Cast based reservation system – The dirty politics of votes

Our preamble of the Indian Constitution says, that India is “sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic, republic” then how can the caste system prevail and consequently reservations? Today, this evil system persists and plays a vital role in the society as the major weapon for vote bank politics.

The whole perspective of Mandal commission regarding reservations are gradually being extended and expanded to sections of people, demanding reservations within reservations, in State and Central jobs. Earlier we had seen the agitation of the Gujarat and now the Jat’s. The agitators have found a simple way to force the attention of political leaders and the concerned Government, by affecting the rail movement. Consciously, they try to influence the economy of the country.

Recently, casteism in Indian politics, surfaced with the Jat agitation for reservation, has taken a serious turn and has brought the State to a grinding halt by affecting the rail movement. The Jat community had given an ultimatum to the Central Government to consider their demand for reservation. Moreover, they have assured to refer the cause of reservation for Jats to the NBCC (National Backward Classes Commission).In this context, neither the Jat community nor the Government is in conciliatory mood and as it appears, Government will not to be a silent spectator, if violence broke out.

The rail blockade and the announcement to disrupt the movement of essential commodities to New Delhi, has prompted the Union Home Minister to invite the agitators for discussion. On Wednesday the 30^th of March the discussion was held on the intervention of the Prime Minister. A 15 member delegation from the State of UP, Haryana, and other parts of the country took part in the meeting. Whatever is the outcome of the meeting, if the issue is not specifically announced, the Jat agitation will continue. Meanwhile the Congress party is noticeably refraining itself from making any comments, apprehending political ramification.

On the other hand, RLD supremo, Ajit Singh has openly supported few demands of the Jats and suggested that the Union Government should review the situation. His contention was, since the Jats are given reservation status in the State jobs, why the Center should not provide for the same. Many political parties are watching and contemplating to encash this casteism with a political motive. He went a step ahead and openly blamed the Mayawati Government for the uprise in the Jat movement and refuted her for her devious aspiration to gain a political foothold, among the Jats keeping in view the forthcoming assembly elections.

It is ridiculous that the political parties involved in exploiting casteism in the reservation scheme. While evaluating the political situation in UP, it is observed that, although Mayawati Government is for the Dalit, only a few sections of SC and ST has the high handed opportunity. In UP the Schedule Tribes are negligible in count, thus the larger benefit is being enjoyed by a selected section of Schedule Castes.

Apart from politics, other issue like reservations in education and in best jobs is also becoming controversial, each day. The major stress in education is to help prevent the socio-economic disparity among various societies by reservations in different stages and faculties. The law of the land allows 7.5% reservation for ST, a staggering 15% for SC and another 27% for OBC, in higher education alone. Government is spending crores to uplift them, but the blossoming result is yet to be seen. A very delicate situation is observed these days among the reserved and scheduled groups, with their caste and creed notions. They are becoming increasingly demanding, which may have a negative consequence, when the so-called majority group will be devoid of its proportional benefit. Is it not proper to have an audit on the reservation policy for examining the expenses, implementation and benefits, that has been achieved by various Governments, after so many years of Independence?

There are few questions that come to the mind: Was the reservation system necessary after a certain period of Independence? Has the country been benefited by such scheme? Is it not a fact that the political parties are exploiting the sentiment of people by instigating casteism? I fail to understand when our preamble of the Indian Constitution says, that India is “sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic, republic” how can the caste system prevail and consequently reservations? It is purely for political mileage.

Reservation should be based upon financial grounds not on the basis of caste.

Financial Sector Reforms in India

The period immediately after independence posed a major challenge to the country. Due to centuries of exploitation at the hands of foreign powers, there were very high levels of deprivation in the economy—both social as well as economic. To take up the Herculean task of rapid growth with socio-economic justice, the country adopted the system of planned economic development after independence. Due to paucity of economic resources and limitations of availability of capital for investment, the government also came up with the policy of setting up public enterprises in almost every field.

 

The fiscal activism adopted by the government resulted in large doses of public expenditures for which not only the revenues of the government were utilized but the government also resorted to borrowing at concessional rates, which kept the financial markets underdeveloped. The growth of fiscal deficit also continued unabated year after year. Complex structure of interest rates was a resultant outcome of this system.

 

Nationalisation of major commercial banks in the late sixties and early seventies provided the government with virtually the complete control over the direction of the bank credit. The emphasis was mainly on control and regulation and the market forces had very limited role to play.

 

The economic system was working to the satisfaction of the government. The social indicators were gradually improving and the number of people below poverty line also declined steadily. The only problem area had been that the growth rate of the economy had been very low, and till late seventies, the growth rate of the GDP was hovering around 3.5 per cent per annum. It was only during mid-eighties that the growth rate touched 5 percentage points.

 

The situation became difficult by the eighties. Financial system was considerably stretched and artificially directed and concessional availability of credit with respect to certain sectors resulted in distorting the interest rate mechanism. Lack of professionalism and transparency in the functioning of the public sector banks led to increasing burden of non-performance of their assets.

 

Late eighties and early nineties were characterised by fluid economic situation in the country. War in the Middle East had put tremendous pressure on the dwindling foreign exchange reserves of the country. The country witnessed the worst shortages of the petroleum products. High rate of inflation was another area of serious concern. Most of the economic ailments had resulted due to over regulation of the economy. The international lending and assisting agencies were ready to extend assistance but with the condition that the country went in for structural reforms, decontrols and deregulation, allowing increased role for the market forces of demand and supply. 

 

The precarious economic conditions left the country with no alternative other than acceptance of the conditions for introducing the reforms.

 

Post Reforms
Rationalisation of the taxes has already taken place on the basis of the recommendations of Raja Challiah Committee Report during mid-nineties. The government has been able to tighten its fiscal management through the FRBMA and the continuing increase in the fiscal deficit has been contained significantly. Reforms in the external sector management have yielded results in the form of increased foreign capital inflows in terms of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), Foreign Institutional Investment (FII) and the exchange rate has also represent true international value of Indian rupee vis-à-vis hard global currencies.

 

The primitive foreign exchange regulation regime controlled by FERA has been replaced by a liberalized foreign exchange rate management system introduced by FEMA. Introduction of such a modern management law was perhaps a pre-condition for allowing FDI and FII. In  1993, the RBI issued guidelines to allow the private sector banks to enter the banking sector in the country, a virtual reversal of the policy of bank nationalisation. Foreign banks were also given more liberal entry.

 

The thrust of the monetary policy after the introduction of the process of reforms has been able to develop several instruments of efficient financial management. A Liquidity Adjustment Facility (LAF) was introduced in June 2000 to precisely modulate short-term liquidity and signal short-term interest rates. A lot of reliance is being placed on indirect instruments of monetary policy. Strengthening and upgradation of the institutional, technological and physical infrastructure in the financial markets has also improved the financial framework in the country.

 

Economy and Reforms
The introduction of financial sector reforms has provided the economy with a lot of resilience and stability. The average annual growth rate of the economy during the post-reform period has been more than 6 per cent, which was unimaginable a decade before that. The economy withstood boldly the Asian economic crisis of 1997-98. Even the economic sanctions by the US and other developed countries after the nuclear testing did not affect the economy to the extent apprehended. The current global slowdown and sub-prime crisis affecting the banking system all over the world has not impacted the Indian economy to that extent.

 

Banking and insurance sectors are booming. While the private and foreign banks are giving stiff but healthy competition to the public sector banks, resulting in overall improvements in the banking services in the country, the insurance sector has also witnessed transformation. The consumer is a gainer with the availability of much better and diversified insurance products.

 

The stock exchanges in the country are in the process of adopting the best practices all over the world. The RBI has also been able to control and regulate effectively the operations and growth of the Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) in the country.  

 

A few changes which are on the anvil pertain to the legal provisions relating to fiscal and budget management, public debt, deposits, insurance etc. As per the Finance Minister, future reforms by making legal changes also pertain to banking regulations, Companies Act, Income Tax, Bankruptcy, negotiable instruments etc.

 

But there are certain issues that call for more cautious approach towards the financial sector reforms in the future. The social sector indicators—like availability of doctor per 1000 population, availability of health institutions, quality of elementary education, literacy rate, particularly among the females—are some of the areas of serious concern. Countries like China, Indonesia and even Sri Lanka are much better than India in most of the social sector indicators.

 

Despite being among the most rapidly developing economies of the world, the literacy rate and poverty percentage are two biggest embarrassments and the country still languishes at 128th position in the Human Development Index of the UNDP, where it is virtually stagnating for the last about five years. Further, the systems should also be able to check any unusual rise in prices to protect the common man from inflation.

 

One of the major criticisms of the government policy has been that the reforms have lacked the human face, as the government has been over-obsessed with the idea of achieving higher growth rate and fiscal and monetary management, rather than addressing the needs for equitable and inclusive growth. The reforms process has ignored the common man and the trickle down theory has actually failed to deliver.

 

The Planning Commission, while finalising the Eleventh Five-Year Plan has now sought to achieve the overall objective of achieving the ‘inclusive growth’, i.e., to include all those in the process of economic growth, who has remained excluded from the process of economic growth experienced by the country during the past decades.     
    

A perspective on management education in India

The recent Satyam episode has rekindled interest in media, industry, academia and society about the content, scope and relevance of management education. India, given its cultural, economic and social diversity has not adequately articulated the relevance of management education in these contexts.

Management education in India is predominately a derivative of western management thought and practice. Occasionally, management schools draw some inferences from Indian epics, shastras and practices. It may be worthwhile to notice that management itself as a discipline has evolved from fundamental disciplines of philosophy, psychology, economics, accounting, computer science, mathematics, statistics and industrial engineering.
The core objective of western management education is to evolve a system which would be useful to enterprises, industry and hence society thereby creating a symbiotic relationship with stakeholders of wealth creation process. This symbiotic relationship between the industry and the education system has lead to a very healthy exchange of knowledge creation and sharing and also a funding support system. Inadvertently, this arrangement has evolved to a situation where the funding agencies (rightly or otherwise) are able to influence the direction, content and scope of management education.

Western corporate world is obsessed with operational efficiency and not necessarily effectiveness. This has brought tremendous desire and motivation to top management of organizations to focus on performance (quarter to quarter, year to year) rather than organizational purpose. This unintended transformation is possibly the root cause of the morality crisis, governance issues, irresponsible behavior of corporate citizens in the overall global context.

In India, management education is seen as elitist. Often, young men and women are attracted to management education not because they need some education, exposure and experience to create something wonderful, and hence useful to society but are usually motivated by the positive economic consequences (nothing wrong about this) associated with management education.


An individual who has been educated in a reputed management school should be oriented towards accomplishment of the tasks given to him. Such accomplishments in the early stage of the chosen profession would create a sense of ego, which would eventually change into pride and joy of doing work. Such accomplished individuals would gain greater visibility, evolve as a brand and eventually reach an iconic status.
While this may be extremely satisfying to an individual, the same individual’s contribution to the society can be much more enhanced if they are groomed with issues relevant to personality development and leadership, character building, purpose in life, dignity, self respect and respect for others, compassion and spirituality.
The modern management education in India emphasizes on performance and very little on purpose. It equips the young men and women to generate wealth and does not provide them the capacity to enjoy and share this wealth. It projects the use of the information technology as an enabler to improve efficiency but not as a supporting tool in resolving large complex social issues. It motivates individuals to accomplish their objectives with or without regard to means. As a rule, management education has completely detached itself from the under managed sectors.

Unfortunately, the management education in India has never connected to the fundamental disciplines from which it has evolved and has become narrow in its content. A handful of management institutions in this country are trying to realign the management education by  using a multi dimensional approach. The first dimension of this would focus on the individuals. The second dimension (of this education) would focus on the standard tools and techniques of management education. The third dimension would connect the individual to the society by compassion, entrepreneurship and social sensitivity.

We hope such institutions not only succeed in their objective, but are also able to influence other management institutions to move in this direction to contribute to the society by a contextually relevant management education. We only hope under such scenario the Satyam like episodes will become rare.

Walmart’s Strategy through the World

Mexico:
Walmart, which is No 1 here, entered through a 50:50 joint venture with the leading retailer. They soon acquired the partner completely. In their business, local marketshare is critical. So what Walmart sells in Canada, which is right next to the US, over 85% of it is sourced from Canada. It is all about local economies of scale, local purchasing power and local logistics. Discount retailing is a very “multi-local” business.
When Company A competes with Company B, local scale and local market power determine the cost structure, branding and retail presence in eyes of customer. Wherever Walmart did not pursue this logic they ran into trouble. In the 1990s when Walmart opened its first store in Mexico, they had a huge American-style parking lot. They found all the shopping carts were piled at far end of parking lot – because customers came in via buses not cars and went to one side which was closer to the bus stop. They made mistakes in terms of the product mix. They were selling the same thing as in the US.

There was a story about them selling golf balls to customers whose income levels were low. The mistakes they made in Mexico were relatively early and non-fatal. They recovered from them very quickly. That was really the first non-US foray so they were learning on the fly. Today Mexico is a fantastic story for Walmart.

Brazil: In Brazil it took them more time to become No 1 because they had tough competitors like Ahold and Carrefour. As the competitors stumbled, they acquired the Ahold stores. Over time Walmart strengthened in Brazil. They made mistakes again with regard to localization of the product mix.


Argentina: Argentina hasn’t been a high priority market for Walmart. They entered in 1995 by setting up 100%-owned greenfield stores. They were pretty tiny: by 2007 they had only 13 stores. Argentina is a small economy compared to Brazil and Mexico. In 2007, according to a Citigroup report, Walmart’s marketshare of organized retail was 4% and the combined marketshare of the two biggest players was 22%. No 3 is not a desirable position in discount retailing because it requires local scale and local marketshare. One could ask: what are you doing in Argentina? Become No 1 or get out.


Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua: All these came through the acquisition of Central American Retail Holdings Company in 2007. This company had operations in these economies. These are small markets, not strategically critical. But from Day One Walmart was No 1 in these markets because the acquired businesses were already No 1. They were already adapted to the local economy and there was a high degree of localization.


Hong Kong: Hong Kong was their first foray into Asia. It was a brief disaster. Walmart knew nothing about Asia. They entered Hong Kong through a joint venture with a Thai conglomerate. This was unwise because instead of picking a Taiwanese or Hong Kong company as a local partner, they picked a Thai partner. They opened three stores and shut them down very quickly. Hong Kong is a very compact place and they didn’t factor in how customers would get to the stores. There was nothing wrong with the product mix.
They did not factor in the broader ecosystem – how customers will come and go. They chose a very inconvenient location for customers. In 1995, they had 2,900 stores worldwide and if three bombed, it didn’t matter so much. It shows that Walmart from time to time, hasn’t been the smartest company in terms of joint venture partners.


Indonesia: I wouldn’t fault Walmart’s strategy here. They went to Indonesia in the days of Suharto, and then you couldn’t do anything in Indonesia, unless you worked with someone from Suharto’s network. There was political unrest.
They entered via a non-equity route – there was no money in the agreement with the Lippo group. There were riots in Indonesia and the store was burnt down. Walmart didn’t own or run the store. So it was not so much of an issue. The agreement with Lippo fell apart after Suharto went out of power.


Korea: Walmart entered Korea in 1999. They entered by acquiring four units from Macro (a Dutch chain, now owned by Metro). Korea is fairly mature market and there was a local company called Emart, which is the market leader. Emart warned Walmart that this is a very local industry and it doesn’t matter that you are the biggest retailer in the world – we are the biggest retailer in Korea. Walmart made an acquisition offer to Emart which Emart rejected. Walmart entered as a small player and could never become big. Seven years later they sold their stores to Emart and got out.


China: Walmart is still too early in the game in China. It’s a respected retailer in China. They do a good job in terms of localization of the product mix and store format. There have been no big mistakes. Carrefour entered at roughly same time as Walmart – but it is growing faster, has double of the number of stores and is much more profitable than Walmart. Walmart appears to be looking at China as one big national market – the same way it views the US. Carrefour looks at China as a portfolio of regional/local markets. Unlike Carefour Walmart has centralised sourcing and a centralised distribution centre.



Carrefour gives greater autonomy to store managers. It is not even relying on local economies of scale, forget global. China’s infrastructure is better than India’s but it is in the process of being built up – when you have weak infrastructure for consumer goods, you have national manufacturers and not local manufacturers. In terms of food products, Chinese like to buy fresh meat so local sourcing is much smarter than centralised sourcing. Just like any developing economy, heterogeneity across China in terms of what people want to buy is very high.

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Carrefour can open one store in the middle of the city and tell the local store manager you are an independent profit manager – so you decide what you want to buy, from whom. Your competitor is the small mom and pop store in the city. It’s a perfectly fine strategy. In retailing, local government bureaus become very important so if you give store managers high degree of autonomy it makes it easy for them to understand how to work with local governments. Carrefour is looking at China as a portfolio of local markets.




India: When you enter a new market, a lot depends on the kind of a partner you have. If you have a partner that itself has ambitions to be a major retail powerhouse in India, there is a strategic conflict. Sooner or later India will permit foreign retailers to have direct equity ownership in India. Then what will Walmart be left holding? Bharti has retail ambitions – it will want to buy Walmart’s shares then, rather than sell.
If stores are branded BestPrice, what is Walmart getting in this deal? One could argue that Walmart should have thought of India as a portfolio of regional markets and work with smaller regional partners. It’s hard for them to have much bargaining power or have national ambitions. They would have been happy to brand them as Walmart and when regulations change, Walmart would be able to buy them out.

What is the difference between Money Market and Capital Market?

Money market is distinguished from capital market on the basis of the maturity period, credit instruments and the institutions:

1. Maturity Period:

The money market deals in the lending and borrowing of short-term finance (i.e., for one year or less), while the capital market deals in the lending and borrowing of long-term finance (i.e., for more than one year).

2. Credit Instruments:

The main credit instruments of the money market are call money, collateral loans, acceptances, bills of exchange. On the other hand, the main instruments used in the capital market are stocks, shares, debentures, bonds, securities of the government.

3. Nature of Credit Instruments:

The credit instruments dealt with in the capital market are more heterogeneous than those in money market. Some homogeneity of credit instruments is needed for the operation of financial markets. Too much diversity creates problems for the investors.

4. Institutions:

Important institutions operating in the' money market are central banks, commercial banks, acceptance houses, nonbank financial institutions, bill brokers, etc. Important institutions of the capital market are stock exchanges, commercial banks and nonbank institutions, such as insurance companies, mortgage banks, building societies, etc.

5. Purpose of Loan:

The money market meets the short-term credit needs of business; it provides working capital to the industrialists. The capital market, on the other hand, caters the long-term credit needs of the industrialists and provides fixed capital to buy land, machinery, etc.

6. Risk:

The degree of risk is small in the money market. The risk is much greater in capital market. The maturity of one year or less gives little time for a default to occur, so the risk is minimised. Risk varies both in degree and nature throughout the capital market.

7. Basic Role:

The basic role of money market is that of liquidity adjustment. The basic role of capital market is that of putting capital to work, preferably to long-term, secure and productive employment.

8. Relation with Central Bank:

The money market is closely and directly linked with central bank of the country. The capital market feels central bank's influence, but mainly indirectly and through the money market.

9. Market Regulation:

In the money market, commercial banks are closely regulated. In the capital market, the institutions are not much regulated.

FDI in Retail sector in India: How does this affect you?

Retailing defines the direct interface between the manufacturers and the end users who are basically individual consumers. 

The retail business owners stock up all goods after purchasing it directly from the manufacturers and then sell it to individual customers keeping a profit margin for themselves. Of late the retailing industry in India has bloomed with much coveted success causing positive impact on the national economy.

 As per the recent revelations by the popular International Management Consultancy AT Kearney, India has been considered the second most lucrative destinations of the world for retail business.

Organized retailing entails trading conducted by licensed retailers and unorganized retailing includes all types of low cost trading like local shops, small roadside stores and temporary shops or door to door selling of various goods.Until now, according to the Indian retailing laws, Foreign Direct Investment in multi-brand retail market was prohibited. 

But government is thinking to open the FDI in retail in India which implies that foreign investment in retailing is possible up to 51%. Now the announcement of retail FDI in India has triggered a series of debates on both positive and negative notes and become political issue. So let’s discuss these things, what all this means to you through advantages and disadvantages:

• Growth in economy: Due to coming of foreign companies’ new infrastructure will be build, thus real estate sector will grow consequently banking sector, as money need to be required to build infrastructure would be provided by banks.

• Job opportunities: Estimates shows that this will create about 80Lakh jobs. These career opportunities will be created mostly in retail, real estate. But it will create positive impact on others sectors as well. Read about career options in Retail sector…..

• Benefits to farmers: In most cases, in the retailing business, the intermediaries have dominated the interface between the manufacturers or producers and the consumers. Hence the farmers and manufacturers lose their actual share of profit margin as the lion’s share is eaten up by the middle men. This issue can be resolved by FDI, as farmers might get contract farming where they will supply to a retailer based upon demand and will get good cash for that, they need not to search for buyers.

• Benefits to consumers: Consumer will get variety of products at low prices compared to market rates, and will have more choice to get international brands at one place.

• Lack of infrastructure in the retailing chain has been one of  the common issues in India for years which has led the process to an incompetent market mechanism. For example, in spite of India being one of the largest producers of vegetables and fruits, lack of proper count of cold storages has significantly affected the selling of these perishable items. FDI might help India overcome such issues by channelizing the resources in the right manner.

• In the last years, the Public distribution system is proved to be significantly ineffective. In spite of the fact that the government arranged for subsidies, the food inflation has caused its negative impact continuously and it can be handled by FDI.

Disadvantages of FDI in retail sector in India:

• According to the non-government cult, FDI will drain out the country’s share of revenue to foreign countries which may cause negative impact on India’s overall economy.

• The domestic organized retail sector might not be competitive enough to tackle international players and might loose its market share.

• Many of the small business owners and workers from other functional areas may lose their jobs, as lot of people are into unorganized retail business such as small shops.

However the government is quite stringent on this issue and determined to allow FDI in India. The actual impacts would be observed over time and till then the laymen have nothing but to hope for the best!

FDI in Retail sector in India: How does this affect you?

Retailing defines the direct interface between the manufacturers and the end users who are basically individual consumers. 

The retail business owners stock up all goods after purchasing it directly from the manufacturers and then sell it to individual customers keeping a profit margin for themselves. Of late the retailing industry in India has bloomed with much coveted success causing positive impact on the national economy.

 As per the recent revelations by the popular International Management Consultancy AT Kearney, India has been considered the second most lucrative destinations of the world for retail business.

Organized retailing entails trading conducted by licensed retailers and unorganized retailing includes all types of low cost trading like local shops, small roadside stores and temporary shops or door to door selling of various goods.Until now, according to the Indian retailing laws, Foreign Direct Investment in multi-brand retail market was prohibited. 

But government is thinking to open the FDI in retail in India which implies that foreign investment in retailing is possible up to 51%. Now the announcement of retail FDI in India has triggered a series of debates on both positive and negative notes and become political issue. So let’s discuss these things, what all this means to you through advantages and disadvantages:

• Growth in economy: Due to coming of foreign companies’ new infrastructure will be build, thus real estate sector will grow consequently banking sector, as money need to be required to build infrastructure would be provided by banks.

• Job opportunities: Estimates shows that this will create about 80Lakh jobs. These career opportunities will be created mostly in retail, real estate. But it will create positive impact on others sectors as well. Read about career options in Retail sector…..

• Benefits to farmers: In most cases, in the retailing business, the intermediaries have dominated the interface between the manufacturers or producers and the consumers. Hence the farmers and manufacturers lose their actual share of profit margin as the lion’s share is eaten up by the middle men. This issue can be resolved by FDI, as farmers might get contract farming where they will supply to a retailer based upon demand and will get good cash for that, they need not to search for buyers.

• Benefits to consumers: Consumer will get variety of products at low prices compared to market rates, and will have more choice to get international brands at one place.

• Lack of infrastructure in the retailing chain has been one of  the common issues in India for years which has led the process to an incompetent market mechanism. For example, in spite of India being one of the largest producers of vegetables and fruits, lack of proper count of cold storages has significantly affected the selling of these perishable items. FDI might help India overcome such issues by channelizing the resources in the right manner.

• In the last years, the Public distribution system is proved to be significantly ineffective. In spite of the fact that the government arranged for subsidies, the food inflation has caused its negative impact continuously and it can be handled by FDI.

Disadvantages of FDI in retail sector in India:

• According to the non-government cult, FDI will drain out the country’s share of revenue to foreign countries which may cause negative impact on India’s overall economy.

• The domestic organized retail sector might not be competitive enough to tackle international players and might loose its market share.

• Many of the small business owners and workers from other functional areas may lose their jobs, as lot of people are into unorganized retail business such as small shops.

However the government is quite stringent on this issue and determined to allow FDI in India. The actual impacts would be observed over time and till then the laymen have nothing but to hope for the best!