Thou shall not spend more

Deputy Chairman of India’s Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia is in a generous mood.

He has agreed to revise the definition of “ Poor People “, as those, who cannot afford to spend more than

Ø  Rs.15/ day in rural areas ( from earlier Rs.12/day )

Ø  Rs.20/day in urban areas ( from earlier Rs. 17/day )

And he has even spelled out exactly how much they should spend on various items, as follows :

Ø  Food ………………………………….. Rs.7.25/day

Ø  Fuel  ………………………………….. Rs.2.35/day

Ø  Clothing  ……………………………. Rs.1.28/day

Ø  Education …………………………… Rs.0.62/day

Ø  Footwear  ………………………….. Rs.0.20/day

Ø  Entertainment …………………… Rs.0.22/day

Now, if this is not precise enough, he mandates that the rural poor shall manage to consume 2400 calories, by spending Rs.7.25 ( $ 0.16 ) per day on food.

Montek can earn a lot of carbon-credit by claiming that these 387 million people have zero carbon footprint !

Supreme Court judges, Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma are not amused.

They have directed Planning Commission to further revise the per capita norms of consumption.

With regards

Hemen  Parekh

Baba Ramdev and Black Money

There is no doubt that a billion Indians will support Baba Ramdev in his campaign to bring back black money.
But even if he succeeds, new black money will replace the old black money !
You cannot cure a disease by treating its symptoms.
We must find a way to “ stop “ the generation of black money in the first place.
New finance minister of West Bengal, Dr. Amit Mitra recently confirmed that out of every rupee of revenue, 35 paise goes towards interest payment on state borrowings and 58 paise goes to pay salaries of Govt. staff, leaving a measly 7 paise for development.
So the honest tax-payer is asking :
“ When I pay the government, one rupee by way of tax, I get back only 7 paise worth of infrastructure / housing / education / healthcare etc. Then why pay taxes ? Why not finance these needs directly on my own – bypassing the tax authorities ? “
And this is true of nearly all the states of India.
My suggestion :
If a tax payer invests any amount into Govt approved Special Purpose Vehicles ( SPV ), solely devoted to to create infrastructure / housing / education / healthcare etc, let that money be tax-free, with no questions asked as to its source. All the profits / dividends earned by an individual thru such investments must be made 100 % tax-free and forever .
Just imagine what an annual investment of $ 100 billion ( Rs.5 lakh crores ) on activities like these can do to our economy !
Within 5 years, it will pull-up 500 million people above the “ Poverty Line “.
My request to Baba Ramdev :
Please refocus your strategy.
With regards
hemen parekh

Crows are black everywhere

That is how an Indian proverb goes.
Indian political parties are no exception. All of them harbor politicians having criminal cases pending against them.
For a good reason too.
Apparently , a political party’s chances of winning an election , seem to be directly proportional to the number of MLAs ( Member of Legislative Assembly ) it has, having criminal cases pending against them !
Wonder why Trinmool Congress ( in West Bengal ) and AIADMK ( in Tamil Nadu ) won the recent State elections with such huge majority ?
Just look at their strength of newly elected, criminally charged MLAs :
 Trinmool Congress ………………….. 69 MLAs [ 38 % ]
 AIADMK …………………………………….. 46 MLAs [ 31 % ]
 Congress …………………………………… 17 MLAs [ 41 % ]
 DMK ……………………………………………. 7 MLAs [ 30 % ]
 CPI ( M ) …………………………………… 7 MLAs [ 18 % ]
( Source : MID DAY / 17 May, 2011 )
I would not be surprised if losing political parties are rethinking their poll strategies for next national elections !
With regards
hemen parekh

Every 5th Person ?

Times of India [ 05 May,2011 ] quotes a UN report which says, by 2030, every 5th person in the world will be an Indian.
Over the next few decades, the scenario of India’s Population / Median Age, will look like this :
 2010………….. 1.2 Billion / 25.1 years
 2050…………… 1.7 Billion / 37.2 years
 2100 …………….1.6 Billion / 45.8 years
By the turn of the century, less than half of India’s population will be working, the rest dependent on it.
It is similar situation in Middle East / Africa / Asia / the entire developing world.
Will the world’s jobless / starving millions simply march across international borders in search of food / jobs ? And can anyone / anything stop them ?
President Barack Obama did not say this in so many words but the new Mid-East Policy that he announced today hopes to prevent such a scenario by creating job opportunities everywhere.
Let us support him and hope that he succeeds.
With regards
hemen parekh

TEXT RESUMES

18 May 2011

TEXT RESUMES

Text resumes will be around for a long time. Because everyone can type.

But everyone cannot write a story or a poem.

So, there will also be a demand for expert  /  professional resume – writers, for a long time to come.

But with thousands of ( often well-written ) resumes flooding the mail-boxes of recruiters, even these get " deleted " without being opened !

Ever-increasing number of recruiters feel that graphical / visual / audio resumes have an edge over plain text resumes – prompting Human-Resource managers to patronize path-breaking job-portals such as

·     www.VisualCV.com

which inspired me to come-up with my own innovative portal

·     www.CustomizeResume.com

( it is easy to be inspired, but , at the age of  77  , difficult to implement !  )

With regards

HEMEN  PAREKH

GENDER BIND / UNFAIR SHARE

In Times of India [ March 08,2011 ], Ms. Rema Nagarajan provides following insights :

• Women own 1 per cent of the world’s wealth, have a 10 per cent share in global income

• Women comprise half the world’s population but occupy just 14 per cent of leadership positions in the private and public sector

• Of the 1.4 billion people living on less than $ 1 a day, 70 per cent are women and girls

• Women do two-thirds of the world’s work, but earn only 10 percent of the income

• Women produce half of the world’s food, but own just 1 per cent of its land

• Of the almost 900 million adults worldwide who can’t read or write, two-thirds are women

Will mankind [ on “ Women’s Day “ 2011, should I say, womankind ? ] manage to bridge this gap by end of 21^st Century?

Hemen  Parekh

Seven Billionth Baby

According to United Nations, the symbolic six billionth baby was born in Bosnia on Oct.12,1999.
When ( – and where ) will the seven billionth baby get born ?
As to “ When “,you can make a quick calculation from the following figures of the number of babies born all over the world :
> 267 per minute
> 16,000 per hour
> 384,000 per day
Latest UN estimate is 31st Oct. 2011
As to the question of “ Where ? “, my guess is, it will be India with 51 babies born every minute ( – the highest rate in entire world ! ).
Which Indian state ? I would bet on Uttar Pradesh ( which has current population of 199.5 million ), where 11 babies are born every minute.

With regards

hemen parekh

Poverty Declines !

We must believe Montek Singh Ahluwalia ( Deputy Chairman – Planning Commission of India ), when he says poverty declined during 2007 – 2012.

Poverty in India, according to him, came down from 37 % ( in 2004 ) to 32 % ( in 2009 ).

Now, that is 70 million people !

It is another story that the Supreme Court of India, criticized the Planning Commission for employing the daily expenditure criteria for deciding the “ Below Poverty Line – BPL “ people as those whose daily expenditure ( on food / shelter / clothing ) is less than,

Ø  Rs.12 ( $ 0.26 ) in rural areas

Ø  Rs.17 ( $ 0.38 ) in urban areas ( enough to buy 4 cups of tea )

In the next Plan Period ( 2012 – 2017 ), how about pulling-up 200 million people above the poverty line by changing the daily expenditure criteria to

Ø  Rs.7   ( $ 0.15 ) in rural areas

Ø  Rs.12 ( 0.26  )   in urban areas

Montek may want to “ export “ this innovation to other poor countries.

With regards

hemen  parekh

Impossible Task ?

Bombay Municipal Corporation relaxed the labor recruitment criteria to run 4 Km distance in 25 minutes now, against the 15 minutes stipulated earlier.

Candidates are complaining that its an impossible task, considering that not a single candidate could successfully run 4 Km in 15 minutes.

But then, interviewing 300,000 candidates is not an easy task either !

Even if the interview panel was to interview 1 candidate every minute and for 8 hours per day, it would take 625 working days !

And since Municipal Offices work for no more than 150 days in a year, that would take more than 4 years to select 3,916 conservancy workers.

So what ? Streets of Mumbai are cleaned only once in 4 years !

With regards

hemen  parekh