Today after a long time thought to write something. I started this blog in between the covid pandemic when it was lock down and everyone was confined in their homes.

So I wrote for a few days than things and businesses got unlocked and it again became a busy life like earlier.

So today I got a congratulatory message from word press that I got 1000 views on my few blog posts I wrote in lock down so thought to start writing again. This covid pandemic is still going on in 2022 also but now the situation is far better. We have vaccines, most of the people including me have got 2 doses of vaccine. So we have learnt to live with the pandemic now.

But this pandemic taught me a lot of things. I lost a lot of known people to this virus, so it brought lot of sadness in life like it would have brought in so many other people,s life.

But hearing news of sometimes some uncle passing away, some times a distant relative, sometimes friend,s father and sometimes some elderly people who were very affectionate. So seen a lot of deaths in these two years. But with each known person,s death same question kept coming everytime that if death is the ultimate reality and no one knows when would that time be so what are we running after in life for?

For more fame, more money, higher position . What are we so proud of ? What is our,s here. ? Everything that belongs to us our land, gold , property or anything else that we are proud of that piece of land is their on the earth from the time the earth was created.

So once that piece of land which we claim as ours belonged to ancient animals like dinosaurs which are now extinct. Than from millions of years various people came , they became happy that they owned that piece of earth which is giving us happiness now .But that land is their only from the start and it will stay their only . Only the people who claim to be the owner of that land will keep changing . Even our human body is ours only for a small period we are alive and our soul resides in it. So their is nothing actually that will remain with us always.

So for most of us who are engaged In businesses or jobs or any sort of work and we are working day and night to get higher salary, promotions, or to make our business bigger and bigger ? So is this the only purpose of our lives to amass wealth? Keep working for money till the time we are very old because we want more and more money . Because we are never satisfied with it, how will we buy most expensive houses, travel to exotic location, have the best car, stay in the most luxurious hotels without money. So all our time and life goes after it. After all money gets you respect , standing in society , you need money for fulfilling materialistic goals.

With hospital treatments, tuition fees, house hold things everything so expensive we definitely need to have sufficient funds , and proper financial planning , retirement planning etc that is a topic I like writing.

But than today I thought is that the only purpose of our lives. Doing work , job , business sincerely to our best ability is very important so we have a financial security and we are comfortable but that can’t be the sole purpose of our lives.

If we have got a human life than their is a lot of other things that we can do , we have a obligation to the earth that we are born on, trees that are getting cut each day, animals that are getting killed and so many species getting extinct because of our greed.

We have a obligation to a lot of people who are not as fortunate as we are , can we do something for the upliftment of a few people in our life. A lot of people deserve better education, better medical facilities, better living conditions so if we are well to do will our life be not more fruitful if we do something for someone, other than for ourselves.

The earth that we call as our mother do we not have a duty to fulfill towards our mother earth if we are lucky enough to be born as human beings .

So lot of these deaths that I have seen over the years and than a lot of them in this pandemic made me think on this , that is the purpose of everyone,s life is only to fend for ourselves or we have a duty towards mother earth and everything living or non living that is a part of earth.

Since No one knows the future so we don’t know what is going to happen next moment. So if one wants to do anything in life but thinks will do it later than who knows weather life will give someone a chance to do that or not so time to make a start for anything is NOW.time to bring a small change in someone,s life is NOW, time to plant a tree is NOW. Time to find a meaningful purpose for our life is NOW.

So this is not a motivational speech neither am a motivational writer. I started writing to educate people mostly on health , financial planning and topics which I find interesting. Written after long today so thought to write on something which came to mind a lot of times in last two years that what is the purpose of our human life.

The views expressed are my own.

Bhaskar Sankhla

If their is one company in India, which has benefitted the most , amid this Corona Pandemic than it undoubtedly is Reliance. Forced online push due to pandemic, Rising anti China sentiment in the world with newfound love for swadesi and a wish to become self reliant .

All the conditions are working In Mr. Ambani,s favour. Hence it comes as no surprise that He is attracting majority of the Foreign investment coming in India.

To put it in numbers, total Foreign investment that came in all startups in India was over 58 Billion USD in 5 years period 2014 to 2019, and his Jio which was also started during this period(though it is technically not a start up) has attracted an investment of more than 20 Billion USD, which is around 35 percent of all FDI in preceding 5 years.

The way Mr Ambani has made progress after the BJP govt. came to power in 2014, none of the other Indian businesses has done. His wealth which was 1.68 lakh crores in 2014 stands at a whooping 5.4 lakh crores now, and his ranking in the world,s richest has risen from 40th in 2014 to 6th rank in 2020.

Some people credit this spectacular rise of Mr Ambani to his closesness to the current government and they allege that many policies of the govt are made so as to benefit Mr. Ambani. Some people credit his luck for the same saying that things are automatically falling in place for him.

Whatever the reason may be , but the reality of today is if their is One Indian Company which is the front runner to make India self reliant in various sectors than it is Reliance, and the way the things are shaping up now it seems that Reliance can take leadership spot from a no. of Chinese companies not only in India but also in the world.

Foreign investors are trusting it with their investments, and in the domestic market too the share price of reliance has doubled in the last few months , showing the confidence investors are placing on it.

Reliance in the past few years has worked on establishing itself as a global technology company and its original oil refining business has taken a back seat.

Mr. Ambani clearly wants to establish jio as as technology powerhouse of the future and with this another sector which he wants to capture is the Indian retail sector where he is quitely making his moves.

Today ,in the global scenario world wants to reduce its dependence on China, as Corona pandemic has taught us that world supply chains can not be dependent on a single country, this gives Mr Mukesh Ambani a golden opportunity to expand his presence in world markets through JIO.

If we look at how he has made the most of the opportunity thrown at him by the corona pandemic so far than we can see this in a few examples

Everyone went online in this pandemic and all meetings, conferences etc were also being done online. Everyone was talking about and downloading ZOOM app to conduct online classes and to attend meetings , conferences were also on zoom, even the Indian ministeries were using zoom app. In between all this some news reports came out that zoom app is not safe for data security, Sensing an opportunity here Mr. Ambani was quick to launch an alternate to zoom app that is JIO MEET app and it looks exactly like zoom.

He has also announced JIO glasses in the recently concluded AGM, and this along with the jiomeet app will be used to create a virtual classroom or a meeting hall where all online classes can be conducted.

Next comes the 5G technology, which Mr Ambani announced in his AGM, that they have built indigenous 5g technology in India starting from the scratch, and they are now ready to roll it out whenever the government asks them to. Now 5g is the future and Do you know who the market leader in the world in 5g technology is, it is Chinese company Huawei. They are providing the cheapest 5 g solutions in the world and lot of countries have tied up with them

But their are a lot of security issues associated with Huawei as well, Countries like USA and UK have recently banned Huawei as they believe it steals the sensitive and important information from their country and passes it on to the Chinese government. The world needs an alternative to Huawei and Reliance Jio can provide it with it. So their is a great possibility that 5G can place JIO at the world stage and it can look at replacing Huawei network in many countries.

Some media outlets are already terming JIO as Huawei killer

The most recent major investment in Jio has come from Google, which is investing 4.5 billion dollars in it. Now this Jio and google partnership is working on developing an android based entry level smartphone for the Indian market . Their eye is on the 35 crore feature phone users in India whom they want to shift on their network and replace their feature phones with smartphones. Currently the entry level smartphone segment is dominated by the Chinese players like Xiomi, Oppo, Vivo. Realme etc and they are controlling more than 70 percent of the 2 lakh crore indian smartphone market.

Now a lot of people today want to buy an Indian smartphone , but their are not many options available , and this is providing Mr. Ambani with a great opportunity to bring an Indian made smartphone which can compete in price and quality with their Chinese counterparts and he know’s that their will be no dearth of buyers for an Indian smartphone.

Jio has also partnered with Facebook and with its help they are working on a super app for the Indian market,which will be made on the lines of Chinese company Tencent,s super app We chat.

This app will be a one stop solution for all your digital needs, be it chatting , online digital transactions, buying or selling goods and services etc. Using this app Mr. Ambani wants to connect crores of farmers of the country and enable them to sell their produce directly without involving a middleman. Crores of shopkeepers will be connected through this app and in the near future you would be able to order grocery online from your nearby shop after checking the prices and items available. He wants to connect crores of small and medium businesses through this app ,and they would be able to do their business through it.

whatsapp popularity in India and its capacity to handle instant payments will be made use of,in this app.

A lot of large technology companies of the world have bought a stake in JIO and with their experience and expertise Reliance wants to become such a company in India where it will be at the fulcrum of everything and there will be very few things left in the future where JIO will not impact your life directly or indirectly.

Through Jio network , Reliance also wants to become a major facilitator for Indian startups so that they can grow with its assistance.

Mr Ambani is working to Make Jio the technology powerhouse of the world and wants to take on the large Chinese Companies like Tencent, Huawei, Xiomi, Zoom etc . He wants to be an answer to a large no. of Chinese firms on its own.

So far Jio,s journey has been nothing short of spectacular and now it is assisted by able partners like Facebook and Google, So if he wants to prove that one Indian company can become the alternative to a no. of large Chinese global players than this is an golden opportunity for him to establish reliance and India as a global technology powerhouse, and we all should hope that he is successful in his endeavour

Bhaskar Sankhla

Disclaimer: views expressed are author,s own.

If their is one sector in which small investors should never invest for the long term than it is aviation sector. Famous investor and businessman Mr. Richard Branson had this to say about airlines.

Mr Warren Buffet has also on several occasions spoken against investing in airlines stocks. Because this is one business which needs a large capital to start, than it has very high running expenses and after all this also most of the airlines earn little or no money.

Airlines stocks have a long history where investors have lost large sums of money because of airline companies failing and going bankrupt.

So what is it about airlines that it is considered one of the worst sectors for investing.

Now let us have a look at the history of airlines in Indian context. In india first time doors were opened for the private players in the 1980,s, and lot of Private companies entered the Indian market, But they could not stay in the market for long, and for various reasons most of them had to shut down operations.

If we talk about 2005 that is 15 years back than the top 3 domestic players in the Indian market were First was Jet Airways which had the maximum market share and it was one of the best companies to fly for a long time but jet also could not survive the competition and it shut down operations few years back.

Second in market share was Indian Airlines, which was later merged in Air India, and the combined entity today is running in deep losses, it is only surviving because it is a government company and Indian taxpayers are funding it. Government is trying to sell it from some time but so far they have not been successful in finding a suitable buyer for Air India

Third in market share was Sahara airlines, which also ran into trouble and was later merged with Jet airways. So all three market leaders in 2005 are nowhere now. Besides them many big and small airline companies have shut shop in India.

And this is not limited to India, If we look at America than in last many decades, more than 100 airlines companies have gone bankrupt giving severe losses to its investors.

Many people wonder that Airline is such a fast growing sector in India with more and more people turning to flying, than how is it that with so many people flying than also Airlines are running in deep losses.

The reasons are many First of all it is a very high Capital intensive sector, and huge investments are required for starting and running an airline.High aircraft costs, salaries for employees, high expenses in oil cost, taxes etc.

Then none of the operators is manufacturing its aircraft, they are all purchasing their aeroplanes from same manufacturers. Since they are not in aircraft manufacturing developing a more cost efficient aircraft for themselves to outdo the competition is not a possibility.

Lack of Infrastructure in the country also increases the costs for the airlines, as the airports have become so congested that many a times flights are unable to land on time, they get delayed and all of this adds up to airlines costs. Another problem with airlines is their high dependence on crude which forms a major chunk of their costs. So if the crude prices rise the thin margin the airlines are operating on evaporates making it very difficult for them. Corona pandemic has also hit the aviation sector very hard and this shows how vulnerable aviation sector is to external factors .

Next comes the cut throat competition in the Indian market. All airline companies are competing with each other to gain market share, and the only way to stay ahead of the competition in this price conscious Indian market is by offering cheaper fares. Low cost airlines like Indigo, Spicejet have lowered the air fares to such a level and are working on such low margins that it has become very difficult for other airlines to survive in the Indian aviation sector. Even the low cost airlines,though they have gained market share but their Financial condition remains weak because of very low profitability.

Another thing which is crucial to many businesses is Customer loyalty which is not their in the Airlines sector , as the passenger is only interested in the cheapest air ticket, and it does not matter to him whether he is flying in X airlines or Y airlines.

Airlines do not have this option available to them to cancel the flight or send a smaller aircraft if very few passengers have booked tickets.This also adds to airlines losses.

Then they have to fly on some unprofitable routes also so as to comply with the government regulations and this also adds to losses.

Now they try to cover up their losses when the peak season comes, like diwali, newyear etc by raising their airfares but here again the government comes into picture and caps the airfares to a value beyond which they can not price their tickets. While govt is trying to safeguard the interests of the passengers but this takes away from the airline the chance they had to earn a decent profit.

Airline operators have already invested a lot of money in their businesses ,so shutting down operations is not an option for them and slowly the losses keep piling up and a stage comes when the operator is not left with any other option but to look for a buyer for his airlines or file for bankruptcy.

Now to invest in airlines shares or not is a decision which each investor needs to take in consultation with his financial advisor, but here i have listed a few points which i feel are essential and needs to be taken into account which making a decision of investing in airlines stocks.

So their are a large no. of factors why the airline stocks are not able to perform well , and investors should be very cautious while investing in them.It requires deep study and knowledge to decide on the correct entry and exit time from these airlines stocks.

Bhaskar Sankhla

Disclaimer – Views expressed are author,s own. Please take your own decision for investing in consultation with your financial planner.

A lot of people ask me this question that my mutual funds are in loss, and instead of gaining some money in last 3 or 4 years i have lost from my principal amount also.

Then they look at Fixed deposit returns and say that had I invested in FD , I would have atleast gained something, but i made a mistake by investing in the stock market, so for all the people who feel this way that they have made a mistake by investing in share market i would like to say that so far you have not made any mistake but you will make one if you decide to exit in loss.

To understand this let us have a look at what the most respected investors and businessman around the world have to say on this.

So as per Mr. Warren Buffet, you will loose money if you are impatient in the stock market.

Mr. Bill gates has similar views on importance of Patience in life for succeeding

Mr. Charlie Munger says you can make big money in the stock market only by waiting, and not by frequently buying and selling stocks.

So all these successful people lay emphasis on the importance of PATIENCE.

Now let us try to understand this with the help of example of Nifty. Nifty is the index for National Stock Exchange and it comprises of top 50 companies of the country representing different sectors.

Its value was 1000 in 1995 when it started, and now it is close to 11000. So in a period of 25 years it has grown by 11 times. So if you had invested an amount of 1 lakh in nifty in 1995 it would have grown to 11 lakhs today.

But this has not been a smooth ride, their have been manys ups and downs in this journey like their was a major crash in 2008, than again this year 2020. But Despite this Nifty is growing at a CAGR of 10 to 12 percent from the starting point.

This CAGR value keeps changing with time, like when the market crashes it falls below 10 percent and when their is a bull market it goes above 12 percent. But between 10 and 12 percent is the long term average CAGR return.

Another important thing to note here is that over a long period of time nifty has always given better returns than the FD.

If you look at the Nifty curve than you will find that their are periods of outperformance as well as periods of lull in nifty ,when it did not give significant returns over a long period of time.

Between 1995 and 2019, in these 24 years, Nifty has given positive returns in 17 years and it has given negative returns in 7 years.

From these 17 positive return years Nifty has given more than 20 percent return in 10 of them, while in 4 of these years it has given returns of more than 50 percent in a single year.

67 % return in 1999, 71 % return in 2003, 54%return in 2007 and 75% return in 2009.

While once in these 24 years Nifty has given a negative return exceeding 50 percent. that is -51 % return in 2008.

So their have been many ups and downs in the market but you wont be able to take advantage of them if you are not invested throughout. Nifty has at times given very high returns in a single year also(as mentioned above), but since no one knows when those years will come , so the only way you can take advantage of those high return years is by staying invested throughout.

Another mistake that many people make is booking profits very early so they are unable to reap full benefits of the bull run. For example someone invested in nifty in 2002 got a good return in 2003. But if that person booked profit and decided to wait for the market to fall so that he can enter again than in that case he would have missed entire bull run of 2003 to 2007 and would have got chance to re enter only in 2008 market crash.

To cut it short, do not try to time the market as no one can, and staying invested is the only way through which returns can be maximised.

Now if someone is worried that market is not performing for many years than remember these are all phases of the market.

Lowest return that the market has given in a single year is -51 percent and the highest return that it has given is 75 % and 68% of the times returned turned positive in a single year.

If we see for a three year period than lowest returns in any three years on nifty are -27 percent and highest returns on nifty are 130 percent, and the probablity of returns turning to positive has increased to 91%

Now in any 5 year duration , nifty has never given Negative return so far and return has been in range of 21 % to 213%

For 10 year period return range is 99% to 258%, and for 15 year period than it is 254 to 324 percent return.

So now if we compare the worst performance of nifty in any 10 year period so far than it has doubled the money in that time and if we consider the current FD rates between 5 and 6 percent than it will take between 12 to 14 years to double money at this rate.

So over a long period of time Nifty index returns easily beats Fixed deposit returns.However please remember that here we are considering only Nifty, individual mutual funds and shares can have a better or poorer performance than nifty.

To summarize the key to investing is to select good funds, or select an index fund and than invest in it for long term. Be patient without getting affected by the volatility of the market.

Once you have made a decision to invest in a mutual fund their comes a problem of plenty in it. With the mutual fund industry evolving over the years now their are thousands of schemes so it makes it very difficult for the investors to select a few from them to invest.

Now here as a first step you will need to write down your goals , for which you want to save. Goals can be saving money for retirement, children education, buying a house, foreign trip etc or it can be anything for which you will need money in the future.

Once you have written down your goals, next comes analysing your risk taking ability, that is how much risk you want to take with your money. As a basic rule higher the risk , more is the probablity of profit or loss , and lower the risk taken , lesser will be your profit but chances of loss will also reduce.

Risk taking ability depends on a lot of factors, like a persons age, financial condition, no. of people dependent on him etc. So risk assessment is the next step after goal planning.

Now comes the time period for which you want to invest your money, If your goals are far away than than you can invest most part of your investment in equity, However if you want to invest for a shorter duration say 2 years or 3 years, than you need to invest in some debt instruments.

Most experts recommend investing in equity only if your goals are more than 7 years away as for a smaller duration,equity may be risky and you may end up loosing your principal amount as well.

Once you have done the asset allocation, basis your goals and risk profile, now comes the other important factors to be considered for selecting a mutual fund scheme.

Expense Ratio – is amount charged by the fund house, in order to maintain and invest your funds, It can also be called as management fees that the fund house will charge you. It varies between 1 and 2 percent in india for most equity schemes. In simple words it means whenever you invest 100 rs in a mutual fund, than the fund house will charge you between 1 to 2 rs for managing your fund every year and invest remaining 98 to 99 rs in equity. It appears small but when you invest for a long period of time this little extra makes a lot of difference.

So look for schemes with lowest expense ratio.

2. Look for lower TURN OVER ratio as well, that is to say if the fund manager is frequently churning the portfolio than in that case for each transaction some money is being deducted resulting in slightly lower return. So look for schemes where this turn over is less, as they may offer better returns than others.

3. Look for the schemes and fund manager,s long term track record.That is to say that some fund managers have a history of outperforming index, while their are others with below par performance over long term. All the information about any fund manager is at your finger tips and can be googled.

Select an scheme managed by a fund manager with a consistent track record.

4. Many people make the mistake of chasing the top performing fund each year so they frequently go in and out of schemes to maximize returns, but this approach will give below par returns in most cases, because top performing funds keep changing every year. So a better approach would be to see long term performance of any scheme and than once you have started an SIP , have confidence in what you have selected and continue with it for few years.

Because even the best performing funds also have a few off years in between.

5. In Equity also their are so many ways to invest, like some fund managers prefer to invest in high growth companies, although they might be trading at premium valuations while their are other fund managers looking for value and they only invest in beaten down shares which they feel is trading below its intrinsic value.Some may like to invest in high dividend giving companies. So you can invest in the scheme of your choice which you feel most comfortable with.

6. Compare your schemes performance with the relative index it is tracking, if over a long period of time the mutual fund scheme has consistently given higher than index returns than such a scheme can be selected for investing.

7. Diversification – while investing is also very important, that means that you have to spread your investment over different categories to reduce your risks. For example investing in 4 different large cap schemes is not diversification as most of the shares in each scheme would be same so the correct way would be to spread your investment in largecap/Multicap/Midcap and Small cap with maximum portion invested in large cap.

Sector specific funds are very risky and require thorough knowledge so for a small investor it is better to avoid them.

Diversification is also necessary in fund houses that means do not invest in a all the schemes from the same fund house, it is a good practice to select each scheme with a different fund house, so that is their is any issue with one fund house it does affect your entire portfolio.Take for example recently Franklin Templeton was facing liquidity issues in its debt fund schemes so it had to lock 6 of its schemes.

8. Their are a lot of fund options available other than equity, like debt, Real estate, Gold fund, Arbritrage fund, International funds etc. Well for your long term goals best suited is equity funds investment and small part of your portfolio can be invested in these other schemes.

9. Index funds which are passively managed and have lowest expense ratio can also be a good choice for investing to fulfil your long term goals. Because many actively managed funds despite their high expense ratio are unable to beat index returns.

10. For any small investor , SIP is the best way to invest, you should continue your SIP in all up and down cycles of the market so that you have an average unit cost over long term. Do not try to time the market as no body can, the key to creating wealth is being disciplined and not be bothered with ups and downs of the market.

As it is rightly said – IT IS NOT TIMING THE MARKET, BUT THE TIME YOU SPEND IN THE MARKET creates wealth for you.

Bhaskar Sankhla

Today the world markets are overly dependent on China for their needs, and China is the factory of the world.Companies world over are dependent on China for their goods. Main reason being that China is able to manufacture at a price at which the other world Companies are not able to manufacture or produce their Goods.

What is it that China is doing to produce goods at a cheaper rate than others. The answer does not lies in CHEAP LABOUR. The fact is that labour is still cheaper in China if you compare it with USA or EUROPE. But their are lot of other countries where labour is much cheaper than China, take INDIA for example, where labour is cheap still its nowhere in manufacturing if you compare it with China.

Advantage with China is that it has turned its labour to an asset by their skill development and today its labour is the most skilled labour that you will find anywhere in the world. This coupled with their high literacy rate of 97 percent is a boon for them. Compare this with 74 percent literacy rate of India and mostly unskilled labour force. This is the reason why more than 50 percent of our labour is still dependent on agriculture for their livlihood and agriculture sector contributes only 16 percent to our GDP.

China has developed the world,s best supply chains in the last 30 years.It has divided its country into various Industrial clusters, where large no. of industries are set up. Most of the raw materials for manufacturing goods are also available their is another advantage of China and it saves them a lot in costs.So right from extraction of raw materials to their processing, and then finally turning them in to finished product in a factory is all done in an industrial cluster where latest technology is used.Different factories are set up for different purposes. All this along with availability of cheaper raw materials lowers the manufacturing rates of finished goods.

Chinese Govt supports export houses at each and every step.To start with an manufacturing plant gets land easily at very competitive rates.Their clearance processes are streamlined and very smooth which facilitates setting up of an Industrial plant quickly. Uninterrupted supply of subsidized electricity and water is assured to the factories so that they can function to their full capability, all this saves a lot of money for the manufacturers in China thereby reducing their costs.

Chinese govt. also gives various tax benefits to its exporters which helps them in keeping their prices down.

Then next advantage for them is their great INFRASTRUCTURE which they have developed over the years , and today all their big and small towns are connected to each other via roads and rails. Lot of big and small ports have been developed along the coast and that again are connected to industrial clusters to facilitate quick transportation for exports.

These Industrial clusters coupled with infrastructure ensure quick transportation of raw materials and finished goods thereby saving on costs at each stage.

ECONOMICS OF SCALE – is another Chinese principle to keep the costs low.Their Factories manufacture everything on a very large scale. A factory which is making only few thousands of a product cant compete with a large manufacturing plant where millions of items are manufactured together.

Since China manufactures products for the world on a very large scale they are able to keep their costs much lower.

LOWER CORRUPTION AND EFFICIENT FRAMEWORK – Corruption in China is lower than many of their Asian counterparts and besides this they have developed an efficient framework and streamlined all processes to ensure faster clearances. Being a authoritarian government rule, also helps in this as their is no place for any opposition to any decision the government takes.

INNOVATION and TECHNOLOGY is another area where China is far ahead of other manufacturing nations , and it makes good use of them to lower their manufacturing costs at every stage.

Besides all above their are various UNFAIR MEANS that china uses to keep its manufacturing costs down.

CURRENCY MANIPULATION – is one of such ways under which China artificially devalues its currency Yuan. The result is Chinese products cost in dollar term reduces, so it is able to sell more and more of its products as they become more cheaper for the world market where all trade is done in dollars. Since its economy is based on exports it benefits more and more by currency manipulation.

While a responsible nation would want to develop in such a way that its environment and industries coexist with each other but not China. It has damaged its environment in the last few decades at such a rapid pace that now only Earning money by exploiting its natural resources seem to be its only motto. All the rules and regulations right from setting up a manufacturing plant to disposal of wastes from these factories is done with only monetary considerations,without giving any thought to preserve environment.

HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION – The workers in the manufacturing plants are exploited in various ways and no one has the right to dissent. Single party authoritarian rule in china does not permit any voice to be raised , and it being a closed society very few reports on labourers plight in China come out from their.

Increasing Productivity at any cost is the principle CHINA works on.

China saves million of dollars by STEALING TECHNOLOGY from other countries which they otherwise would have to spend if they did Research and Development to build that technology.

They have mastered the art of technology theft and then launching duplicate products in the market with similar brand name and designs but at a much lower rate than the original one. They do not care about copyright or patent for any product and you can today find cheap duplicate chinese versions of almost anything, Be it a Car or an Iphone or an expensive pair of shoes.

DUMPING is another unfair practice widely used by Chinese, wherein they dump a product in large quantities in a foreign country at prices which are lower than the price at which that product is manufactured even in China. Local manufacturing in the market is unable to compete in price with the Chinese counterpart and it forces the local industry to shut down. So as a result of dumping,China slowly captures the complete market of the foreign countries.

Now if we see in Indian Context, why we are no match to China in manufacturing in the present conditions is because of following factors.

First of all we are a Democracy, and while it has its own advantages on one hand, it comes with a set of disadvantages on the other. Take for example,for any decision to be made in India it has to pass through so many levels, that it wastes a lot of time for the parties involved.

Right from the time of acquiring a land to set up a factory, to getting various clearances.

From dealing with an inefficient and corrupt beauraucracy to opposition from various labour unions and environmental activists time gets wasted at each step.

And if any party goes to court against the industry than the industrialist has to deal with an judicial system which works like a snail, where it takes decades to get any judgement.

So it wastes a lot of time before a manufacturing plant is actually set up and as we all know TIME IS MONEY. So greater is the time wasted more are the expenses resulting in an increased manufacturing cost.

Along with this we believe and practice Humanistic industrialization where Business, Labours, Environment etc are given their due respect and have their own rights and values

All these make it very very difficult for us to compete with china in prices. So what is the way forward for us, well i feel we need to work more on our strengths, we can not manufacture everything but whatever industry we develop it has to be world class and with no dependence on China.

We need to identify those sectors that have traditionally been our strength and develop those and make them world,s best.

Take for example service industry which is our strength and it contributes significantly to our GDP so more concentrated efforts are needed to develop service sector as well.

Well a lot is being done or planned for future, but with a country of size and population that we have, everything appears to be too less.

So we need to be hopeful that government also pushes its limits and we as citizens also contribute in whatever way we can so that the dream of an self reliant,developed and a superpower INDIA becomes a reality, Sooner than Later.

Bhaskar Sankhla

Disclaimer – Views expressed are author,s own.