from 6.32 to 6.89 and India’s ranking improved by 11 positions. However, it has been downhill since then with the 2010 numbers being as worse as the 2000 numbers. India has fallen to it’s lowest ever rank on the index of economic freedom since the year 1980 (earliest year for which India specific data is available) in the year 2010. With the benefit of hindsight we all know that the Indian economy fared much worse since 2010, hence there is little hope of these numbers having improved since 2010. The decline in scores in the 2005-10 time-frame has been the sharpest on the parameter of ‘size of the government’. MNREGA and other entitlement programs are indeed the flagship ideas of the UPA and not withstanding a major financial meltdown it is highly unlikely Sonia Gandhi would even think about reversing these schemes. But for the marginal improvement on the ‘freedom to trade internationally’ index, ratings of all other indices too have nosedived since 2005.

While on the surface Indian media has recently bombarded our newsprint and television screens with ‘reforms’ there exists no foundational understanding of this term. The impetus for these ‘reforms’ haven’t come from any principled political commitment and have very little to do with any economic thought that firmly believes in their version of ‘reforms’ as an end in itself. Only weeks after the Prime Minister lectured the nation on how money doesn’t grow on trees [6] his own government went on to give 2 Lakh crore worth of hand-out [7] to various other State Electricity Boards (SEBs). The BJP led NDA regime did indeed deliver a robust performance on the issue of economic freedom; but is the BJP of today willing to take credit for that ? Writing in the Economic Times on the issue of reforms, politics and FDI, Shri Yashwant Sinha wrote [8]

Our own impressive record of economic reforms between 1998- 2004 did not help us electorally and we lost all the Lok Sabha seats in Delhi and in other Metros.

Does this mean that the party of reforms and the very individuals who played key roles in formulating those policies are having a re-think on reforms ? Trying to be a poor copy of your opposition is a bad idea even in politics. With the record still firmly on their side it is for the BJP to pro-actively formulate and set the reform agenda for the nation.

Political disarray on economic issues and the status quo perpetuated by the left-liberals feed off each other and are unfortunately in a state of stable equilibrium. While we are reminded by commentators in their columns, editors in their editorials and anchors in the “debates” on how malnutrition in India is worse than Sub-Saharan Afrca; no one ever mentions the fact that Sub-Saharan African nations like Zambia, Uganda, Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia etc rank much above India [9] in terms of economic freedom. Again completely in-line with the expectations, even on the ease of doing business rankings India is ranked at 132nd position, where again many Sub-Saharan African nations and nations ruled by monarchs fare significantly better than India.

Unless the idea of economic freedom arrives on the Indian political scene we might have to go through many more decades where India will take one step forward and two steps backward. It is indeed a long term project. We need a constitutional amendment which would add the following to the list of directive principles of state policy -

State shall work towards enhancing and protecting the economic freedom of it’s citizens.

However, the danger of the Indian Supreme Court placing the directive principle referring to economic inequalities above this ambitious constitutional amendment would still remain.

However much the educated centre-right free-enterprise supporters for Narendra Modi fret & feel dejected but I must tip my hat in appreciation of his political understanding. All these statements, " This is govt of poor & will work for poor.." works well with electorate. Poor (there are plenty of them in India) along with middle class is looking for a sugar daddy to ease their life. electorate is looking for a nanny to take care of their problems, willing to give up the option of free choice.

He is in for a long haul as the way CONgress did for over 6 decades.