Unpredictability and Anxiety is the worst combination that one may have to face but i think Civil Services Examination(CSE) rerquires the aspirants to learn to come over it.I also have to go through the phase when only speculations were the food for the brain.I was fed up by refreshing the "What's New" page on UPSC websit. And finally one fine day, 4th May, result was out.
First i took a sigh of relief that finally result is out and self torture is going to end but the very next moment,thought of success or failure filled my mind.I just remembered Lord Krishna and click on the list with range of my roll no. I skipped my name at first go but found my name there.Then i saw for my rank...547..it was a bit disappointing for me as i was expecting a lot better than that...but still I was through with a decent rank..so that made me happy..
I called up my parents, sister and brother..after that i told to my colleagues and seniors.All were very happy 4 me as my hard work has paid.Its very tough to prepare with job where you have to work 9 hrs for 6 days.So it is quiet an achievement for me.Now celebrations followed.Sweets are favouite for these occassions.
After two days of celebrations, i started to prepare for next prelims.Prelims went OK and on 17th night, i was on the way to my home.Parents were beeming with joy and pride.I came to know about the real importance of my achievement only after seeing them.It was like a dream come true for them.
But still, I have to go a long way..Marks are out and i have socred only 269/600 in GS and 150/300 in interview.So lot of hard work is to be done and mistakes of previous yr need to be rectified like no wastage of time in waiting for prelims result and more answer writing practice and holistic coverage of syllabus. Hope everything goes well and i get IRS(Customes & Excise) at my rank and above than it, i get a rank in CSE 2009 to get into IAS...
May Lord Krishna show me the path and fill me with such courage and conviction so that i achieve my dreams with his and my parents blessings..
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Monday, December 8, 2008
Swinging Oil Prices,Geo-Polotics and India
Recently crude oil in international market have come down sharpely.One major investment bank of USA have predicted that it could fall upto around $25 per barrel.Last yr., oil prices rose upto $150 per barrel.So this swing in oil prices provides a good case to study it's impact on todays's geopolitics.
Petroleum oil is chief source of energy in many sectors like energy,transportation,industery etc.Above all that,economy of many countries like Iran,Venezuela is mailnly dependent on oil.These ecnomies can be better termed as Oil Economies.Other industries in these countries are not developed to an extent even to support the domestic demand.So these countries are net importer of main items like manufactured goods and even food grains also.
Last yr.,when oil prices were shooting up like anything,these economies earned high windfall gains in the form of hugh amount of Petro Dollars.Oil reserves were seen as power in the hand of thse countires.Iran,seen by USA as a rogue state, openely criticised USA for it's policies.Venezuela even threatened to cut it's supplies to USA.Oil was being seen as a commodity to invest even better than gold.This clout of petro-dollars and oil reserves helped to improve their standing on international arena.
But,as everyhting has to pass througha full circle.So oil prices are no exceptions to it.Recent financial crisis and recession in major economies is resulting into plunging demand,in case oil also.Even confidence of investors is lacking.This condition looks to persist for a period of at least one year or so.Oil prices are aleady at a level of 30% of their peak prices.Further decline in demand and thus prices may lead to political instability in oil economies.It will also dent their position at international level by shrinking their options for influence.Even a cut in production of crude oil may not help much to boost prices due to low demand and even production can not be cut beyond a limit as it is the only main source to sustain their economies.Situation is bound to be complex if low prices continues.Political turmoil may destablise the Middle East and Latin America.India will also feel the ripple of these turmoil waves.
So How is India placed in emerging scenarios and what should be India's response to it?India imports around 73% of it's demand of crude oil.So low prices is a good news for India as such.But it may rise again in future also and in the era of globalisation,there can not be any complete de-coupling.So Indian response must be to earn profit as well as strategic advantage from oil business.In recent times,India is trying to establish itself a major gloabl hub for refinary like Singapore.This business is to be less impacted by swinging oil prices.India is also geographically well placed to become refinary hub of world.If we observe the world map, it could be easily noticed that major oil producing countries like in middle east are on western side and all major emerging economies like China,S-E Asia,Japan,Korea are on the eastern side.India is in the middle having a geographical advantage to refine the imported crude oil and export to these economies.Reliance refinary at Jamnagar is one of the good steps forward.To reduce dependence on import,new discoveris in KG Basin are encouraging.New Exploration Licensing Policy have also attracted new investment from across the world. India needs to continue with these efforts.
So plunging oil prices can play havoc for oil economies and can lead to a geopolitical tsunami.Indian response will have to be dynamic and better equipped to handle the destruction caused by it.
Petroleum oil is chief source of energy in many sectors like energy,transportation,industery etc.Above all that,economy of many countries like Iran,Venezuela is mailnly dependent on oil.These ecnomies can be better termed as Oil Economies.Other industries in these countries are not developed to an extent even to support the domestic demand.So these countries are net importer of main items like manufactured goods and even food grains also.
Last yr.,when oil prices were shooting up like anything,these economies earned high windfall gains in the form of hugh amount of Petro Dollars.Oil reserves were seen as power in the hand of thse countires.Iran,seen by USA as a rogue state, openely criticised USA for it's policies.Venezuela even threatened to cut it's supplies to USA.Oil was being seen as a commodity to invest even better than gold.This clout of petro-dollars and oil reserves helped to improve their standing on international arena.
But,as everyhting has to pass througha full circle.So oil prices are no exceptions to it.Recent financial crisis and recession in major economies is resulting into plunging demand,in case oil also.Even confidence of investors is lacking.This condition looks to persist for a period of at least one year or so.Oil prices are aleady at a level of 30% of their peak prices.Further decline in demand and thus prices may lead to political instability in oil economies.It will also dent their position at international level by shrinking their options for influence.Even a cut in production of crude oil may not help much to boost prices due to low demand and even production can not be cut beyond a limit as it is the only main source to sustain their economies.Situation is bound to be complex if low prices continues.Political turmoil may destablise the Middle East and Latin America.India will also feel the ripple of these turmoil waves.
So How is India placed in emerging scenarios and what should be India's response to it?India imports around 73% of it's demand of crude oil.So low prices is a good news for India as such.But it may rise again in future also and in the era of globalisation,there can not be any complete de-coupling.So Indian response must be to earn profit as well as strategic advantage from oil business.In recent times,India is trying to establish itself a major gloabl hub for refinary like Singapore.This business is to be less impacted by swinging oil prices.India is also geographically well placed to become refinary hub of world.If we observe the world map, it could be easily noticed that major oil producing countries like in middle east are on western side and all major emerging economies like China,S-E Asia,Japan,Korea are on the eastern side.India is in the middle having a geographical advantage to refine the imported crude oil and export to these economies.Reliance refinary at Jamnagar is one of the good steps forward.To reduce dependence on import,new discoveris in KG Basin are encouraging.New Exploration Licensing Policy have also attracted new investment from across the world. India needs to continue with these efforts.
So plunging oil prices can play havoc for oil economies and can lead to a geopolitical tsunami.Indian response will have to be dynamic and better equipped to handle the destruction caused by it.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Indian Elections...
If you want to see the festival of all festivals in India,welcome to the fun fair and extravaganza of Grand Indian Elections.Atmosphere becomes elctrifying as political parties do not leave any stone unturned for compaigning.Parties adopt unique way for popularising their candidates.Parties makes promises that are mostly unrealisitic,not viable and sometimes goes beyond the constitutional provisions.
So here lies the question that are our voters able to differentiate between feasible and impracticle promises?Is it important to be able to recognise this fact?How does this choice affect our country.The answers of all these questions need to be understood first.
In any democracy,power flows from people.People decides how they 'll be governed and by whom.People are supreme.India also follows the same spirit as mentioned in the preamble of our constitution.People elect their representative.These representatives make broader policies for national development and these policies are executed by the bureaucrats.If elected representatives are able to formulate good policies keeping in mind all prevailing situations,it will be implemented easily by the executives.These able representatives will also control these executives properly.
In India,people are not able to differentiate between feasible and impracticle promises.They vote on the basis of some biasing.So the representatives are not equipped with capabilities required to formulate good policies which in turn is not properly implemented by executives.Selected bureaucrats dominates in such scenario which pose a danger to very basic fundamental of democracy where elected should dominate as they are voice of people and weild the power on their behalf.
So now question arises that keeping in mind the level of development in India, should be wait for time when people themselves will understand the importance of their voting behaviour or should government and civil societies.NGO's need to take some proactive action to tell people about importance of voting behaviour.Second choice looks reasonably good but pose a question also that how it can be and should be done?
I think that during elections, there must be compaign by Election Commission and NGOs and Civil Society groups also for this purpose.There are educated people who donot turn out to vote.People have to take responsibilty of the people around them to make sure that every eligible voter go for casting their vote.
The call for voting is a moral one and nobody can be forced for it.Provided people understands and recognise the importance of every single vote,it will surely change the voting behaviour of people for positive results.It will decide the type of administration we have and level of delivary of services.This in long term decided the rate of development of society as well as society.If this could be made possible,this festival of celebration of people's power through their voting can bring smiles on the faces of all.
We and Turbulant time ahead..
Last few years have seen lots of happenings at world stage.This is a quite an interesting period we are going through.In one way,it may be called fortunate or unfortuante to live through these times.It may be called unfortunate as world and humanity is facing an array of problems which requires immediate attention and action as well.It may be called fortunate as it also provides a rare opportunity for us to rethink the strategy for development and drive home the lessons for sustainable and green development.We may feel ourselves fortunate as we are witness to such an era.
Today world is facing many problems among which financial crisis has taken the front seat and all major economies are putting war footed effort to find a sloution to the damage done by some unaccountable,greedy and unregulated financial giants.These companies have seen their doom but innocent investors are paying the prices for their deeds.This crisis is hampering the growth of mainly developing economies.India is not an exception in this regard.Globalisation has imported the crisis to all economies.Government intervention is being seen as the panacea but to what extent it is justified to privatise the profits and nationalise the losses.In the coming days,the way economies has worked will surely change but its impact is yet to be seen.
In last one year,petroleum prices went haywire but fear of recession has again proved the law of aveages and prices are plunging.In few last year,world also faced food crisis.Increased demand led to high import requirements and decreased export from surplus countirs.Drought in major producers like Australia and use of food grains for bio fuels piled up the agony.Food crisis led to riots in many countries and affected the poor countries most.It has exposed the twin problem of high population and lower production as per demand.
Now, the one problem which is being overshadowed by financial crisis is Global Warming and Climate Change.It is posing danger to the existance of humanity on this planet.Increased carbon footprints beyond limits and exploitation of resources beyond carrying capacity has led to this problem.One aspect to be noticed is that more delayed the action,severe and sooner will be the impact.
So all these problems are of paramount importance for the develpoment as well as existance of mankind.In the era of globaisation,boundaries are no barriers.Problems of global warming and climate change also does not respect the national boundaries.So a integrated effort is required from all countries.Lead can be taken by developed and major economies.G-20 summit in this direction is welcome step.But all other countires must be given an opportunity to exprees their opinion.UN General Assembly can be a better forum for this.All countries need to come togather and evolve a short term as well as long term plan of action to face all above mentioned threats.There are disagreements among countries in WTO and about Kyoto protocol commitments for develoed world.These need to be sorted out soon for better environment for further action.
From present problems,we need to learn the lesson that few people should not be allowed to run the economies of world freely.Role of State has to be prominent to check all these acts.Gandhi Ji once said,"There is enough for everyone's need but not for anyone's greed."In all our future action,development of people that too sustainable with equitable distribution is to be put at centre and all players has to act for this one cause.It may require complete shift from the way people live and cosume today.So here lies an opportunity in the middle of all these difficulties.We need to grab it through well planned concrete efforts.History may not give us a better opportunity to change the way things work and make this world a happier place to live.Let us rise to this occassion and act for the cause of humanity.
Today world is facing many problems among which financial crisis has taken the front seat and all major economies are putting war footed effort to find a sloution to the damage done by some unaccountable,greedy and unregulated financial giants.These companies have seen their doom but innocent investors are paying the prices for their deeds.This crisis is hampering the growth of mainly developing economies.India is not an exception in this regard.Globalisation has imported the crisis to all economies.Government intervention is being seen as the panacea but to what extent it is justified to privatise the profits and nationalise the losses.In the coming days,the way economies has worked will surely change but its impact is yet to be seen.
In last one year,petroleum prices went haywire but fear of recession has again proved the law of aveages and prices are plunging.In few last year,world also faced food crisis.Increased demand led to high import requirements and decreased export from surplus countirs.Drought in major producers like Australia and use of food grains for bio fuels piled up the agony.Food crisis led to riots in many countries and affected the poor countries most.It has exposed the twin problem of high population and lower production as per demand.
Now, the one problem which is being overshadowed by financial crisis is Global Warming and Climate Change.It is posing danger to the existance of humanity on this planet.Increased carbon footprints beyond limits and exploitation of resources beyond carrying capacity has led to this problem.One aspect to be noticed is that more delayed the action,severe and sooner will be the impact.
So all these problems are of paramount importance for the develpoment as well as existance of mankind.In the era of globaisation,boundaries are no barriers.Problems of global warming and climate change also does not respect the national boundaries.So a integrated effort is required from all countries.Lead can be taken by developed and major economies.G-20 summit in this direction is welcome step.But all other countires must be given an opportunity to exprees their opinion.UN General Assembly can be a better forum for this.All countries need to come togather and evolve a short term as well as long term plan of action to face all above mentioned threats.There are disagreements among countries in WTO and about Kyoto protocol commitments for develoed world.These need to be sorted out soon for better environment for further action.
From present problems,we need to learn the lesson that few people should not be allowed to run the economies of world freely.Role of State has to be prominent to check all these acts.Gandhi Ji once said,"There is enough for everyone's need but not for anyone's greed."In all our future action,development of people that too sustainable with equitable distribution is to be put at centre and all players has to act for this one cause.It may require complete shift from the way people live and cosume today.So here lies an opportunity in the middle of all these difficulties.We need to grab it through well planned concrete efforts.History may not give us a better opportunity to change the way things work and make this world a happier place to live.Let us rise to this occassion and act for the cause of humanity.
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