Bharat Rakshak

Abhijeet

I've never understood this fascination on BR with the corrupt, inefficient small retailers who run things in India currently. Injecting foreign competition into the market has so many benefits it should really not be a point of debate at all: - Farmers and other producers get stable buyers for their...

Abhijeet

Emirates total flight time is about 22 hours (4 hours to DXB + stopover + 15 hours to SFO). Korean is about 21 hours. Cathay is also 21 hours or so. I don't really see a difference. What makes you think Emirates is significantly longer than the others? They have a long DXB-SFO leg, but the leg to DX...

Abhijeet

My wife recently did India-SFO in business on Emirates. Great flight with flat beds (and they have a free Mercedes pick up at both ends!), but still a LONG flight nevertheless -- prompting my original question on when the flight times would become more reasonable. Apparently the answer is never. The...

Abhijeet

I think the business class only flights are smaller than regular flights. If airlines can profitably run a route with x business+y economy seats rather than just x business seats they would obviously do that. Economy seats have a thin margin but are still profitable, so it makes sense for an airline...

Abhijeet

Good information on the long flights -- thanks. The catchment area in terms of population for BOM-SFO (West India) or DEL-SFO (North India) is easily large enough to sustain business class only flights, but I agree that it will take a several-fold increase in per capita incomes to make it financiall...

Abhijeet

The reason I'm (sort of) optimistic on nonstop BOM/DEL-SFO flights is precisely because the hurdle is not technical but economic. Hopefully at some point there will be enough affluent flyers for it to make economic sense. Perhaps business class only flights. The fact that it is viable to have nonsto...

Abhijeet

So a 13 minute reduction in flight time between Europe and NA. Hardly the game changing leap I was hoping for -- and this is forecast for 2050.

I guess 16 hours is the best we'll be able to do for India-US flights even a few decades out. Quite disappointing.

Abhijeet

Asking as a layperson: are there any breakthrough technologies on the horizon that will significantly speed up air travel? It still takes a full day to travel between the US West Coast and India. With nonstop SFO/LAX-India flights which hopefully we will see some of this decade it should come down t...

Abhijeet

I understand that trend growth is not based off a single year's data point -- but it does seem that more and more people are agreeing that for the foreseeable future the Indian economy will grow at around 6%, rather than 8% as those same people were saying a couple of years back. However, I don't se...

Abhijeet

A couple of years back wasn't it generally agreed that India's trend growth rate was 8-9% as a mathematical consequence of the savings rate and ICOR? So what has happened to pull the trend rate, as seems to be generally agreed nowadays, down to 6%? Has the savings rate come down, or has the ICOR inc...

Abhijeet

I read an article in the newspaper today: the policy of 30% sourcing from "small scale industries" will not be reviewed for single brand retail. Old news. What was new to me was: the article defined small scale industry as companies with an investment of less than...hold on to your 1950s h...

Abhijeet

It's apparently common in India for there to be several months' delay in getting a new car or motorbike after ordering it, for some models. Today I heard about someone who ordered a new bike and will be getting it after 8 (!) months. I remember that when we were buying a new car after R2Iing, we tes...

Abhijeet

I'm actually surprised that the US is still so close to China in the medals tally. I expected China to be way ahead this time given 4 additional years of refining the system since Beijing, but the US-China medals comparison is still pretty close. The US system, as in many other areas, doesn't seem t...

Abhijeet

SBajwa, thanks. Are you watching in India? I'd like firsthand experience if possible.

Abhijeet

Is anyone watching the Olympics on Star Sports or ESPN in India? How does their coverage compare to DD? DD has only a live feed, which is good in some ways but I'd also like it if there was a "best of" compilation in the evenings. I'm wondering whether to splurge on the extra Rs. 30 per ch...

Abhijeet

The next wave of tech companies from India will be startups targeting the global (which mostly means US) market. The difference will be that they will move most of their operations abroad at their first funding round. The factors driving this are more entrepreneurs familiar with the global market fo...

Abhijeet

Sorry for the late reply, busy with work. Theo, the article you linked says: On the generation side, TNEB has added just 333 MW of capacity in the last seven years when demand actually rose by more than ten times that (see Road to Ruin). The last major power project executed in the state is the 630 ...

Abhijeet

Is it constitutionally impermissible for states to levy state income tax? Seems like a reasonable, and justifiable, source of additional revenue, with the advantage of being progressive, unlike sales tax.

Abhijeet

The most recent issue of Business Today has an article on how the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board is basically bankrupt. It's not available for free online yet. Low voltage story ; Mismanagement has pushed the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board to the edge. And recent measures to revive it may fall short. Th...

Abhijeet

Bade, people's expectations of what constitutes acceptable infrastructure, commute time, and general quality of life, are far, far lower in India than in the US, as you know. Places which would be considered completely unlivable by people in developed countries -- that is, second tier towns and rura...

Abhijeet

"Secular" = "across the board", although the more correct usage seems to be in the sense of "long term" (as in, a secular trend is a long term trend). It does not mean that only people of a "certain community", or only Teesta Setalvad, or "non-aided minor...

Abhijeet

Despite my comments above, I think real estate in India has no place to go but up in general, long term. Real estate is pretty much the only decent investment in India right now. The stock market is still too shallow and subject to the whims of foreign investors, and nothing else will give you infla...

Abhijeet

I think real estate cannot continue to appreciate in the same way as it has the last few years, just based on simple mathematics. As an example, in Goregaon, a suburb of Bombay, rates are now around Rs. 15,000 per sq ft, up from Rs. 3000 in 2004. A 1000 sq ft apartment which would have cost Rs. 30 l...

Abhijeet

As Singha says above, India is already flooded with all kinds of low quality Chinese imports -- often straight from the Chinese manufacturer, with no localization (Chinese language text and all) and no quality control. That really is junk -- just detritus dumped here from China because consumer stan...

Abhijeet

Even on a relatively enlightened forum like BR, it boggles my mind that we still have the same old blanket "FDI is bad" statements over and over. I despair of the average person in India internalizing the idea that open markets, FDI etc are in the best interests of the country. Without tha...

Abhijeet

If you haven't come close to being hit by a car in India, then you are either very fortunate or have not driven much in India. More likely, your memories of India have a positive gloss from not actually living there. Yes, yes, I understand all those reasons why things in India are worse -- my point ...

Abhijeet

I don't agree with the equal-equal with Indian drivers and others. Yes, people from all countries love talking about their bad drivers -- you know how badly those cowboys in Texas drive, Californians always cut you off on the freeway, and don't get me started on those retirees down in Florida -- but...

Abhijeet

Abolish 500 and 1000 rupee note http://www.firstpost.com/economy/we-should-abolish-rs-500-and-rs-1000-notes-completely-354908.html?utm_source=moneycontrol.com&utm_medium=RHS-Widget Such nonsense. In a country where even weekly purchases at the grocery store are in the thousands of rupees, sure,...

Abhijeet

To clarify, I grew up in Mumbai, went to college there, and my parents and extended family live there. I'm very familiar with the city -- I've only become a small town hick after I R2I'd a few years back. :) Since I visit the city intermittently, I can see the changes perhaps more starkly than someo...

Abhijeet

Back from a quick trip to Bombay. Observations: - Lots of construction, high-end stores, huge billboards. Most new storefronts and buildings look international quality at least from the outside (there are still construction quality issues especially in residential buildings if you look closer). In s...

Abhijeet

PPP is a top-down number determined by the government, World Bank etc. A bottom up assessment, looking at what various MNCs or trade organizations report for market size, would be interesting as well. In an ideal world they would match, but they are not the same thing.

Abhijeet

Here's another thought that I've mentioned before. Let's say we take the following as given: 1. India's GDP in 2012 is $2 trillion (2012 $), and China's GDP in 2004 was $2 trillion (2004 $) 2. Consumption is 60% of GDP in India and 35% of GDP in China (the specific numbers could be off, but I believ...

Abhijeet

Isn't it simple enough to get Indian 2012 GDP expressed in 2000 dollars, and compare that to Chinese 2003 GDP expressed in 2000 dollars? Then at least we would know the nominal GDP gap expressed in the same units.

Abhijeet

Suraj, I don't have an opinion in the matter, yet. As I mentioned, I don't know enough economics to come down on one side or the other -- although, time permitting, I will try to read more on this since it seems worth understanding. Ashish S, you made a statement that happened to be incorrect, which...

Abhijeet

2. PPP per capita GDP (Suraj says this doesn't need to be adjusted for inflation, wong says it does -- I don't know enough about economics to say who's right) I don't recall wong arguing that, at least not beyond my response on the topic. A quick search on the previous page of this thread gave me t...

Abhijeet

Errr..nominal GDP does match. Chinese nominal GDP in 2004 and ours in 2012. No it doesn't -- not when expressed in the same units, which is dollars from the same year. 2004 $ and 2012 $ are different units. To give an absurd example, Indian GDP in Rs. is greater than US GDP in $. Does that mean any...

Abhijeet

Nominal does not match. Please check the posts above yours on this page. What do you mean by real?

Abhijeet

This discussion on whether China's GDP of 2003-04 is actually of greater value than India's GDP of 2011-12 IMHO is a classic case of being distracted by the minutiae while missing the big picture. I don't think this is the case at all. This is the crux of the discussion, not minutia. After all, if ...

Abhijeet

The base year is a once in N years level where a comprehensive collection of 'all' activity is obtained and used to generate a fractional measure of what activity comprises how much of overall economy. Subsequent annual growth figures are incremental deltas of these. You're right, the base year con...

Abhijeet

Suraj, as I understand it, it doesn't make sense to say that GDP is reported at current prices but utilizes a base year. Since the GDP values are in current numbers, there is no base relative to which those numbers are being reported. Are you referring to the IIP base year? If so, that's different t...

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