बाज़ार तो बाज़ार है

बाज़ार तो बाज़ार है 

जो खुद में ही गुलज़ार है 

उसे क्यों कर फर्क पड़ता 

गर कोई लाचार है। 

बाज़ार तो बाज़ार है॥ 

कीमत ही यहाँ हर बात में 

है मायने रखती 

बिकता यहाँ है सब कुछ 

हर कोई किरदार है। 

बाज़ार तो बाज़ार है॥ 

तुम बात कोई और आ कर 

यहाँ ना किया करो 

कीमत बिगड़ती जाती है 

और हर कोई तलबगार है। 

बाज़ार तो बाज़ार है॥ 

------------------- 

राजीव उपाध्याय

कि टूटा हुआ मक़ान

ये दिल है 

कि टूटा हुआ मक़ान? 

बुर्ज़ें सारी, 

ढ़ह गई हैं 

पर, 

खिड़कियाँ बंद हैं। 

घर में कोई 

दरवाजा नहीं, 

शायद कोई आता जाता नहीं। 

अज़ीब 

विरानगी है; 

इस घर में, 

आदमी तो रहता 

पर आदमी नहीं। 

ये दिल है 

कि टूटा हुआ मक़ान? 

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राजीव उपाध्याय

गाली ही आशीर्वाद है

मुझे भाषण देने की आदत जो है कि लोग देखा नहीं कि बस उड़ेलना शुरू कर देता हूँ। बस कुछ दोस्त मिल गये तो मैं लग गया झाड़ने। खैर झाड़ते वक्त ये देख लेता हूँ कि सामने कौन है। खैर दोस्तों को भाषण पान करा रहा था (वैसे घर पर तो घरवीर बनने में यकीन रखता हूँ। अपना-अपना किस्सा है।) कि चच्चा जाने कहाँ से अवतरित हो गये? शायद थोड़ी देर मेरे महाज्ञान को सुना होगा फिर कान पकड़कर बोले -
“मतलब कर दिये ना नाजियों वाली बात। अरे भाई उन लोगों ने पुरस्कार लौटाने की घोषणा कर दी इसका मतलब ये थोड़े ही होता है कि वो पुरस्कार लौटा दें? बोलो तुम अपने माँ-बाप को बचपन में डराते थे कि नहीं अपनी बात मनवाने के लिए।”
चच्चा हमारे पूरे धर्मनिरपेक्ष पुरस्कृत महाविद्वान हैं। खैर हैं तो हैं; हमें क्या? हम भी कम विद्वान थोड़े ही हैं। तो मैंने भी दोस्तों को आँख मारते हुए (बहुत रियाज किया है) अपनी गांडीव से तीर फेंका
“अरे! हम तो पहले रोते थे जब माँ बाबूजी नहीं मानते थे तब डराने के लिए कुदते-फांदते थे तब कहीं जाकर हडताल पर जाते थे। ये तो ना ही रोए, ना ही कूदे-फाँदे और हड़ताल भी नहीं किए। सीधे तलाक पर पहुंच गये। ऐसे कहाँ मजा आता है? थोड़ा मसाला पकना चाहिए ना तभी तो सब्जी का मजा आता है। खैर आपकी तो बहुत ऊंची पकड़ है, इनको थोड़ा समझाइये।”
चच्चा मन थोड़ा कर बोले, “अरे क्या समझाएँ बबुआ उनको? समझा रहे हैं तो सब गाली दे रहे हैं। कुछ तो निठल्ले आरोप भी लगा रहें। एक हम थे कि उनके लिए दिन-रात सेटिंग करते-फिरते थे और एक वो हैं कि ………”
विद्वान लोग अक्सर बातें बीच में छोड़ देते हैं ताकि कल्पनाओं को उड़ान मिल सके और बाद में उन कल्पनाओं को लेकर बयानबाजी और विमर्श के लिए पर्याप्त स्वतंत्रता मिल सके।
मैंने भी सोचा कुछ ज्ञानार्जन किया जाए तो पूछ बैठा, “अच्छा! आप माँ-बाप की बात कर रहे थे तो पहले ये बताइए कि सरकार मां-बाप होती है क्या?”
इतना सुनना था कि झन्ना गए फूलही थरिया की तरह पर कहे बड़े प्यार जैसे प्रेयसी कहती है, “लगता है पूरा गोबर ही रह गये।”
मैं भी गली मैं जैसे सीटी बजाया करता था वैसे पूछे “क्या हुआ? काँहे गुस्सा हो रहे हैं?”
मेरा लहजा और सवाल सुनकर चच्चा पहले मुस्कराए। फिर आसमान में देखते हुए बोले, “तुम सरकार को माँ-बाप समझ रहे हो इसीलिए तो गोबर कह रहा हूँ। सरकार माँ-बाप से भी बढकर होती होती है। वो तो…………”
बीच में ही चुप हो गये और कुछ जैसे याद कर रहे हों इस मुद्रा में चले गये। पर मेरे अन्दर का विद्वान विमर्श प्रारम्भ करने के बाद चुप कैसे रह सकता था,
“अच्छा!!! वो कैसे?”
“भइया तुम रहने दो; तुम्हारी समझ ना आयेगा”, चच्चा दार्शनिक अंदाज में बोले।
“पर लोग तो ब्याज भी माँग रहे हैं और सब लाभ और लागत की भी बात कर रहे हैं ब्याज सहित।”
चच्चा पहले तो कुछ देर चुप रहे फिर उनके अंदर का साधुत्व जागा, “तुम ही बताओ ये कहां का न्याय है कि साधू-संतों से उनका मठ छीन तो रहे ही हैं लोग; मड़ई भी छीनेंगे क्या? अरे भई साधू-सवाधू-जोगी का तो गाली ही आशीर्वाद होता है। तुम समझते नहीं हो!!”
बस चच्चा भी चुप और मैं भी ज्ञानवान हो गया। 

- राजीव उपाध्याय

Sustainability Reports- Real or Greenwash?

Private corporations exist and operate with the sole purpose of profits and for that they need to exploit resources but they are wise enough to present even worse things in much decorated manner. Corporate world has been inventing and evolving new devices and tools to fake things but in more sophisticated, prudent, legally accepted and respectable ways. And in today’s economic scenarios where environment has become hotpot businesses have evolved a new device termed as sustainability report. Theoretically a sustainability report contains information about environmental, social, economic, and governance performance of the reporting organizations but in practice these documents are nothing but public relations document aimed at branding.

Across world on investigation of some major firms, it has been observed that the firms often misrepresent the facts and information about its operations (environmental and social impacts) to present themselves as a responsible and environmental friendly to the public. Such practices are more common in environmentally hazardous (highly polluting and carbon emitting) sectors like oil exploration, mining and chemical etc. It has been seen that such firms most often emphasis on those aspects of environment which they can paint in favourable ways while not mentioning the harm they had made to other remaining aspects of environment and society. In the name of sustainability reports firms publish manipulated comprehensive reports outlining their goals and emission and drainage statistic. Such imbalanced and manipulated reporting cannot be sustainable in medium to long term but this a new but accepted fashion. But truth is that sustainable development is not dependent on reporting statistics published in these reports but on other the realities. So such reporting practices are nothing but green washing.

Global Reporting Initiative has attempted to provide with a framework for sustainability reporting through a number of recommendations and applications but these are not legally enforceable and most of the firms hardly follow these recommendations. Instead they follow their own ways and lack verification of data and information help them. But at the same time there are a few companies that are really serious about their reports but these numbers are so less and hardly belong to polluting industries like petroleum and mining.

Image Courtesy: Google Image

हक़ीकत नहीं ये, ना ही फसाना है

हक़ीकत नहीं ये, ना ही फसाना है 

बस ख्वाबों में मेरा, आना-जाना है॥ 

लोगों की बातें मैं सुनता नहीं 

अपना कहा मैं करता नहीं 

अब होने ये क्या लगा है 

दिल ही नहीं ये, ना ही मयखाना है। 

बस ख्वाबों में मेरा, आना-जाना है॥ 

जब आसमां से उतर, जमीं देखता हूँ 

सड़क है ना पगडंडी, ना पग के निशां 

ढूँढू तो ढूँढू, आशियां अपना कैसे 

राह-ए-डगर को जो रूक जाना है। 

हक़ीकत नहीं ये, ना ही फसाना है॥ 

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राजीव उपाध्याय

Net Neutrality is a Must for Indian Economy

With the time everything changes so is daily lives as well as the tools and methods of business. The invasion of technology in personal lives of people has not only changed the personal preferences of people but also the attitude of society and nations as well. World Wide Web and internet are two technological inventions that have revolutionized the whole world and its impact is never like before. The adaptability of internet into daily lives of people has made it an essential need. So the dynamics as well as the importance of internet has got new values and wings for the society and nations as whole. 

In the today’s world it is has become imperative for the nations to ensure accessibility of internet to all as there is hardly an arena of social and personal lives of people where internet has not become important. So today internet is not only about business but it has turned to be a basic need of people in this modern civilization and no civilization can afford to limit such a powerful tool in the hands of people by making it costly as it will deprive people of innumerable opportunities and tools that empowers them in such an unequal society particularly in India.
It is common for the private investors to put efforts to increase their profits through different strategies and tactics. Even if their strategies and tactics have long term negative social or business implications, they often fall for those as future is unpredictable. But in such a peculiar situation if private interests tend to do so, the government needs to step in to avoid such distractions. And if need be government must take tough decisions as for the government it is the social benefits that are of prime importance. It can easily ignore short term business problems over long term social problems.
The issue of net neutrality is a kind of distraction with which government needs to deal properly and take a tough decision in favor of net neutrality as it will strengthen the arms of people. It does not only make a social sense but also has a long term business sense as tomorrow's business environment is going to be completely dependent on services like internet and limiting it would have long term negative implications for businesses and economy as well.
In times of digital world if we look at the current situation of Indian economy, we find that India is lacking on infrastructural front as well as skills and it is not possible for the government to provide with enough infrastructure and skills support to her economy in short term to achieve medium to long term socioeconomic goals. So it needs to have an ad-hoc solution that can provide enough infrastructural support to the economy and that is possible only through sharing of resources, skills and infrastructure. Besides these, it is common fact that it is the learning capacity of a nation that actually helps to grow than only depending on tangible and intangible infrastructure. In such a peculiar situation which India is facing internet is a big relief.
India aspires to become the largest economy in the world in coming decades and for that government is continuously launching schemes after schemes such as Digital India, Start up India and Skill India etc. The success of these schemes is more dependent on the availability and affordability of internet for all than any other things or factors. The universal access and net neutrality has not only business meaning for the nation but also is tool in the hands of common man to cross hurdles and barriers.
In last few years India has witnessed a number of successful low cost e-commerce start-ups that have not only brought revolution in buying behavior of people across nooks and corners of the country but also have brought in huge confidence in young generations to think beyond government or normal corporate jobs. This change in the attitude of people is resulting in huge rise in innovative products and services for consumption and other social purposes. Also at the same time it is helping in bringing best technologies and skills to India. All these positive changes has been feasible only because of universal access of internet and net neutrality and at this stage of development growth where Indian economy needs peoples’ participation as entrepreneur to provide with jobs to all, any constraint in access of the same will kill millions of start-ups as those new firms would not be able afford the discrimination in the name of business. It is quite possible that the bottom lines of telecom operators may not look very attractive but will help to have an attractive, vibrant and futuristic economy.
In other words net neutrality is the demand and India cannot afford to go against net neutrality whatsoever reasons, rationales and claims may be made against it by telecom operator and other interest groups. 

Image Courtesy: Google Image

Winter Chills for Chinese Economy

For the last two decades, China has outgrown many economies to become second largest economy in the world and achieved this landmark by making its economy an investment driven economy. And for that, it had borrowed huge amount of money from domestic as well as foreign sources. At present Chinese firms have foreign debts to the tune of more than $1 trillion which increasing their default and bankruptcy probabilities in case significant slowdown (that is evident now). Unlike other large developed and developing economies with high GDP growth, the economic prosperity in China has not reached the bottom of pyramid.

The high GDP growth rate in China was export led through leveraged investment rather than consumption. Once the global demand for export from China cooled down because of simultaneous events like global economic slowdown since 2008, problems in Europe, rising costs in China, strong Renminbi Yuan and cheaper alternatives like Bharat, Philippines and Brazil, the GDP growth rate started falling down resulting in lower returns on investments but hardly an concession on exposure. So risk increased but earnings fell simultaneously. This made China less lucrative. So the foreign investors started looking for alternatives to sell off Chinese assets.
To make Chinese economy more investment friendly and lucrative in times of fierce competition, Chinese authorities took some flawed decisions in name of reforms. In a command economy like China, where government has direct interference in investment and consumption level, authorities went on pushing investment but ignoring consumption. Result was in form of huge mismatch in production and consumption. Also at the same time to provide with liquidity and make investment even sweater, authorities allowed stock trading using borrowed funds and also artificially helped markets to maintain uptrend. This provided Chinese citizens opportunities to earn high returns with very low investments and risks. This made prices of stocks unsustainable resulting into crash.
The devaluation of Renminbi Yuan was taken as signal of gravitating problems in Chinese economy. Also there is fear about the probable currency war like 1997 during East Asian Crisis. Though on the surface the current situation in China does not seem to be bad as in 1997 but fundamentals seem to have shaken in such ways that the world stock market is now driven by news from China than the Greece. Oil prices are falling and the stocks markets in Asia, Europe and the US are in seeing new lows. This shows how world in concerned with development in China and it does not seem that China is going to escape from this problem this time so easily and indications are there already.
The efforts of Chinese authorities to contain the fall of the market are not working although huge money has been poured into the market by the government authorities and firms and the falls in stocks markets across the world continues.
As far as Bharat is concerned, if China can settle this problem in short term, then it would be beneficial for Bharat as it will attract more investments for its Make in India and Smart Cities projects. 

(Published in Organiser Issue 13 September 2015)

आज जो ये आज है

आज, जो ये आज है 

कल नहीं रह जाएगा। 

बारिश के बादलों सा 

कुछ बरसेगा 

कुछ रह जाएगा॥ 

हर बात 

हर हस्ती 

हर बस्ती 

ख़ाक में मिल जाएगी। 

फितरत आदमी की

कहाँ-कहाँ ले जाएगी।

भाषा, परिभाषा 

और नियमों का क्या? 

कुछ नहीं रह जाएगा

बाकी अगर रहा कहीं तो

मिथक बस कहलाएगा॥ 

ना तुम होगे, ना रहूंगा मैं

प्रेम अमर बस रह जाएगा॥

ये आज जो आज है 

कल अतीत बन जाएगा॥

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राजीव उपाध्याय

RBI May not Cut Repo Rates

On 4th of August RBI has its Monetary Policy Review meet where it is expected that RBI will take call on cutting repo rates. But it has become very tricky for RBI to take any decision as some macroeconomic indicators seems to be not favourable mainly issue of inflation and this is against the current strategy of RBI. So RBI may decide not to ignore inflationary pressure. As there is considerably higher food inflation for the month of July than June 2015. But if we look at historical data it is evident that higher food inflation in the month June is not uncommon for India and it has become a new normality since long (at least since 2010). Because of seasonal changes India usually witness rise in vegetable prices in the month of July as compared to month of June. So it might be a cause of concern for RBI and RBI may decide to not decrease interest rates.

There is another angel too. According to the recent Nikkei India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for July, index has increased to 52.1 indicating growth in manufacturing sector. Also at the same time the price component of the manufacturing PMI has not increased in the month of July as compared to June. Rather it has fallen. So RBI may wait for cutting repo rate as manufacturing activities are picking up and also the profit without any rate cut. In this situation RBI may decide to wait and watch than taking any action.

So these two factors together may be reasons for no repo rate cut by RBI in its monetary policy review meet. But I feel that RBI should take a call on cutting repo rates to increase investment by private sector to boost economic activities further.

Digital India in India

Digital India is a very ambitious umbrella program with comprehensive vision that will be implemented across the country simultaneously. If it is implemented properly and as per envisaged vision, this single government program is capable of transforming the economic, administrative and social setup of this country. It will bring about a complete change in economic structure of India particularly rural India.
The vision of Digital India is centered on three key areas:  

1. Digital infrastructure as a utility to every citizen. Government would provided high speed internet, universal mobile coverage, mobile banking, and easy access to common service centers to everyone across the nation and would bridge the digital gap between the urban India and rural India. 
2. Governance and services on demand. There will be integration across departments, services would be provided in real time from online and mobile platform and online citizen entitlements through electronic transaction would be made available to everyone.
3. Digital empowerment of citizens. To empower citizens, government seeks to achieve the goal of universal digital literacy, universally accessible digital resources, all documents and certificates available online.

To achieve these goals, an investment of around 4-5 lakhs crore of rupees is expected in few years by different government agencies and private sector. According to reports by McKenzie and Deloitte, this investment would add around 60 lakhs crore rupees to GDP by 2025. This offers huge business opportunities to the private sector that would eventually increase employment opportunities by creating around 10 lakhs jobs and disposable income of citizens resulting in higher demands for goods and services. This would eventually result into vicious economic circle.
Even in times of WiMax, 3G and 4G, mobile and internet connectivity in rural India is an issue. Even today there are around 42,300 villages where there is no mobile network and government plans to install required facilities for mobile connectivity in these villages and it is possible to connect each and every village optically as the example Idukki in Kerala is very encouraging as this district has become India’s first district to be linked to the National Optic Fiber Network (NOFN).
Similarly providing training and capital to youths in rural/ semi urban areas to set up internet kiosks in the interiors will promote rural entrepreneurship and will make villages economically self dependent and their dependency on money order economy will go down. Gyandoot has proved the same. It is a project in Dhar district of Madhya Pradesh that connects villages throughout the district through numerous cyber-kiosks run by local entrepreneurs. More such projects in are needed in different districts throughout the country to promote the culture of rural entrepreneurship to make villages economically more viable and self dependent.
The availability of efficient mobile and internet network at affordable cost will open the gates of E-commerce to the rural citizens which would facilitate the online selling of local goods such as herbal products, gardening supplies, traditional art etc while shopping for stuff such as electronics goods, solar energy panels etc. If this becomes reality Indian economy in general and rural economy in particular will be revolutionized.