Thats a Joke!

Sharad Pawar has disclosed that he has a stake in RCB.... This is one of the most absurd things that I could have heard. Holding a few thousand shares in the holding company may technically give him a stake in RCB... But one must realize that going by the above... all shares holders of United Spirits Limited (USL), of which Royal Challengers Sports Private Ltd (RCSPL) is a wholly-owned subsidiary hold stake in an IPL team.

I really don’t understand what Sharad Pawar is achieving by telling the media that "he is disclosing that he has a stake in RCB".

And we have leading media houses which are carrying headlines in their news channels and websites which read as "Pawar admits ownership link to Bangalore team"!!!! What a misleading headline that is!

Can we have a list of all politicians who hold shares in Deccan Chronicle, GMR, India Cements?? All of them have stakes in IPL teams!! :-)

This is media sensationalizing news at its best! In any case, I maintain what i have always been saying "There is more than that what meets the eyes when it comes to IPL."

Dividing our country....

I came across an excellent article on the subject (go to http://news.in.msn.com/national/article.aspx?cp-documentid=3596943). The summary of the article as putforth by the auother himself is

"Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi is known for his frank talk. But sometimes he fails to gauge the implications of his `frank comments’. By saying that commandos from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh saved Mumbai, Rahul is speaking the same divisive language of the Sena – dividing India on the lines of language and region"

I could not agree more with the views in the article. It has been articulated extremly well and has been very well written as well.

It is a quite a dangerous situation we are in!!!

The Master returns

I am back here after a long time! There is a reason for me coming back. And the reason is the excitement created by the news of Micheal Schumacher returning to Formula 1!! Though there is a sense of pain about what happened to Massa, the fact that his life is out of danger and the news of Schumi coming back has made me look forward to August 23!

For people who are not aware of what i am talking about, Felipe Massa crashed during the qualifying session of the last race at Hungary and has been ruled out of the rest of the F1 season. That leaves Ferrari with only one car. It was clear that Ferrari would find a driver to replace Massa. But the driver they have chosen has come as a big surprise!

Micheal Schumacher, the seven-time world champion is set to return to the circuit after a 3 year break. He had announced his retirement in 2006. But how difficult would it be for him to get back to F1 given that he is 40+ and the fact that he has not raced for 3 years now. Not too difficult according to Eddie Jordan. Jordan, who gave Schumacher his F1 debut in 1991 says "Whether 20 or 40, I'm not sure it will make a huge difference to his reactions. Perhaps he may be a Milli-second away, but then he was a Milli-second better than anyone else."!!!!

Schumi still needs to satisfy the technical requirements of the super licence after almost three years out of the cockpit. As a consultant during the design stage he is not unfamiliar with the set-up of the 2009 Ferrari. Even if he were, Schumacher would pick it up in a lap says Kevin Garside, Chief Sports Writer at Telegraph.

I am now waiting for August 23 at Valencia......

YesX4!!!

I am posting a blog after a really long time….. I am back to write about my experience in taking a tough decision! The decision to choose my new car….I had been putting off this decision for more than a year citing various reasons. Firstly, I saw no reason to change my car since I was (and I still am) very very happy with my Wagon R!! As things stand today, I don’t think I will sell that car!

Anyways, I was faced with the tough choice of deciding the car I had to buy. The problem was to decide on a budget… trust me that’s the first thing you would have to do when you want to buy a car. The problem you would face there would be that for every number you decide you find another better vehicle just a couple of lakhs away!

After seeing cars in the over Rs 10 lakh range (Corolla, Jetta, Octavia, Laura, etc)… I decided that I would buy an ‘under-Rs 10 lakh car’. That left me with the choice of the all new Honda city, Fiat Linea, Ford Fiesta, Chevy Optra and the other GM cars. I decided against buy any of the GM/Ford cars given the service levels.

I checked out the Fiat Linea and was very impressed with the car when I saw it first. I think it a very nice car. But again I was not impressed with the service levels again… I was always very clear in my mind that I wanted a Petrol car (firstly because I don’t enjoy driving diesel cars and also see my earlier post… I don’t believe that diesel will always remain cheap). The only Linea on display and test drive was a Diesel… I had clearly indicated to the showroom guys that I was very keen on a Petrol. They had informed me that they would call me the day they get the Petrol car…. Mind you they have not called me back till date (more than a month since I visited them!!)….. just shows the level of customer service.

I narrowed down my search and decided to choose between the All new Honda City and surprise surprise… the Maruti Suzuki SX4….. I had never given SX4 a thought… the minute I test drove the car… the car was in race with the All new Honda City. It was a real tough decision… since the Honda City is an awesome car with such a great predecessors…. But end of the day… SX4 won the race comfortably….

I am now a proud owner of a Maruti Suzuki SX4…. The car is simply superb and a great VFM car (like most Marutis)... Also, one of the other reasons was my comfort level with Maruti cars…. I am back to where I belong after flirting with the idea of buying other cars ………

Await the details of the rationale behind my decision of choosing the SX4 over the All New Honda City in my next post……..

I subsidize a Merc owner!!!

Have you ever wondered why Diesel costs lesser than Petrol in India?? Is it because it is cheaper to produce? Or is there more Diesel than Petrol in the world?? No… the answer can be found elsewhere! Diesel has traditionally been priced lower than petrol to keep costs in general low (ie inflation low).

Diesel is used for transportation by road (both people and goods). Diesel is used by Indian Railways. Diesel is also used a lot by farmers for running all the irrigation equipment like tractors, pumps, crushers, etc.

Diesel is the most subsidized fuel in India. For instance, Fortune 500 company Indian Oil Corporation is losing Rs 243 crore daily of which diesel’s share is Rs 127 crore, followed by kerosene at Rs 75 crore, LPG (Rs 11 crore) and finally petrol (Rs 11 crore). This is also due to the fact that diesel accounts for more than 40% of India’s petroleum product consumption. But the crux of the matter is that companies are making huge losses by selling diesel at the current prices.

The under recoveries per litre of Diesel is higher than the under recovery on a litre of petrol. The above fact is also evident from the fact that Reliance Petroleum is exporting its diesel, since it cannot afford to sell it at a loss locally like the oil Public Sector Undertakings (read as HP, BP, IOC, IBP, etc). Shell for instance sells diesel and petrol at almost the same price in India.

A quick look at the diesel and petrol prices in two leading economies (US and UK) reveal a different picture all together.

United States: It would be interesting to note that since September 2004, the price of diesel fuel has been generally higher than the price of regular gasoline (petrol) all year round in the United States of America. As on September 1, 2008 a gallon of diesel was priced at US$ 4.12 and a gallon of gasoline was priced at US$ 3.68. (Source: Energy Information Administration – Official energy statistics of the US Government).

United Kingdom: As on date a litre of diesel is priced around GBP 1.24 and a litre of petrol is priced around GBP 1.12. (Source: www.petrolprices.com)

It is true that high diesel prices create inflationary conditions. So, if the government really wants to subsidise diesel… cant there be a better way whereby only the deserving get the subsidy?? The point I am trying to make is why should the government subsidise a person owning a car costing more than Rs 20 lakhs or even Rs 8 lakhs?? It is funny that a person owning a Maruti 800 or a Tata Nano in future would be subsidized lesser than a person owning a fancy SUV say a Audi Q7 or a Mercedes!!!

By looking at other countries which subsidies fuel used for public transport and farm equipment, the Indian government can learn a thing or two. For instance, in Ireland, businesses are allowed to claim back the 100% of the VAT on diesel but nothing for normal petrol while in Portugal, the amounts are 50% for diesel and 0% for petrol.

Or the Government could consider selling diesel for cars and diesel in cities at a different price (Dual pricing as it is called). But in case of duel pricing, our black marketers or innovative Indians, could end up with plans for obtaining the public transport diesel for private consumption or worse start buying trucks as caravans for private use!!!

Dual pricing is something I have been speaking with all of my friends. Anyone who has discussed petrol price with me will have heard me talk of dual pricing. It is heartening to see a press report which suggests that the PM wants to introduce dual pricing.

Untill any of the above happens; I will continue to subsidise the running expenses of a rich kid owning a diesel car which costs more than my petrol car!!!

Long way ahead... but not full distance

There is enough written about the Bengaluru International Airport in the press, blogs, etc. Most of the articles, blogs that I have come across or rather all of the blogs which have been selected by newspapers have contained criticisms about BIA. It was ridiculous to read some one complaining about the kind of trolley at BIA (I have seen the same trolleys at other airports).

My take on BIA… it is a wonderful airport but it is small. I think we have come a long way from the HAL airport but not gone the full distance!! If any person was expecting the airport to be like Changi or Heathrow from the day it started operations… I guess the problem lies with the expectations. For a beginning… this is a good airport. The only problem is that the airport is small.


I think the road from Jakkur to BIA is as good as it can be. I have traveled more than thrice to the airport till date and I have not taken more than 90 minutes anytime…. I once traveled all the way from my house (in Banashankari) which was estimated to take more than 2 and half hours according to TOI. The critics had written off the airport before it even opened…. All those people seem to have gone into hiding now!!

I also traveled by the Volvo bus last week…. And it took one hour to reach Infantry Road. It was a pleasant experience.

I dint want to write about the airport being good until I had experience more than once. Also, I wanted to write only after the excitement of the new airport vanishing. Both of them have happened now and the airport still looks good for me! People who want to complain can find a reason to complain about everything in life…………

Where will we finally land............

The delay in opening of the BIAL has only given more time for the debate on whether to close the HAL airport or not to continue. It is surprising that this question has cropped up and is being debated publicly a few months before the opening of BIAL when the decision to close the HAL airport and make BIAL the only airport in Bangalore was take a few years back.

The most common reason cited by people who are fighting to keep the HAL airport is the lack of infrastructure and the difficulty in getting to BIAL. It is not a case of Devanhalli or BIAL becoming farther to the city in the last few months... the distance has been the same since the time construction on BIAL began. The NGOs, airline companies, frequent flier, businessmen who are now against the closure of HAL airport could have fought from the past few years to put the right infrastructure in place. Instead of filing a PIL now, instead of having website surveys now, instead of having online petitions now... the same people could have taken some actions earlier to force the government to create quality infrastructure to get to the airport.

Be that as it may, the ground reality is that we don’t have quality infrastructure in place to ensure that we get to BIAL in a reasonable time. It needs to be acknowledged that it could take nearly 3 hours to get the airport from areas such as JP Nagar, Electronic City, Bannergatta Road, Rajarajeshwari nagar, etc. The other reasons given to keep the HAL airport open are the feasibility of Low Cost Carriers (LCCs) operating from BIAL, the infrastructure at HAL airport being rendered redundant, the revenue loss for HAL!

Understandably, BIAL is against keeping the HAL airport open since closing of the HAL airport is one of the terms and conditions of the agreement signed by the Government. Also, I understand that BIAL's under development fees and other revenue calculations are based on the assumption that BIAL will be the only operational airport for commercial and cargo flights.

In my view, the arguments of LCCs making losses and HAL losing out on revenue are not worth considering. When somebody is running a business and there are some external factors (including government policies) which make the business less profitable… I don’t think the businessman can cry foul… instead he would need to come up with creative solutions to stay in business. I don’t think HAL airport can be kept open so that LCCs can break even nor can it kept open to ensure that HAL makes the Rs 300 crores that it has been earning annually.

As regards, the other reasons for keeping the HAL airport open ie BIAL rendering the infrastructure at HAL redundant; it may be worth while to examine the option of making the HAL airport an airport which is open for charter aircrafts. We have a lot of companies which now want to get into the business of providing charter aircrafts. Further, the HAL airport can be used by companies owning small aircrafts to offer pick-up and drop services to BIAL. There are many ways of using up the infrastructure created at HAL airport.


Now I come to the last reason and strongest reason for keeping the HAL airport open which is the lack of quality infrastructure to get to BIAL. I think this is a fair ask. But the government is also required to adhere to the agreement with BIAL. Hence, there is a requirement to balance the two.

In my view, the best way to achieve this would be to keep the HAL airport open only till the road to BIAL gets ready and for HAL to enter into a revenue sharing agreement with BIAL for the said period. The revenue share would ensure that BIAL is not worse off by letting HAL operate the airport, HAL would also not be worse off since it makes some money and the public at large would also not be worse off. I think this could possibly be a solution acceptable to all.

The most important reason why I am against keeping the HAL airport open is as long as we have the HAL airport open, the work on the road to BIAL will never be done on fast track. We react in panic situations well.

A classic example of what I am stating above is BIAL itself…. If the HAL airport had not reached its full capacity… I don’t think Bengaluru would have ever had a swanky new international airport in such short time… we would have managed to continue with the HAL airport!!!