Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Analysis of (Village by the see) book


Name of the book; Village by the sea
By; Anita Desai
Story; of an Indian family

A story of an Indian family, staying in a village, called Thul, almost 14 miles away form Mumbai one of the most famous cities of India. This family consists of a mother who is very sick and lying in bed all the time, father who drinks all the time and is unable to work due to his hard drinking habit, three sisters and a brother, the two younger sisters who are studying at school, and an elder sister who has stopped going to school due to economical problems, and now looking after the family and a younger brother who also stopped going to school sue to the same reason and is supposed to look after the family.

These two the elder sister and the younger brother are the sole food provider to the family while having nothing behind them or at hand. A very small hut and a small piece of land which is not adequate to make a living on, so the life is very difficult and full of sorrows, to be honest I wept sometimes while reading this novel sometimes because of their tough condition of life and their wisdom and sometimes because of the success of them over something difficult which gave me an inner happiness, victory and joyful tears. This book is really very emotional and sensitive, in fact you should have that feeling other wise you won’t realize it.
I will not reveal anymore about the book, you will have to read it so it can be more interesting and understandable.

Now I will give a brief analysis of the book from my point of views
The book covers the following aspects which every one in its own turn has its own unique role in the life of the family or as a whole for all human beings. They are as follows;

The village, its living conditions and the simplicity of the people;
It is really very clear that the condition of living in a village is having very low standard comparing to cities. There is very less opportunity of a job in a village than in a city. There is no clean water, very poor health care facilities, having low standard schooling and many more problems. And so are the people very simple, having no high ambitions and are satisfied with what ever they have at hand.

They have got a small piece of land, a fishing boat a hut and nothing else. And at the same time they are having a very calm and relaxed type of life. They have to work only season wise and have their daily siesta very joyfully. Which are mentioned in a very good flow in this book.

The families the roles of the parents in a family and the vigilant boy and girl who are really very young and are vulnerable at this phase of age but still manage it.
When you hear the name parents what would be your feelings?
Definitely loving ones who really takes care for you, who raise you, who make you laugh and cry for you, who provide foods, clothing, shelter and medicine for you and still don’t want any compensation and never regrets for their doings. The role of the parents in a family is very vital and crucial.

But in the book it is different; the father is careless the mother is unable due to her sickness and weakness. And in result the boy and the girl play the role of them respectively. They become vigilant, loving and concerned about their sorrowful life. They develop more consciousness, and make wise decisions but at the same time the condition of the village living, especially their status is making them very vulnerable at this stage of life. But still they have the spirit to survive and manage their life through different ways that they can afford to do.

The city of Mumbai the complexity, the crowd, the hard living conditions of the city life especially for the poor people.
The life in a city is well standardized comparing to villages, but still we don’t have to forget that all the comforts in a city come through money and wealth, so we still have people under poverty line even in the cities. Those who live in the slums have a painful life. They see all the modern things but can not afford, they do work but do not earn enough, they are alive but with pain and grief.

The difference between rich and poor, the city man and a villager, an educated man and an uneducated person.
The rich, the city man and an educated stand in one category and the poor, a villager and an uneducated stand in an other category, the rich has a distinguished feature, a city man is supposed to be smart and an educated person intelligent, and the other category is just the opposite of them. Many a times the first category of the people fools and ridicules the second category of the people, which is unfair.

The changes taking place in life and how people should adapt to them.
As we see today’s rapid growth and so many other changes in life are all due to globalization, deregulation, free movement of the people, free markets and free trades, in fact all are tremendous changes which have taken place in a very narrow span of time in this twentieth century.

The villages and their lands, groves and deserts have been replaced by great companies. The natural environment does not exist anymore as it was earlier. These changes are profitable in the short-run but destructive in long-run. The villagers are opposing but who will listen to their yelling. The government is implementing its master plans with force. And in result the small farm and land owners become the labors and workers of the various companies established in the area or start doing some thing else. Their calm, relaxed and joyful life turns to a hardworking and restless lobar life.

Sunday, December 28, 2008

What are the effects of war against terrorism on the fiscal policy of the Indian government?


1. What is fiscal policy?

Fiscal policy (economic policy) is a government policy for dealing with the budget (especially with taxation and borrowing). Fiscal policy measures to achieve the right economic environment to unleash the full potential of a country’s economy.

2. What is terrorism?
The calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political, religious or ideological in nature; this is done through coercion or instilling fear.


3. Some facts of terrorism in India:
First of all I would like to quote some of the terrorist incidents and other conventional wars taken place in India through out the near past. India has had conventional wars in the near past. It had with Pakistan a conventional war in 1965 and in 1971. It had a conventional war with China in 1962, one recently in Kargil.
In the four conventional wars that India has fought, including Kargil in it, the total number of the security people who lost their lives is 9857. In the near past, the number of civilians who have lost their lives to terrorism is 62.221.
The security personnel killed in various terrorist actions is again over 9000. Number of people rendered homeless is close to 6 lakhs. The total amount of money spent for anti-insurgency crosses Rs.45,000 Crores. Which should have been spent for the sake of village people’s health care facilities, shelter, electricity and irrigation system.
Terrorism has an adverse effect as far as economic growth and development is concerned. How much did one of India's most affluent States, the Punjab, suffer on account of terrorism in few years?
Event today the key economic hubs of Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad have all been attacked in recent years, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of people. Since 2004, The Times of India reported Monday, India has lost more lives to terrorism than any country other than Iraq.
Home minister’s statement after terror strikes; “from July 11, 2006 till September 13, 2007 397 people have been killed in Mumbai, Varanasi, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Delhi.” The Times of India has reported Tuesday, Sep 16, 2008.

4. What are the effects of terrorism on civilian?

It has an adverse affect up on the civilian, not only physically but emotionally, psychologically as well as economically. Thousands of innocence civilian have lost their lives some became handicapped or psychologically ill. They are infected by different kinds of deceases.

Many of them have migrated from one place to another, for example many people come from Kashmir to other states of India. Many people are suffering from starvation and scarce of food because of unemployment. Illiteracy rate is increasing because people can not afford to get education due to the above mentioned obstacles. Shelter, electricity, employment and healthcare facilities (lack of awareness about HIV), are some other major causes caused by terrorism.

5. What are the effects of terrorism on the economy?
India has a partially planned economy, in which it has two general types of expenditures.
Development (applies to infrastructure and economic growth) and
Non-development (applies to international affairs and military spending).
Over the last ten years, non-development spending has increased five times, while funding for infrastructure development has been weighed down by corruption and inability to complete projects.
The Indian government has often been restrained to fund national infrastructure projects because of uncontrolled corruption. A tragic problem that India faces is its foreign loan debt.

For over a decade, India has been financing military growth with foreign loans. 40% of non-development expenditures in India go to interest payments. This is a huge percentage considering all the roads that need to be built, the people that need to be fed, and the ever-increasing problem of AIDS throughout the nation.

On the other hand if there is a threat to the country and its people, a country is supposed to protect its nation at any cost. And for this purpose a country require a strong army, police and intelligence network with the world’s countries as well as modern technological weapons.
These all things require a sufficient budget to achieve. The security men require to be trained and be paid well so that they can be able to protect the country’s civilians. India has to make sure that its nation is secured if not the instability of a country itself is an economic threat. Neither a foreign investor nor an Indian investor will invest in India if there is no assurance for them and their wealth.

Today, Indian government is training a number of anti-terrorism officers. Anti terrorism studies require in-depth understanding of explosives, weapons of mass destruction, extremism and terrorist techniques to prevent their operations.
As international violence and terrorist activities are increasing, our government and military actions are focusing on introducing practical strategies such as planning, prevention and resolution. These anti-social activities tend to increase but these advanced anti terrorism education can help our country meet the challenging security problems.

India's military spending is set to overtake Britain's present defense budget within five years as the country transforms its armed forces to counter-balance China.
India's defense spending has risen by an average of 18 per cent in each of the past three years. If this continues, India's present defense spending of £15 billion will more be than double to £35 billion in 2013.

Its rapid growth in spending is spurred by growing tension with its northern neighbor, China. The two nations share a bitterly disputed, 2,100 mile border and are rivals for influence in Asia. The Indian navy is seeking to become a "blue water" force, capable of operating worldwide.
India on recently hinted at doubling its defense expenditure as its current spend was much below the world average despite a booming economy. Defense minister A K Antony on has said the modernization of armed forces was one of the top most priorities of the government. "Our defense budget is just 1.99% of the GDP, which is one of the lowest in the world. The ideal situation would be 3% of GDP, which is the global average," he added. We must keep in view the varied security challenges being faced by our nation.


The defense minister said the country's most important challenge in the foreseeable future still remains the growing instability in its neighborhood. It doesn't only affect peace but it also brings severe damages to the economy.There has been much written about the short-term macroeconomic impact of terrorism attacks on investors’ risk aversion, equity market valuations, bond yields, oil prices, aggregate consumption and investment activity and even the medium-term effects in the regulatory, trade and fiscal policy responses by governments and the private sector, but much less is known about how this potentially long-lasting heightened terrorist threat affects the stock prices of individual firms.Designing successful policies to prevent terror, to lessen the costs of terrorism, or to reduce an economy’s vulnerability to attacks well help us.


While the physical damage caused by terrorism is grabbing public attention, there is another type of terrorism taking place in our country (Financial Terrorism) and which apparently has not shocked the people to the same extent. Corruption is nothing but financial terrorism. India is one of the most under-policed states in the world, the U.N. norm is for 222 police personnel for every 100,000 people. In India, it is 122 for 100,000. Moreover, rural policing has almost collapsed, so that those targeting cities are able to use rural bases without fear." The security situation might well prevent the benefits of India's economic boom from reaching its less developed parts.


"It is usually the poor who get killed in terrorist incidents, and the value of their lives is marginal," "That is why there is no effect on politics, economy or governance. India's economy has grown by more than 8% a year, among the fastest rates in the world.

A new industrial resurgence, increasing domestic savings, a pick-up in capital formation and a rapid growth in exports are the emerging opportunities for raising resources and sharing prosperity. Global uncertainties, an acceptable range of inflation and government spending are challenges reinforce the need for continuity in the prudent mix of fiscal and monetary policy measures with no scope to slip on the annual deficit targets.


6. What then is the real answer to this?
The answers are several. For one, you need a very powerful, not only domestic but with international cooperation a very strong link, a network virtually a national and international network, as far as the intelligence systems on these people are concerned. You need to have knowledge of their activities in advance because terrorists always choose different time and place of their assault.
They never give you warning in advance and therefore targets are taken by surprise. You need a genuine and a powerful international cooperation as far as terrorists are concerned. You need a powerful security regime as far as terrorists are concerned and finally you need a very strong and powerful legal regime.

Analysis of Titan watches’ company


Introduction;
Titan watch is a joint venture of Tata Group and the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO). It was established in 1984 and setup its production facility in 1987 for the manufacture of quartz analogue electronic watches at Hosur near Banglore.

Expansion and growth;
Within three years of launch Titan appeared as the leader in Indian quartz watch market. And it had 60% share of the quartz watch market in the 4th year of launch. Titan’s watches are sold in from more than 6000 retail shops spread throughout the country covering 1200 towns. Titan has 140 exclusive showrooms (world of Titan) and 150 multi-brand showrooms (Titan Time Zones). The company’s watches are also currently sold in about 40 countries of the world through marketing subsidiaries based in Landon, Dubai, and Singapore. Titan is the sixth largest global player in the manufacture brands category.

Condition of the watch market before the Titan entered the watch market;
HMT was the leader of the watch market and was producing mechanical watches. And the mechanical watches dominated the watch market. HMT was producing 5 million mechanical watches per year. So it was a tough time for Titan to make a good decision whether to go for mechanical watches or for quartz or for both mechanical and quartz. It finally decided to go for quartz.

Why did Titan choose quartz route?
Ø Due to the changing world trend toward quartz;
It was the right time to go for quartz because the globe was already changed toward quartz and quartz was the right product to conquer today’s watch market as well as tomorrow’s watch market. Making a wise decision helped Titan to dominate India’s watch market and, in addition it enabled Titan to go global.
Ø Setting up a quartz watch plant required less investment comparing to mechanical watches plant.
Titan has made a very sensible and rational decision to go for quartz; Hence Titan could invest heavily on the effective promotion, advertising, huge product distribution, a high quality product, and etc, instead of investing too much money on the plant. In fact from the very beginning Titan showed its wisdom. Because in every start up an understanding is required this has been done by the Titan. At the end of the day no regret can compensate the damage or destruction of any wrong decision taken by anyone with the fruit of success.

How did the company succeed?

Through Effective Strategies;
The company put on the market a wide and attractive range of quality watches and they were also contemporary in style. The company developed new watch movements including dual time, world time, alarm and longe-bettery-life watches. Titan set new trends in which new designs and innovative and the best technology was used. Titan offered a choice of over 1000 designs long product line and wide range of models. And Titan also offered jewelry watches. Titan launched digital watches and an exciting brand for children (Dash). Titan also targeted semi-urban and rural customers.

Why and how the company did so many things?
In simple words; the company did not leave any vacancy that required to be filled. It was always seeking for opportunities. In fact it attempted to conquer all the segments in the market according to demographic en, social and culture en, economical en, psychological factors and etc. the company knew all the changing environments through research and carefully watching the market. All these efforts could help the company to increase its market share in the long-run. Even the children were targeted in order to bring them into the Titan fold at an early age.

An effective positioning strategy;
Variety in product offer was Titan’s real trump card and Titan built its positioning strategy.
Watch is not a time telling device anymore; it can be an ornament, a gift, a fashion wear or a style.
Why? Titan studied consumers’ behavior. Consumers were giving more attention to dress, ornament, and even footwear. So Titan decided based on psychological factors of the consumers to attract and target customers through effective positioning.
Titan made the product available at locations like bookstores, gift shops, boutiques, and opened counters in restaurants, photography shops and in fashion wear shops.

The company knew that if its product is an ornament or gift so it should be available every where rather than a watch shop. It definitely helped Titan’s product to be sold, because a product is always preferred and sold due to its availability and different varieties with different price-range. Titan also voted for the showroom idea and started franchising a network of trendy Titan showrooms. As the product was positioned as a fashion wears so the store image was also too important to be in tune with the overall product positioning.

How did Titan go global?
The next logical step was to move into the world market. And Titan’s first step in its internationalization journey was the Middle East.

Why the Middle East? The decision was based on market research and one simple indisputable fact that the region had a large Indian population for whom Titan was already an established well-known brand.

In addition entry into the global market fortified Titan’s position at home.
Why? In simple words, customers now recognize Titan as an international producer.
And in fact customers always perceive that the products from abroad are better than products at home. So going global give a fresh edge to Titan’s marketing strategy at home. In customers’ view now Titan is more reliable because the world has accepted it.

In brief overall;
In my points of views the key elements of the Titan success are proper and accurate appraisal, well formulated marketing strategy and decision making due to the changing environments such as; social and cultural environments, demographic en, economical en, psychological factors and technological en. The company built a powerful brand and developed an efficient retail strategy within a short time.

Titan has continued to seek out ways to meet customer’s changing needs. The company has been making changes in its strategies. It proves that the company is always concern about its profitability. And from the very beginning the company is concern about the evaluation of the market segmentation whether; is it sizable? Is it growing? Is it profitable? Is it accessible? And is it compatible with the firm’s resources and capabilities? Going global was another logical step as I have mentioned above. The company has a wide distribution network, attractively designed retail outlets, efficient after-sales service and focused advertising. These are issues that Titan had already and successfully addressed at home.

Saturday, December 27, 2008

What are Consumerism and waste production?


To start with the topic I would like to define the followings;
Þ Consumer; A consumer is someone who consumes anything that is required by him.
Þ Consumerism; Consumerism refers to the process of consuming anything available in the world.
Þ Waste product; Waste product is the product which is thrown after a short-period of time usage.

What are the problems and causes of consumerism and waste product?
Today’s perpetual growth causes the following problems;
Þ Destructive in the long-run to the environment
Þ A contributing factor to the poverty around the world and
Þ Numerous other social and ecological problems

Today’s many products produced are luxurious and are non-degradable which takes years to be decomposed. A high rate of consumption leads to pollution and waste product.

Today’s 20% of the world richest consume 86% of the world’s total resources. In my point of views the 86% of the resources won’t be consumed properly by only 20% of the population, so in result there would be waste products as they are consuming and then throwing them away after a short-period of time usage, and finally such kind of process lead to pollution and environmental problems.

At the same time it is inequality as well. The resources are not divided properly among people; they are neither saved nor consumed properly. Due to economic growth, migration is also taking place every where in the world. Many people move from one country to another country and from rural areas to urban areas, in order to improve and have a high standard of living.

This migration of people causes of slums in the cities, different types of pollution and pressure on natural resources such as land, water, food and other resources. In fact the three factors such as population, technology and consumption are responsible for the environment.

How to solve these problems?
Well, in my point of views if we do the following things, we will have a prosperous and bright future;

Þ Population; we need to control population growth. This is the very basic and important step to be taken into consideration. Laws are to be passed for the prevention of population growth.
Þ Consumption; once we control population growth, the consumption rate would fall down itself, beyond this, still we have to control more the consumption rate by passing some laws.
Þ Technology; we should stop at this stage some of the irrelevant and unimportant products, in order to stabilize the environment. Why do we have to have weapons, different kinds and models of vehicles and many more things like that?

If we enable to do so, so we would be contributing to two major things:

Þ Environment; we would conserve the nature and its resources, so the coming generations can live in peace and enjoy it. Beyond sentient creatures, everything else in the nature has its own intrinsic value, and rights of being staying as a vital component of the nature.
Þ Poverty; we would help those who live under absolute poverty by distributing every thing equally and not consuming a high rate of resources. Beyond of equal distribution and less consuming, we should reuse, recycle and even stop and save, using some of scarce and non-renewable resources in order to avoid waste products.

An analysis of a Hindi Movie (Rab Ni Bana Di Jori)


According to me this is one the most superior movies of its time, story wise. I am not considering any other aspect (characters, music etc) of the movie but only the story. This movie is really worth watching, due to its strong and important message about the family problems. For we have got many family problems growing up at a high rate in these years.

Meanwhile I should not forget that some of the people might get psychologically affected by watching this movie, due to the unloving wife’s characters and falling in love with an outsider. This will increase the untrustworthiness in some families who have been experiencing family problems and at the same time it will help people to reduce them and let each other understand their needs and problems.

Briefly the story of this movie teaches us the followings;

1.How misunderstanding and misperception take place in our life?

Well, we all human beings differ from each other in terms of natural characteristics such as boldness to demonstrate what ever he/she wants, shyness (not being able to dare to demonstrate), hobbies, liking of things, disliking of things, eating, drinking, looking at things, thoughts (opinions) and many more. But still we can adopt and adjust ourselves with different environments.

So if we in our life don’t understand each other’s needs and problems we will not be having a prosperous life. We need to adjust with the environment where we live. The misunderstanding and misperception take place where we emphasize only in our own way of thinking and doing things and not sharing them with our partners. By sharing we can reduce misunderstanding and misperception.


2.How infidelity grows and its reasons?
Infidelity takes place where the needs of a person are not satisfied inside, so he or she tends to look outside for some one who can satisfy his or her needs. Again I would refer to sharing, because this is the only way we can understand each other’s needs.

In the movie the husband understands his wife’s needs but she doesn’t understand his needs and problems.

3.How much the mindset of the new generation has been changed?
This is for sure true that the simplicity of yesteryears’ has not been the same. Things’ as well as human beings’ characteristics keep changing and will continue to the future. But we still have a number of people who are still simple and like the way they are, may be they are timid or dislike the new living styles. So we got to respect them and understand their needs. The thinks that they can not demonstrate, we got to help them.

4.How and what kind of decision should be made while facing such kind of problems?
This is one of the most crucial and a very delicate part of life whether in family, society or any organization where we work. A wise decision will save us and an unwise decision will destroy us. In fact a good decision making is not easy and it requires much patience to be implemented.

So in this movie the husband despite of understanding that his wife doesn’t love him, he was still patient and tolerated because he understood her special needs. And he step by step made a very wise decision, which saved a family from a disaster.

So finally I would like to conclude it by saying that, that the story of this movie teaches us that we need to understand each other’s special needs, respect each other, love each other, be loyal to each other, make wise decision and the last but not the least have great patience and pity on each other. To relate the analysis you need to watch this movie!

An Assessment of Public Administrative Reforms in Afghanistan

Abstract This is a library based historical and qualitative research which reviews public administrative reforms in Afghanistan with a f...