Dodgy data makes it hard to judge Modi’s job promises
Some of us in Marcellus were still in primary school when Indira Gandhi was the Prime Minister. In that era, our parents would give the news broadcast on Doordarshan a miss and tune into the BBC World Service’s 9pm broadcast to understand what was happening in India. Ironically, the BBC reported both Indira Gandhi’s and […]
In the Himalayas, living the crisis that the IPCC report warns off
One of the challenges of our job is that we tend to lose all sense of proportion and obsess about trivialities such as the RBI’s interest rate announcements or the latest sexual escapades of our politicians. Meanwhile, changes take place in the real world which are quite literally earth-shaking. On 6th October 2018, the Intergovernmental […]
Saudi Princes Quest to Remake the Middle East
In the wake of what looks like the murder of Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, in the Saudi Arabian embassy in Turkey, it is worth spending some time to understand how and why the heir apparent to the Saudi throne, Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS), is moving at such speed to stamp out all opposition to the […]
The Big Hack – How China Used a Tiny Chip to Infiltrate US Companies
This investigative article based on interviews with American government officials and corporates claims that Chinese spies attacked almost 30 US companies, including Amazon and Apple “by compromising America’s technology supply chain”. So how did China pull this off? It appears that China inserted a tiny microchip, not much bigger than a grain of rice, into […]
Fooled by probabilities and by Indian NBFCs
Published on:20 October, 2018 There are plenty of cleverly crafted games in which you win most of the time and are rewarded with small payoffs. However, in such games there is always one scenario (which is not the base case scenario) where you get wiped out completely. Investing in NBFCs resembles these games of chance. […]
What do we expect from a CEO
Published on: 19 Oct, 2018 Rather than being a corporate Superwoman, the Effective CEO is an honest, industrious, well informed executive who is aware of her limitations and understands that her conduct and her incentive structure sets the tone for the rest of the firm. “Buffett manages his CEOs just like he manages his stock […]
Psychotherapy is not harmless: on the side effects of CBT
Most psychologists and psychotherapists that you and I know will be trained in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT). CBT has become increasingly popular over the past 20 years as the stresses and strains of modern life amidst a raft of bestselling books on psychology have made visiting a shrink as commonplace as visiting the local clinic […]
What made the US unique has become history
Janan Ganesh is one the FT’s finest columnists and here he uses a Michael Porter-type competitive advantage framework to explain the decline of the USA. Ganesh says that until the 1990s, America could boast that its openness to immigrants, free & fair elections and its free market economy were unique strengths. Now, almost all significant […]
How Online Shopping Makes Suckers of Us All
As millions of Indians go beserk shopping online at this week’s annual binges at the likes of Amazon and Flipkart, this slightly dated yet fascinating piece by The Atlantic shows how online retailers may have regained their pricing edge over consumers who were supposed to have been empowered by the transparency of the internet. Employing […]
‘This guy doesn’t know anything’: the inside story of Trump’s shambolic transition team
The legendary Michael Lewis describes in this piece how Donald Trump could not (or did not) prepare properly to become the President of the United States. It is an extraordinary story of rich people on the verge of extreme power using colourful language but not realising the enormity of the task ahead of them. After […]
The creation of a mobile juggernaut
If you are a budding Indian entrepreneur and are wondering how to create a giant enterprise in a highly regulated sector, you have to read this lucid piece from the FT on how Reliance Industries conquered the Indian mobile telephony sector and in the process humbled Bharti, Vodafone and Idea. The story is not exactly […]
Spotting the Liar in the Boardroom
Published on: 12 Oct, 2018 Alongside our forensic accounting model, we also use questioning techniques popularised by the CIA to figure out whether the CEOs we are meeting are making things up. “He that has eyes to see and ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep a secret. If his lips […]
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