How Jaipur became an economic crimes hub
India’s Q2 GDP growth was reported to be 4.5%, the lowest in six years. Much of the country’s slowdown woes can be ascribed to the liquidity squeeze caused by the financial system’s asset quality strain, which in turn has been caused by, amongst other things, the challenges in the real estate sector. Turns out, the […]
The Feud that Created America’s Greatest Race Car
Around the time that cable TV came to India in the early nineties, Michael Schumacher, the legendary Formula 1 driver was racing in a Ford and ended up winning his first two titles in that car before switching to Ferrari in which he won 5 more titles. That Ford vs Ferrari saga was reignited by […]
The Long-Forgotten Flight That Sent Boeing Off Course
Plenty has been written about how the “financialisation” of Wall Street and the City of London over the last 40 years has created in these places – and hence by extension in Dalal Street – a toxic culture of greed is good, a culture that values short term share price gain over long term franchise […]
Nifty & Indian GDP: A Complete Breakdown in Relationship
The complete breakdown of the relationship between Nifty earnings and GDP growth raises major questions about India’s premier benchmark index. Whilst the underlying drivers of this relationship breakdown are non-trivial (and merit greater investigation), unless repaired this relationship breakdown could have major adverse consequences for the Indian economy. Our 15th Feb note… On 15th February 2019, […]
How Sesame Street set a gold standard for education
These days, there isn’t a household where young kids are supplied with educational gadgets or at the least a tablet to browse curated Youtube or some such other content. Whilst there is debate over the effectiveness of such methods in terms of children’s learning, Tim Harford, who writes the Undercover Economist column for the FT […]
How much would giving up meat help the environment?
The Economist’s this week’s edition’s Daily Chart section carries a startling chart showing the average relative environmental impact of various foods on one axis and the relative risk of dying from their consumption on the other. It shows how food that isn’t good for your health isn’t good for the environment either. The article features […]
Engineering a season of floods
This monsoon, several Indian towns hitherto not known for flooding were submerged for days resulting in significant destruction of property and life. Amitangshu Acharya who is a Leverhulme Trust PhD scholar in human geography at the University of Edinburgh, takes a shot at explaining this increasing incidence of flooding by attributing it to the construction […]
How The Private Jet Became The Singular Fetish Object Of The Modern Billionaire
We live in the age of epic income inequality and in this era, private jets are the most sought after objects of the richest, most ambitious, most rapacious people on this planet. Interestingly, not all of these people are businessmen. Politicians – from the West and from the East – also have a thing private […]
Inside the Most Watched YouTube Channel in the World
T-Series is not just India’s largest record label, it is also the most watched YouTube channel. From its humble origins as record label flogging cheap music cassettes in the 1980s, it has risen to become a media powerhouse which also produces some of Bollywood’s most successful movies. T-Series YouTube ascendancy has no parallel: “The ascent of […]
Stop Trying to Raise Successful Kids
When children were asked what their parents want for them, 81% of American kids said that their parents value achievement and happiness over caring. Most of us who raise kids in India would probably be thinking that nearly 100% of Indian parents would want their kids to be high achievers with caring being a tertiary […]
Learning from Hermann Simon
‘Niche’ focused players have been the biggest wealth creators in India over the past decade thanks to superlative earnings growth and high return on capital. Given this background, it makes sense to identity & invest in such companies, more so when such companies are relatively ‘unknown’ in the stockmarket. We find German Management Guru Hermann […]
Bogle: Diving Deeper to Learn More from the Legend
As study after study shows that over 80% of large cap Indian mutual funds underperform their benchmark, the intellectual legacy that John Bogle left behind becomes ever more relevant for Indian investors. Beyond the idea of index funds, Bogle identified several deeper truths about our profession – the importance of minimising costs, of being sceptical […]
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