Features of Postmodernism

Postmodernism is a revolution in art and Literature during the mid to the late 20th century which succeeded the Modernist movement. They were both reactions against the Enlightenment ideas. It began to flourish during the 1960s as a socio-cultural phenomena that revolutionized modernism and put forth ideas and created note worthy creations such as Catch-22, Lost in the Fun house, Satanic Verse and White Noise. As the very term suggests, it has some relation to modernism, with various features which are both distinct to its period and which are in relation to the modernist period.
The Modern and the Postmodern era incorporate pastiche and parody and do not take the boundaries and distinction between high and low art into consideration. They rather enforce the idea that any work is constructed and fictional. Both the schools of thought view a work as a product of decentralisation. This also brings about a similarity between postmodernism and post structuralism because they advocate the rejection of a coherent center. The centre, which is generally considered as the powerhouse is not really powerful and the periphery as in Derridian term moves towards the centre in scope of acquiring power. Therefore it is clear that there is not just a centre but rather multiple centres because the works are generally broken or fragmented and do not exist as a whole due to which a solid meaning cannot be formed. Just as this leads to multiple centres, it also paves way for multiple interpretations as the meanings are purposely made ambiguous.
But unlike modernism, post modernism does not just stop with treating both high and low art equally, but also infuses the class of arts, the time periods and the genres. The fragmentation and decentralisation of the western world is considered to be tragic in the modern world as unity, center of life and cohesion which is supposed to provide rationality and order are absent. But on the other hand in the postmodern era this fragmentation is rather celebrated than lamented upon because this is considered as the only possible way of existing. Unlike modernism which believes that there is order and the ‘other'(disorder), in postmodernism there is nothing such as order and disorder. It goes against this idea and critics the concept of binary oppositions by considering everything as disorder.
Modernism follows what Lyotard calls as metta-narratives which ‘creates’ conceptions of a society or culture which may not be really true or happening. This silencing of these unreal conceptions are questioned by Post modernists. Baudrillard uses the term “Simulacrum” to throw light on what the modernists conceptualize which are referred to as metta-narratives. He calls it as the substitution of artificial and fake realities simulated by the media or ideological apparatus. Therefore it can be said that there is no actual escape from reality but it is created artificially. And according to Post modernists humans have also lost the ability to differentiate between real and artificial. The postmodernism era also faced what critic Fredric Jameson calls as ‘cultural logic of late capitalism’ because it focused more on marketing and consumption rather than production.
Therefore, Postmodernism can be called as a revolutionary movement in art, technology, fashion, literature etc which is an embodiment of fragmentation, ambiguity, decentralisation and flexibility serving as a break away from Modernism.

Does your salary justify your input to the job

A justified wage refers to an income level determined by market dynamics, work experience, education and skill. A justified wage is the wage level that is high enough to attract workers but low enough to enable employers to offer employment. The divergence between a justified wage and the legal minimum wage may depend on several factors including the state of the economy and level of unemployment.

  • A justified wage is a fair level of compensation paid to an employee that takes into account both market and non-market factors.
  • It is a wage that is often greater than the minimum wage, but which also allows employers to actively seek out and hire workers.
  • The type of work, the skills demanded, experience, job duties, and the general state of the economy all come into play when establishing a justified wages.

Understanding a justified wage

A justified wage combines economic factors of supply and demand in the workforce with more social and culturally relevant inputs like work experience, education and skills training, and type of job. A wage is justified when it is seen as socially acceptable while at the same time economically feasible for both workers and employers.

In a recession, the actual level of wages for this worker may drop to just above minimum wage due to the high level of unemployment and a stagnant economy. After the Great Recession, many investment banks justified lower wages due to slow economic growth. To learn more about investment banker wages, see: what drives investment banker salaries.

Justified wages for employees :

Companies may compare their employees’ salaries and work experience when determining a justified wage. For example, Meagan, a current employee, has 10 years’ experience and receives a salary of $65,000. Based on this information, management determines that Paul’s justified wage is $60,000 given that he has eight years’ experience. Management may also consider other factors when establishing a justified wage, such as what responsibilities the employee has and the revenue they generate. For instance, the amount of commission a stockbroker writes could justify his or her wage. Employees can help determine their justified wage during pay reviews by discussing how they add value to the company.

Justified wages for CEOs

When determining a justified wage for a CEO, the board of directors of a company typically considers:

  • Leadership: What leadership skills does the CEO have? Does he or she have the ability to unite the senior management team and lead by example during times of transition? A CEO’s justified wage might be based on his or her ability to motivate employees.
  • Strategic Ability: Does the CEO allocate resources effectively? Do they enter markets that enable the organization to grow and attract new customers? For example, the board of a multinational company may determine the justified wage of a CEO by his or her proven record of successfully entering foreign markets.
  • Network: A CEO’s justified wage might be dependent on how effectively he or she can utilize connections. For instance, do they have the ability to lure senior executives from competitors? A CEO may have a higher justified wage if they have contacts that allow them to secure new suppliers and customers.

Fortune Global 500

Fortune is a global media organisation situated in the USA. It publishes news relating to the business world in its magazine Fortune. Annually it also puts out a list of top 500 companies of the world which ranks them according to their revenue. This list is the Fortune Global 500. The more the revenue of a company the higher is its rank in the list.

This year the list is stopped by Walmart with revenue of $523,964 billion, followed by Sinopac  Group at number 2 with $407,009 billion revenue and State Grid at number 3 with $383,906 billion revenue. However the company which made maximum profit is Saudi Aramco whose profit is $86,270 billion.

There are many Indian companies in this list as well. Reliance industries Limited (RIL) is at number 96 which is the highest position ever earned by an Indian company. RIL has risen 10 ranks as compared to last year. Its revenue is $86,270 billion and profit $5,624.9 billion. In 2012 also RIL was in the top hundred at 99th position. It is interesting to note that RIL has been in the Fortune Global 500 list for the past 17 years.

The other Indian companies in this list Indian Oil Corp at 151, Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) at 190, State Bank of India (SBI) at 221, Bharat Petroleum Corp Limited at 309, Tata Motors at 337 and Rajesh Exports at 462.

The Global 500 list has companies from across 32 countries. This year the combined revenue of all companies amounted to $33.3 trillion and profit of $2.1 trillion. All the 500 companies in this list have accumulated 7 crore employees currently.

India’s road to becoming a Developed nation

India is one of the fastest growing major economy in the world. Stealing the title of the slowing economy of China, this country has had an amazing journey to get to where it is today and with the right management it is very likely to become one of the world’s most powerful economy very soon. Not quite there yet. The total economy is still smaller in GDP terms than the economy of California. Over half of the native populations, nor works in agriculture and poverty is still very prevalent problem. Only open upload and throughout the past three decades it has seen unbelievable level of growth that has, among other things, hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. Completely understand how this country is going to get going. You must first understand where it has come from.

After over a century of servitude to the British under colonial rule and many, many decades of assertive efforts, India claimed its independence in August of 1947. This often sore a sharp downturn in economic prosperity because while colonists were oppressive, an undeniably exploitative called their host nations, they did ensure that they were able to effectively extract every bit of economic value they could from their colonies, India. It had lunch well from past lessons and actually ran a pretty effective economy once they were free from colonial rule. India developed a very protectionist economy. Protectionism is the policy of a nation to favour the goods produced by the nation over those produced abroad. Now all nations, to some extent will have a level of protectionism. This can be seen in things like tariffs charged on the important role materials or import quotas, limiting the amount of foreign cars that can enter a country that, given you the severity and extent of these policies, will determine how protectionist an economy is. A small side note is that this issue of protectionism has been in the news a lot recently with the US and Chinese trade war. This is ultimately a back and forth of protectionist policies that will work to favor the products of their respective local countries rather than the imports from abroad by artificially raising the prices of foreign goods. With these import taxes, countries will do this for many reasons. Primarily, it will be to protect their local industries and jobs from cheaper foreign competitors with lower wages. Sometimes it will just be political chess feeding. And sometimes it’s just another geopolitical negotiating strategy. In India’s case, though, it had a very different reason to adopt this protectionist policy. India had experienced first hand what colonialism and early global trade had meant for the countries on the bottom of the industrial ladder, it decided that instead of potentially subjecting another nation to the same kind of hardship did experience it would rather just do everything itself. The way to achieve this was through a series of five year plans which to regular channel viewers or savvy students of history sounds like the type of economic planning associated with a certain type of economic system. To top this off, India effectively nationalized most of its major industries in the mid 1950s and onwards, and its biggest trading partner at the time of the Soviet Union, and it had typical Soviet Esque style laws around pretty much everything called the license Raj, which was pretty much just a big book of bureaucratic red tape for anybody that wanted to do anything in the economy. So India was a communist country. Well no, it had a lot of central planning characteristics of the communist nation. I did trade with Communist Nations, but it really wasn’t a communist nation itself. India still supported free trade outside of its core industries of the nation. If you want to open a restaurant and turn a profit, you could. If you want to work your way up the corporate ladder, you could. So long as you are here to licensing Raj, which was easier said than done, you were in business. So it kind of was just a weird mix of both the worst of communism and the worst of capitalism. Be honest, India in the early years of the Cold War tried really, really hard to stay neutral. Eventually, though, it did actually lean more towards the Soviet Union and 1971 India and Soviet Union signed the windows Soviet Treaty of friendship and cooperation, which was just a very public way of saying that they would keep on trading in cooperating as they had been for the decades beforehand. This was all well and good, but the country really didn’t do that much economically. It grew in line with similar communist economies in the region and remain primarily agricultural with aside emphasis. On government run heavy industry, but this was all about the change. 

Up until the 90s, the Soviet Union was India’s major trading partner. But then in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed and with it India lost a majority of its trade and a large portion of its industrial support. 1991 was the slowest growth in the country had experienced since its independence. This was paired with a spike in oil prices that the growing economy relies so heavily on. All of this culminated in India facing the very real possibility of defaulting on its heavy debt burden. It found itself in in a last ditch effort to avoid the fates of economies in similar positions. At this time,Indian government reached out to the International Monetary Fund for a 1.8 billion dollar bailout loan. The International Monetary Fund is an international organisation that consists of 189 member country. And try to basically act as an intermediary to get everybody to do business with one another. It raises money by basically charging membership fees, two member states that will then use that money to lift up struggling economies like India in 1991. The International Monetary Fund is worth it for member states like the USA for example because it promotes global trade, monetary cooperation and sustainable economic growth. All things that are really important for a world power like the US. India, on the other hand, had up until this point shunned international trade, grasping onto their protectionist policies and state run enterprises. The International Monetary Fund agreed to loan India that money it so desperately needed. If India agreed to deregulate and open up its economy.

Since the agreement with the International Monetary Fund India has gone through a bold period of embracing free enterprise, it’s once government run industries have been prioritized. It’s very very strict. Trade policies have been relaxed, the country has opened itself up to business from around the world and the extremely limiting Licence Raj. That book of bureaucratic red tape that had rules about everything has since been thrown in the wood chipper. This was followed by an explosion in growth. India, the country has effectively doubled in size every five years since its turn around in 1991, which for a major economy is a growth rate that has only ever really been rivaled by nations like China and Japan, which is today the second and third largest economies in the world, respectively. These economic miracles are becoming more and more common around the world, though it has impacted large nations like the ones mentioned earlier. But many, many Eastern European and South East Asian countries seem to be going through these. Matthew industrial revolutions all together in a very short space of time.

Revolution took place in England and started around 1760. The process took many decades and the nation wasn’t really a fully industrialised nation until the mid 1800s. The technology of steam and water power eventually overflowed into other European economies that slowly started to go through their own industrial revolutions, changing from primarily agricultural nations to industrialise nations. These early European revolutions to many, many decades to fully get to the point where they could be considered an industrialised nation though. But recently this process has become a lot faster. China went from a primarily agricultural nation to primarily industrial nation and then onto a primarily server space nation. All in the span of about 20 years. Thailand did the same in around 5 years. The process of industrialization is getting faster and faster for every economy that goes through the transition. And here is why. Back in the 1760s when the first steam powered textile factories were spring into existence, these factories literally had to reinvent the wheel. The best layout for a factory floral. Best ways. Design everything from box to assembly lines was a little bit of unknown. This inevitably slowed down the whole process just a little bit. In today’s world we already have the knowledge and how all this industrial business should be done. So nations making the transition from agriculture to industry don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Oftentimes they can just buy machinery directly off established nations to carry out their business effectively from the get go. And this brings us neatly onto the second point. But world is now a large, interconnected global economy, with large businesses looking for new opportunities. As soon as a nation shows promising industrialising itself. International support tends to flock to these new nations in the form of multinational investment. Normally this takes the form of investment into industries can take advantage of cheaper Labour of developing countries, which one could argue four or against, but it does mean though is that these nations get the investment they need to hit the ground running as an industrialised nation. India is already a very very large economy simply by virtue of its resources at the main population. An favourable environmental conditions. The nation is already the 5th largest country in the world. As of late 2019 and it has achieved this ranking while still having a majority of its population. Working in agriculture. But this is all changing uncertainty and the rising cost of doing business in China is making the global business community look for a new base of its industrial operations for low cost manufacturing, India is the ideal according to take the reins right number of reasons and these same reasons are like India is likely behind the biggest and most rapid economic boom yet. India is a former British colony and while the country is much better off now as a free and independent state, it did take some of the best bits Britain had with it, namely its laws and its language. Language is actually normally seen as a pretty big hindrance to the economy because of the vast array of dialect spoken within the country that makes internal business. It’ll be difficult, but it does have going for it though is the second largest English speaking population in the world, falling only behind the USA?

English is the language of international trade and business population being able to speak English is a huge plus for when India bully sticks out onto the ball today. For reference, in China, less than 80% of the population speak English, which does create frictions in international business and could potentially just making the easier option in the future. Already India has benefited from this finding the world home of service call centres, the stereotypical Indian call centre is kind of thing that we make fun events. But to the Indian economy it means relatively good paying jobs that can be done by people of any age and industry. It is worth 10s of billions of dollars. This is just one small example of an industry that India has been able to monopolise that other industrialising nations would not have had the opportunity to be cause of their language barrier. The other big consideration is the Indian legal system. India does have its own system of government, although it is a system that basically reflects a western democracy. India has a president as the head of state and upper and lower House of governments to pass laws and a ranked court system. This again doesn’t sound like a huge deal but to international businesses shopping around for a new base of operations. This is huge to companies having a legal system similar to the western home countries, where trade dispute will be settled fairly. Business contracts will be honoured and intellectual property laws will be enforced is a very, very big deal and it is not something that multinationals have confidence in with countries like China. Now it must be noted that Indian law is not all roses and sunshine, it does have its problems with corruption but corruption tends to be something that international corporations can deal with as long as all that other stuff stays intact to protect them.

But what this all means is that India is likely on the cusp of an unbelievable technique that it is in the same position that I was 15 years ago. But it has a few big things going for it that China did not. If India is able to capitalise on the. And business attractiveness of the country. It is likely that the countries economy will continue to double in size many times over. This does not only mean that India will soon give China USA a run for their money, but on a smaller scale it will also mean that living conditions for hundreds of millions will be dragged up along with this economic explosion.

IS YOUR CHARECTER REFLECTED IN THE WAY YOU DRESS?

Why do we chose to buy or to wear the clothes we have? Is the intention to be attractive? Revealing? Modest? I always wonder why a lady would like to appear to be sexy. I what is her intention? It applies for men too……. I believe that what we wear is a true refection of the heart. When you go shopping, you only buy what you like, and when you wear it, you advertise the fact. So you show off your personality and reveal your character to those who see you. Does it make sense!?

The choice of your clothing speaks louder than the talk. The motives of one’s charecter are always judged by what they wear. People will always judge you by the looks. If you present yourself in cheap clothing, the thing that will be remembered is this and not your goodness or character.

Though we have the freedom to dress anyway we please, I do believe that our clothes reflect our character and hence we should be careful.

But if we think from another perspective, we miss out on many opportunities by judging by appearance only. This happens a lot of times. Dressing varies from land to land do judging personality based on dressing would be inappropriate. True Charecter I’d reflected is how we behave and not in how we dress.

In my opinion, in the case of a few, we can judge them by their looks while in some other cases, we cannot do like that. To be sure, dressing is your choice. Wear what you like, but only decent ones.

Power outage

power outage (also called a power cut, a power out, a power blackout,  power failureor a blackout) is the loss of the electrical power network supply to an end user.

There are many causes of power failures in an electricity network. Examples of these causes include faults at power stations, damage to electric transmission linessubstations or other parts of the distribution system, a short circuitcascading failurefuse or circuit breakeroperation.

Power failures are particularly critical at sites where the environment and public safety are at risk. Institutions such as hospitalssewage treatment plants, and mines will usually have backup power sources such as standby generators, which will automatically start up when electrical power is lost. Other critical systems, such as telecommunication, are also required to have emergency power. The battery room of a telephone exchange usually has arrays of lead–acid batteries for backup and also a socket for connecting a generator during extended periods of outage.

SPORTS

FOOTBALL

Champions League: Lionel Messi’s toughest task as Barcelona face up to Bayern Munich –

Lionel Messi might never have been faced with a more daunting task at Barcelona than engineering a victory against Bayern Munich here on Friday.

The only surviving former winners of European club football’s greatest prize — with five titles each — meet in a heavyweight Champions League quarterfinal behind closed doors at the Estadio da Luz.

It is not often that Messi’s Barcelona comes into such a big European tie as the underdog, but it has this time, with Quique Setien’s team having lost to Real Madrid in the Spanish title race while Bayern appeared flawless on the way to winning a German league and cup double.

Messi is now 33, yet Barcelona appears more reliant on him than ever.

CRICKET

Australia’s tour of England to end on September 16, IPL-bound players can only play from September 26 –

England and Australia’s IPL-bound players are likely to miss the first week of the Indian Premier League after it was announced that the two teams will play six white-ball games from September 4-16 at Southampton and Manchester respectively.

England and Australia will be playing three T20 Internationals at the Ageas Bowl on September 4, 6 and 8 while the ODIs will be held on September 11, 13 and 16 at Old Trafford.

The latest that the players can touch base in UAE is September 17 or 18 and as per the IPL SOP, will be quarantined for six days with RT-PCR tests on days 1, 3 and 6. On the seventh day, they will be entering the bio-bubble provided they test negative on all three occasions.

TENNIS

Novak Djokovic to play the U.S. Open- Novak Djokovic confirmed on Thursday he will play at the US Open, ending speculation about his presence at the first Grand Slam tournament since the coronavirus restart.

It is preceded by the Western and Southern Open, which is normally played in Cincinnati but has been moved to New York this year.

Djokovic’s decision to take part in the US Open is a major boost for the tournament after a host of headline names pulled out.

The list of absentees includes four-time champion Rafael Nadal and woman’s world number one Ashleigh Barty.

MUGHAL ARCHITECTURE PART I

Features of Mughal architecture :

Elaborate calligraphy designs on the walls of the monument.

Charbagh design architecture: gardens at four sides of the monument.

Jail work and arabesque design. Contributed by Pietra dura.

Foresighting technique- Qufi has written on monuments that appear the same from every angle.

Mughal architecture is too called INDO- ISLAMIC ARCHITECTURE.

It has a Rajput and Sikhs influence also.  Focus had been made on the construction of the mosque, tomb, and fort architecture.

Architecture becomes complex, the use of white marble is huge.  An autobiography of Babur he described his interest in planning and laying out formal gardens, placed within rectangular walled enclosed and divided into four quarter artificial channels.

These gardens were called Chahar bagh, four gardens as their symmetrical division into quarters.

There were several architecture innovations during Akbar’s region, construction with red sandstone, edged with white marble accelerated. The creation of large empires brought different regions under their rule heped in the cross-fertilisation of artistic forms and styles.

For example in Vrindavan near Mathura temples were constructed in architectural styles that were very similar to Mughal places in Fatehpur Sikri. Mughal rulers were particularly skilled in adapting regional architecture styles in the construction of their buildings.

In Bengal, too local rulers had developed a roof that was designed to resemble a thatched hut. Mughal liked this ‘BANGLA DOME’ and adopted it in their monuments.

Babur the first ruler can not contribute much to architecture as he ruled for only four years and he continuously fights for survival.

The mosque at Panipat and Rohikhand is the most famous one.  Babur’s tomb in Afganistan also had char bagh architecture.

INFLATION SHOOTS UP !

I WAS DRINKING COFFE IN THE MORNING WHILE GOING THROUGH THE NEWSPAPER WITH A PLEASANT WEATHER AROUND. BUT , THE NEWS INSIDE IT WAS NOT AT ALL PLEASANT , WE ARE WELL AWARE OF THE ECONOMIC DOWNTURN ,WE ARE FACING. THE SCHOLARS HAVE ALEARDY PREDICTED , IT’S GONNA BE WORSE FOR THE WHOLE WORLD ESPECIALLY FOR INDIA ; AS SHE IS GOING TO FACE THE WORST OF WORST SCENARIOS , GDP IS GOING TO BE AT THE LOWEST , MORE THAN THE YEAR 1947. IT WAS WRITTEN IN THE HEADLINE ‘ INFLATION ACCELARATES TO 6.93% DIMMING CHANCES OF A RATE CUT ‘ , WE HAVE WITNESSED THE VARIATIONS IN THE INFLATION THIS YEAR , HOW IT HAS BECOME AN ICEBERG IN OUR PATH ! . THE INTREST RATES CAN’T BE FURTHER REDUCED AS SAID BY THE RESERVE BANK OF INDIA , THERE IS A LIMMIT TO CUT THE INTRESTS RATES , WE CAN’T MOVE BEYOND THAT LINE.

INDIA ‘s RETAIL INFLATION HAS SHOOT TO THE HUGE PERCENTAGE OF 6.93% , WHICH IS MAJIORILY DUE TO THE RISE IN THE PRICES OF FOOD , WHICH IS TERMED AS FOOD INFLATION . THIS MONSTER HAS GONE BEYOND THE MEDIUM TARGET OF RESERVE BANK OF INDIA FOR THE TENTH MONTH , UPSETTING IT IS . THE FIGURE IN THE JULY WAS 6.15% , BUT , IT IS BEING SAID THAT IT IS HIGHER , ACORDING TO THE FORECASTS IN THE REUTERS POLL OF ANALYSTS . IT WAS RECORDED 6.23% IN THE MONTH OF JUNE . THE FOOD PRICES HAVE CLIMBED UP , DUE TO SUPPLY SIDE DISRUPTIONS. A HIGH JUMP OF 9.62% COMPARED TO THAT OF 8.72% IN JUNE . RESERVE BANK OF INDIA LAST WEEK ANNOUNCED FEW CHANGES IN THE POLICY , UNCHANGING THE INTREST RATES AND CUT DOWN THE REPO RATE BY 115 BASIS POINTS . THE MEDIUM TERM SET BY THE RESERVE BANK OF INDIA FOR INFLATION IS 4% ABOUT WHICH I MENTIONED ABOVE.

INDIA HAS EXPECTATIONS ABOUT THE CONTRACTION OF THE ECONOMY MORE THEN 4.5% IN THIS CURRENT FISCAL YEAR . CORE INFLATION HAS BEEN IN BETWEEN 5.8% AND 5.9%. BUT THE GOOD NEWS IS WE ARE EXPIRIENCING BEAUTIFULL MONSOON THEESE DAYS AND DUE TO THE MONSOON RAINS , AWAITING THE AVERAGE OF 104% FOR LONG TERM IN THE MONTHS OF AUGUST AND SEPTEMBER. THIS IS A SIGN DESIGNATING THE HEAVY AND RICH HARVESTS , ADDING TO OVERCOME THE DAMAGES INCURRED DUE TO THE NOVEL CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC.

I FEAR FOR THE BALLOON HEADING FOR A BURST !

Rajasthan Assembly Session begins, Ashok Gehlot-led govt to move vote of confidence today

A key session of the Rajasthan Assembly began today. The motion for vote of confidence was presented in the Legislative Assembly on behalf of the State Government, which is being debated in the house. Legislative Affairs Minister Shanti Dhariwal introduced the motion for vote of confidence in the house.
 
Starting the debate, Mr Dhariwal said that today the issue has attracted attention of people of entire state and the country. Speaker Dr C. P. Joshi said that the discussion would be concluded within three hours. It is believed that voting will be take place on the confidence motion by this evening.
 
The house assembled at 11 a.m. and paid tributes to Lalji Tondon, Ajit Jogi and other leaders who recently passed away. After the obituary remarks, the Speaker adjourned the house till 1 P.M. Special seating arrangements were made in the house to maintain social distancing in view of the Corona pandemic.

COVID-19 recovery rate improves to over 71 per cent in country

Total recoveries from COVID-19 in the country today inched closer to touch the two million mark. A total of 17 lakh 51 thousand 555 people have recovered in the country so far. Fifty five thousand 573 recoveries were reported during the last 24 hours. With this, the recovery rate improved to 71.17 per cent in the country. The case fatality rate stands at 1.95 per cent.
 
The Health Ministry said, 64 thousand 553 new cases of COVID-19 have been registered in the country in the last 24 hours taking the total number of cases to 24 lakh 61 thousand 191. Presently, the total number of active cases in the country is six lakh 61 thousand 595. In a single day, one thousand seven deaths were also reported taking the toll to 48 thousand 40.

Country registers record high testing of more than 8 lakh samples for Covid-19 for 2nd consecutive day

India registered a record high testing of more than eight lakh COVID-19 samples consecutively for the second day. The Health Ministry said, India recorded its highest COVID testing figure of eight lakh 48 thousand 728 samples during the last 24 hours. It said, the remarkable feat has been achieved by rigorously following the ‘Test, Track and Treat’ strategy and the country is geared up to reach the testing capacity of 10 lakh tests per day.
 
The Health Ministry said that the strong resolve and determination of the Union Government along with the States and Union Territories to follow aggressive testing as the first important step in the early detection and isolation of COVID-19 cases has resulted in rapidly increasing the number of tests done per day. The week-wise average daily tests conducted has witnessed a sharp increase from around 2.3 lakh in the first week of July 2020 to around seven lakh in the current week.
 
The cumulative testing done so far in the country now stands at two crore 76 lakhs 94 thousand 416 tests. The Tests done per million of the population in the country has also seen a sharp increase to reach nearly 20 thousand.
 
Government said that the strong determinant of this milestone has been a sustained expansion of testing labs across the country. From merely one lab in January this year, the country today has one thousand 451 labs. Out of these, 958 are government labs while the remaining 493 are private labs.

President Ram Nath Kovind to address the Nation on the eve of 74th Independence Day today

President Ram Nath Kovind will address the nation on the eve of the 74th Independence Day today. The address will be broadcast from 7 PM onwards on the entire national network of All India Radio and telecast over all channels of Doordarshan in Hindi followed by the English version.
 
All India Radio will broadcast regional language versions of the President’s Address from 9.30 PM on its respective regional networks. Broadcast of the address in Hindi and English on Doordarshan will be followed by broadcast in regional languages by regional channels of Doordarshan. 

Cashless Economy – Boon and Bane ?

What is a Cashless Economy ?

In a cashless economy most of the transaction will be done by digital means like e banking, debit and credit cards, PoS (point of sales) machines, digital wallets etc. In simpler words no liquid money or paper currency will be used by the people in a given country. In a cashless economy the third party will be in possession of your money. He will allow you to transact that money whenever it is needed. If it is not needed then the third party can use that money. Third party can be a government or any other public or private sector bank.

Positive Impact on Society

We are seeing the impact of cashless economy on the society when it comes to crime rates. According to Union defense minister after demonetization the crime rates in Mumbai has dropped to half. Not just Mumbai but Delhi is seeing a substantial decline in crimes related to financial motive. Bank robbery, burglary, extortion etc are declining because of demonetization.

Attack on Parallel Economy

This is one of the most important reasons why a cashless society is must. People who hoard money under their bed (also known as black money), people who launder money bypassing banking channels, terrorist who need money to finance their terror etc will run out of business now. Size of Parallel economy will reduce substantially.

Financial Inclusion

Digital economy will help to enhance our current banking system. There will be increased access to credit for people who did not fall in any banking network. Financial inclusion will automatically reduce poverty.

Increase the Tax Net

All the transactions that are done can be monitored and traced back to a given individual. If officials from tax department smell something fishy then they can trace the money transaction back to the individual. Hence it will be really difficult for someone to evade tax. Increasing tax net is very important for any government.

Boost in Consumption

There would be no incentive for people keeping money in the bank. So they would love to spend on things that they like. It will help to boost consumption that is really good for any economy. More jobs will be created and income level of people will rise.

Security and Convenience

Last but not the least is security and convenience. You don’t have to carry a wallet with money in it. You just use your mobile phone or credit card for transaction. It is very hassle free and already going on in urban areas of the country.

Security – Cyber Attack, Fraud and Power Outages

Cashless economy can be a nightmare when it comes to security. All your transactions will be done digitally. You will be prone to cyber attacks like hacking. Hackers can hack your sensitive information like password, credit card number etc and leave your account with no money. Even your personal computer is compromised. You can save yourself from fraud but it is very difficult to save from a cyber attack. Finally if there is a power outage especially in India which is very regular then entire system will be affected for long time.

Have to Trust Government or Third party

As I said earlier there is no money in your hand. All the money is digital so either they are in control of banks or government or any other third party. You have to trust government or bank blindly because everything is under their possession. This is could be scary because if tomorrow something happens you will be left with no hard cash.

Reduced Liquidity means Bad for Certain Sectors

There are certain sectors which depend upon high level of transaction. Sectors like Real Estate, jewelry, retail industry, restaurants and eating joints, cement and other SME will be affected badly because of cashless society. It means a lot people who are employed by these sectors are also going to be affected.

Really Bad for Poor

This is the real point and will be debating this in great details in following paragraph. Here I just want to say cashless economy is really going to hurt poor.

Money is probably the most significant invention in the history of economics which has now by and large fully replaced the barter system of trade across the world. However, nowadays, many developed societies in the world have now moved a step further by moving on to the cashless economy. In the developing countries like India, the cashless system has started making the inroads but it is far less in use than that of the developed counterparts.

During the pre-demonetization, the cash to GDP ratio in the country was between 12-13% of the GDP which fell to 7.3% during the demonetization. It was less than that of US where cash GDP ratio is at 7.8%. Though Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has started replenishing the cash into the economy but many experts believe that cash-GDP will not raise to the pre-demonetization level as government is giving a push to the cashless economy.

As India moves towards a cashless economy, following advantages are expected to accrue :

  • The electronic payment will help the entrepreneur to increase their customer base and breach the geographical limitations.
  • It is not necessary to be physically present to conduct cashless transaction. There is also no limitation on timing of transaction as it can be done at any time and from anywhere.
  • Carrying high amount of cash is always a security hazard. For other modes like credit/ debit cards, in the event of loss or robbery, one can block the card. It may also reduce pick pocketing and highway robbery.
  • Increasing share of cashless will improve government revenue as online transaction lead a trail of events which can be traced to find out tax evasion if any.
  • Since the cashless transactions are more visible, it will help in curbing the clack money.
  • If subsidy or wages for the welfare schemes like MNREGA are paid online through bank transfer instead of cash, it would also help in plugging the leakages and help in ensuring that subsidies are better targeted.
  • As the people increasingly started using cashless transactions, it will help in increasing the tax base. It will be easy for the public as well to explain the tax authorities their past expenditure.
  • Being cashless also inculcates budget discipline.
  • It will also be easy to ward off the borrowers if you are cashless.
  • Cashless transactions do away with the need of change. One can pay in exact amount even in fraction of rupee or paisa through card payment or online transaction.
  • Problem of counterfeit currency will also be reduced in online transactions.
  • One can also trace the funding of terror activities as online transactions leave a trail.
  • There is high cost of printing currency notes. Switching to cashless transactions will decrease this cost.

However, being cashless has its share of disadvantages too :

  • The biggest fear is the risk of identity theft. One can also become a victim of phishing trap.
  • In case of loss or theft of card, getting another card is time consuming process.
  • Since mobile phone had become an important element of cashless economy, loss of phone may become a double whammy as many financial details can be retrieved from it.
  • If we take into account the proportion of non-tech-savvy population, the practical implementation of cashless economy will take enormous efforts.

Despite its drawbacks, the cashless system is indeed an improvement over the traditional cash based system. However, none of the advanced economy has fully replaced the cash as it is practically not possible but reducing the amount of cash and increasing the cashless transactions will definitely improve the transparency in business transactions and therefore is good for the country and economy.

The future of Indian consumer market

Consumption kept the Indian economy going long after investment slowed, but over the past year, even this narrative has started to fray at the edges.

Will consumer spending in India shake off its sluggishness and go back to growing at a fast clip and in turn drive economic growth ?

The short-term answer of the next two years is that –

(1) the richer parts of it will step up spending in the next year and be the vanguard of growth, and since they account for at least 40% of all spending and over half of income, this is good news, and

(2) however, we must be careful not to fall into our oft-repeated trap – assuming that the yo-yo upward growth that we are about to see as a result of release in pent-up demand is the right growth number to project for the future.

The medium-term answer of the next five years is that –

(3) the third decade of liberalization and the third trillion dollars of gross domestic product (GDP) will result in a very different spending pattern of consumers from the second decade and the second trillion dollars – in fact, discretionary income will shrink for a large section of Indian households as subsidies get withdrawn and income growth is lower, and inflation and interest rates are higher (remember the golden years of 2003-10 ? ).

The long-term answer of the next 10 years is that we must urgently accept that the India consumption story has some big problems on the fundamentals that we must try and change or accept and factor into our expectations and our business strategies. Consumer India is not anywhere near what we believe it to be – a healthy, young fruit tree, growing in an environment that has all the natural ingredients needed for it to flourish and yield an ever-increasing crop year after year nearly as if on “auto pilot” and almost forever.

On the contrary, it is like the demographic dividend – it has lots of potential, but miles to go before it gets fulfilled. Consumer India comprises lots of people, but no regular income or formal jobs or decent living conditions, no social security either; perforce settling for micro-entrepreneurship livelihoods to compensate for no formal jobs, but with so little financial inclusion to enable them to grow to generate reasonable and stable incomes. If India doesn’t earn regularly and properly, if it has no social security, how can the spending engine be regular and confident?

The only thing that remains constant in the world is change. Since independence Indian consumer market has been changing under the impact of various forces. These forces on the Indian consumer market have brought in a lot of divides. The prominent ones are the divide between the rich and the poor, rural populace and the urban populace as well as the divide between the English speaking and non-English speaking population. India after a tumultuous period of more than forty years opened its economy in 1991. Government of India ushered in the LPG reforms that is liberalization, privatization and globalization in 1991 resulting in high economic growth. The era of Hindu rate of growth was over.   

This new growth coupled with improvement in information technology gave rise to a new consuming middle class. These consumers believed in spending on discretionary shopping goods, were influenced by the work culture of MNC’s in sectors like IT, ITES, banking, telecom among others. Even local businessmen were benefitted by the impact of high economic growth and therefore they also joined the spending spree.  

This continued in the new millennium. As FDI inflows increased, more international brands were available. Even because of low interest rates in USA, liquidity flows increased resulting in lower interest rates in India.   

Home loans and other types of credit off take jumped resulting in multiplier effect on consumption. The party continued until 2008, when the world was hit by the financial crisis resulting in a slowdown in India. Since then, there has been a tapering of consumption pattern. Sentiments and the fundamentals are not to be very happy about. In fighting with the slowdown the government has increased its expenditure and thereby increasing the fiscal deficit. The current level of fiscal deficit which is hovering around 5 percent of GDP is unsustainable.    

It is partly responsible for high inflation. Other factors responsible for high inflation are policy paralysis in areas of agriculture, banking among others. High inflation has resulted in lower disposable incomes. Discretionary spending has come down resulting in slow consumption growth. The hoopla and excitement of 2003-07 will come back or not depends upon a lot of factors. Yes in the long run, the consumption story looks bright. According to McKinsey reports, over 291 million people will move from desperate poverty to a more sustainable life, and India’s middle class will swell by more than ten times from its current size of 50 million to 583 million people.  

By 2025 over 23 million Indians—more than the population of Australia today – will number among the country’s wealthiest citizens. The medium term and short term prospects of Indian consumer market rests on the growth in personal incomes of the people and low inflation. Both can only be achieved with proactive intervention of the central government as well as the various state governments.  

Till the general elections of 2014, the sentiments will not be euphoric as far as the consumption story is concerned. Beyond that, the new government has to improve the governance by leaps and bounds to revive the economic growth and thereby increasing the personal incomes.   

The government has to bring a lot of reforms like amendment in APMC act so that the aggregate food supply and its efficient distribution can improve resulting in lower food inflation and higher discretionary spending. So in the short to medium term, the consumption story of Indian market rests on the new government and its policies. Things like hoarding, black-marketing has to come down. So, it will be interesting to see who comes to power in 2014 because even the prospects of Indian consumer market and our affluent lifestyle expectations rest on the quality of the new government.