Eknath Kadam > Market

About two years ago, my friend introduced me to a way of better eating. In simple words it can be called as Organic-Raw-Vegan food. Each word here needs a big explanation. I have written in the past about why raw and why vegan. Today lets focus on why Organic.

Only two years ago I heard this word, Organic food. What does this mean? Well, this means a produce grown naturally, meaning, without any kinds of chemical fertilizers, pesticides. The seed itself has to be conventional. Not hybrid (Genetically Modified). But why is so much fuss about being organic? A hybrid fruit looks big and gorgeous and tastes good too. Whats wrong with it?

If you have heard the word green revolution, then you might know that green means nothing but hybrid seeds, new chemical fertilizers and new pesticides. Around 30 to 50 years ago, this new breed of products were thought as God’s blessing. Hybrid seeds produced several times more crops than a conventional or local seed would have yielded. And it was thought of as a miracle. But only until recently the big truth came out.

Whats the truth about Green Revolution?

The truth is that it was great and wicked plan of capitalistic minds to make huge amount of money and to have the biggest power possible, by controlling the most basic need of food and rob humans of their nutrition . These seeds were created in laboratory. The seed’s DNA was altered so that it can yield more crops. While the intentions might be thought as good, they knew it very well that the new seeds have no resistance power against insects and natural diseases. So they wouldn’t survive unless you use the new pesticides. And they wouldn’t yield as advertised unless you use chemical fertilizers. All made in big factories. So far, a farmer would never visit a town to buy something like seed or a fertilizer. All his needs were fulfilled locally. A village was a complete ecosystem in itself. And hence the money rarely went out of village. Instead, when he sold his crops in town, money was flown from town to village.

When for the first time some villagers tries these new hybrid seeds, they thought of it as miracle. Without understanding the deeper consequences. The consequences were  disastrous.

1. Now, farmer has to go to town and pay for this new hybrid seeds. Money goes to big companies like Monsanto who control 90% of the worlds seeds.

2. Since these seeds wont grow without chemical fertilizers and pesticides, they need to be bought from city. They are very expensive. Again money goes to these big companies.

3. Due to these new chemical fertilizers and pesticides the land has become compact and barren. Old wooden or metal plough doesn’t work anymore. They need tractors to do most of the work. A farmer now has to rent a tractor. Money goes to big companies who make these tractors.

4. At the end, even if there is huge crops, farmer can’t decide the price himself. Typically, the produce is auctioned and farmer has to accept the auctioned price.

5. The new produce which is outcome of hybrid seeds and chemical fertilizers has no substance in it, its nutrition-less and contains deadly pesticides.

6. The worst of  consequences is, this entire process has destroyed the village ecosystem. Now and then the farmer has to run to town to buy new seeds, fertilizers and pesticides, rent tractors. The new produce has weakened his immune system and now needs to run to doctors too. All this is very expensive for a poor farmer. The money is constantly flown out of village. A farmer is becoming poorer and poorer.

7. Over the 50 years the farmers have become so poor, now they have to opt for loans to purchase these expensive products, an he always cant pay them back. Over the period he becomes bankrupt and commits suicide.

Since couple of years, things are becoming more clear. The crimes that these companies have committed are coming into light. While a lot remains to be done against this, we can start with ourself.

By beginning to eat organic food.

To understand the whole phenomenon better, I recommend watch this video.

Google Chrome, a new web browser from mighty Google will be released tomorrow. Its not another mee-too browser. Its from Google and we all know Google’s track record.
Whats interesting about browser space is that the browser has become the most extensively used application on any OS. Browser’s development started when internet was very young and was mainly used to view html. Over the time JavaScript became an integral part of every web page and so did images and videos and a lot of other multimedia content. Since browsers weren’t capable of showing it themselves, third party plugins came to help. Along came the troublemakers. Pop-up, fishing sites, html based viruses, malware and so forth.
Now internet has become pretty mature and it was good idea to start afresh. Once upon a time IE was the only browser which dominated whole browser space. Later came firefox and opera with tabbed browsing. Safari was the latest entry in browser space. All these new browsers have great features and excellent speed and strong security implemented. IE’s market share dropped considerably. Now since internet is dominated by Google, chances are that their browser would soon start to dominate the browser space.
There are a number of reasons why I think so. Google has the most extensive data about web. They know who is browsing what. Which are top most sites, which are fishing sites, which are malware sites. Which sites are broken, which sites follow w3c standards. And when it comes to plugin, they know which plugins are used and so and so forth. It makes a lot of sense that Google made a browser.
Google has a deal with Firefox and Apple to make Google , as their browser’s default search engine. Google pays for it, cause Google gets the Ad-revenue. Its big business for Google and Firefox. Now, being expert in search, Google is bringing that “search expertise” to browser. Safari brought some cool searching features in browser, Google is going a further step ahead of it. In a way, Google is bringing the best of all browsers.
In already hot browser space, there will be greater pressure for other browsers to innovate and win users’ mind.

This is a great video. Watch and feel it yourself !

There were big computers, a store room size and then came the PC and the whole world changed. When mobile phone came into world, people predicted that one day the this mobile phone will have the same capabilities that PC have.

Its been a long time we have been watching the mobile phone evolution. It has came a long way. Nokia dominated the handset market world wide. Symbian OS, Palm OS and Windows mobile were the primary softwares installed into these phones. From black and white phone to color phone with camera, BT, IR, FM mobile phone has seen a slow but steady evolution.

There was not much innovation happening in mobile handset/OS until iPhone came into picture. We all know why iPhone is such a great device. But people rarely think about why iPhone is such a great device. Its the Mac OS X. iPhone has Mac OS X as its Operation System. Mac OS X is the world’s most advanced OS, having Unix at its base and great UI, we have Server Grade OS into a phone. And that changes the whole paradigm.

All mobile phone OS makers were struggling hard to bring new great capabilities to a phone. As usual, someone else was making the handset and someone else was making the software. Developing OS is a big thing, and takes years for an OS to mature. In a way mobile industry has matured enough, but a matured OS and Handsets were missing, and iPhone with its OS has filled the Great Gap.

Now with iPhone and Mac OS X at its base platform, you can do almost everything that your PC did. When you have a server grade OS sitting in a phone, only sky remains the limit. And thats why with iPhone, we will see Mobile industry to move to a new version. Lets call it Mobile 2.0

Lets take a glance, what all you can do with iPhone which was very difficult with old mobile OS platforms.

1. True 3D gaming  (iPhone has an accelerometer, its Supports OpenGL and has 3D sound capabilities)
2. Handwriting recognition. (Its has a great touch based UI)
3. Full internationalization. (Its build right into Mac OS X)
4. Enterprise level mail and calendar support (iPhone 2.0 will have all these functionalities)
5. Enterprise level security (iPhone 2.0 will have all these functionalities)
6. Complex applications. (Office Apps and others)
7. Full blown internet, VOIP, and IM (Built in EDGE, WiFI and 3G, Safari web browser, and great SDK to write advanced internet apps like VOIP and IM)
8. High quality media experience. (Pictures, Videos, Music) (remember iPhone is an iPod too)
9. GPS and Traffic watch (iPhone understand wifi and mobile signals and uses it for GPS)

So to speak, with iPhone OS, iPhone is not only an iPod, a Phone, internet communicator, but its more than that. Its transforming into a full blown personal computer, a video camera, a GPS, a personal gaming console and much more.

Indian economy has come of an age. Sensex just hit 20K mark. It took 20 years for first 10K and next 10K came in just 20 months.I have been watching Indian Stock markets since only 20 months. And it has been great all time. There has been a lot of ups and downs.

India is now 9th largest economy in the world. There has been a great slowdown in US, Japan and German economies, but Asian Markets are emerging with a great pace.

The Rupee has been appreciating continuously, last year in December it was 47/$ and since last few months it has been below 40/$. FIIs are bullish, retail investors have got the knack, MFs pouring the money all time.

Its no wonder if a foreign analysts predicts 40K Sensex in coming 2-3 years.

Indian IT has greatly contributed in this rise of Sensex, but Reliance Family shares have conquered all the shores. Reliance Industries became more than triple in last 20 months. Reliance Petroleum took one year to become double but then just took 4 months to become triple.

Reliance Natural, Reliance Energy, Reliance Communications, Reliance Capital all became more than double in just one year. Those lucky investors who trusted and invested in Reliance family shares have become lakhpati and karorpati in just last 2 years.

L & T, when I purchased, it was 1200 and was sluggish for several moths, but as soon as I sold it, it started rising and since then it has been rising and rising constantly, today its 4300. I have missed a great fortune and you would never know how it feels unless u have such experience.

There has been great surge of IPOs. Good IPOs have seen over-subscription up-to 120 times. Excessive money is flowing in market like water. And most of the IPOs are performing great, making investor’s money double and triple in just one-two months.

SEBI is taking great care to regulate markets and avoid any kind of manipulation. Indian markets have earned the trust of retail investor. Most of the brokerage houses now allow online trading facility. ICICI Direct being the number one, many others like Sharekhan, indiabulls, Relience Money are offering one stop shop for investor. Investing in Equities, IPOs, MFs, postal savings all can be done by a click of mouse.

Indian economy has passed the teenage phase, and has become mature. Good days are ahead. Watch out for the Diwali Crackers on Dalal Street when Sensex hits the holy 21K mark.

Update: As of today, January 23rd 2008, market has crashed badly. After touching 21K mark, due to fear of global recession, market slid down to 16K. They are still singing a long term investing song and asking poor investor not be worried. Many have learned many lessons. But lets see, how long they remember these lessons.