Are we Welcoming enough?

Namaste

In schools, through textbooks, I was fed with an idea that our nation's rich hospitality culture is what makes India the most welcoming Country in the whole world. (well, to those books' credit, we did have a lot of foreign emperors who felt so welcome here that they didn't think of going back home for a long time). Then literature thought me that Indians live by "Athiti devo bhava" (A Sanskrit saying which means that 'A guest should be treated like God').

This perception totally changed as soon as I landed in China! 20 months that I lived there, I felt like a king. Be it - in office, in meetings, conferences, or in daily life places like supermarkets, malls or even in the humble Subways - respect for a foreigner, even if brown, was tremendous! For instance, grab any local citizen on the street and ask for a nearby address; I have had multiple instances where the person walked along and dropped me off at my destination if it was nearby! The height of their courtesy is this - prospective customers sending a Pick up car (AUDI, Mercedes, BMW etc) for you despite knowing that you are simply going there to pitch your own product and then even take you out for a lavish lunch/dinner even after saying no to your products/services. China redefined relationship courtesy for me.

And India, sadly, has fallen behind in this since last two years. The main reflection of for this is the reluctance of us to even offer meal to our business guests from 2nd/3rd world countries (US and EU citizens still get all the respect and honour that we can ever give, sometimes even at an expense of offending our own people! This is a common occurance at almost any leading hotel in the country!) . It's is a very simple gesture - if a foreigner has come to visit you, you ought to ask them out for a meal and if you don't, it's is extremely eccentric to the history of your country's culture itself. I am not saying that you arrange for an extravaganza like the Chinese do, but at times, even a simple office canteen meal makes up for it.

Everyone reading this please consider it as a written complaint from anyone who ever visited India and was expecting their host to offer them a simple meal but was let down. I have myself witnessed this a number of times in many parts of the nation.

But, we Indians were never like this. Things have changed only since last few years. Some blame it on westernisation but I suppose it's simply a form of rationing, a rather stupid one. We need to buckle up! This is the only land that has bestowed a Guest an honour and a status equivalent to God and we need to live up to that deed! They can take our economic growth away, they can take our rupee's value away, they can even take our land away, but we should never ever allow them to take the title of the "World's Most Welcoming Country" away!

Please be courteous and offer meals to your guests, and why only foreigners? Try that to your own people too. Let's make this country food friendly again!

P.S: A Chinese complained about this trend to my Dad (Mr Satyen Daga) when he was in China last week, and that's the tipping point for this article.

Shale Asia - A distant dream or a fast approaching reality?

At the end of last year I was baffled by the different levels at which Shale Gas in US had opened opportunities for that nation. Was more or less obsessed by its notion and by what

it meant for the world. 

I was also impressed by what NA and some parts of EU had already achieved in utilizing this opportunity to its maximum level.

And that's what made me a tad bit sad that India or Asia as a whole were nowhere near the mark of being considered a moving force in this new trend.

But since then, things have changed a lot and these changes have made me a little overly optimistic about Asian shale gas story.

And why not?!

Especially, with China sitting on 1200 tcf of it (double of US). Consider these:

(1) The 3 big dadies - COONC, CNPC, and Sinopec - are busy planing on routing technology through Canadian firms.

(2) A catalyst to this process is Canadian displeasure over the delay of Keystone 2 pipeline by US.

(3) Also, we are all aware about technology duplication expertise of Chinese organisations

(4) Large EU/US corporations are already on the job of discovery & research of in Shale China!

(5)  Shell and CNPC are exploring it in Sichuan province (this province accounts for 40% of Shale deposit estimates in China) while Hess is exploring it in Xinjiang province with CNPC as local partner

(6) Around 400 Shale wells are already scheduled to be dug 'outside' US in 2014, majority of them would be in China and Russia (according to Wood MacKenzie's latest report)

(7) The use of On-shore rigs have increased by 10% in Asia, most of them for Shale (Latest report by Baker Hughes)

While on Indian front, I believe estimates of 64 - 96 tcf has made Govt and private companies to step up their game. Consider these:

(1) Reliance has invested heavily in Marcellus Gas fields through major players there while ONGC and OIL have done in some other fields and all three are already reaping fruits out of these investments. This means highly possible Tech Transfer in near future.

(2) A Shale Gas policy in Feb'13 and allowance of exploration to OIL and ONGC in Sept'13 have signaled Rel to strongly work out its strategy.

(3) To an energy hungry billion+, this could mean 15 - 26 yrs of limitless power, stabler currency and a massive economic boost - Something Govt will be hungry for.

I am hoping these developments spring out some promising results between mid-2014 or early-2015 for Asia.

For further reference on Indian side of the story, I recommend reading this report by TERI India, which not only briefs about the development of Shale Gas in India but also cautions about the flip-sides

& pitfalls and thus giving a necessary realistic viewpoint.

Down down down the drain, the bloodied Indian Rupee's strain

In India, it's policies and it's people have yet again tumbled at a crossroad where none of them know which direction they should take.
This week, courtesy INR-USD Exchange rate. It touched an all time record of 1 USD = 58.65 INR today.

From 20th of May, somewhere around $10bn flooded out of the country after Bernanke's announcement. Only $20bn had flown in since Jan this year as FII (which was encouraging, alas!).

CAD would be around $21bn in May'13 (up from $17bn in Apr'13) making it fall in the range of 5.5-6% - a nightmare for a Govt which has already scared global investment community with its mindless policy decisions over taxation (ref: Vodafone case) and some more since last year.

RBI (Indian Central Bank) has been in pressure from the entire Biz community to lower interest rates and was to do the same in June/July'13, until now. Now in the light of risking to damage more outflow of Dollars from the country which damaging the Rupee rates further which in turn would increase inflation if it lowers interest rates (lower interest rates will encourage FII to move back to their homeland), it is handicapped to make interest rates any sweeter. This means no respite for Indian corporations which are already paying a BPLR of 15% even in a slowdown!

Again, as importers, all we can do now is to send God a short sms - "SOS!", only if his number was not coming unavailable.