6 AM Pacific

Charts on my mind

We’ve been working on doing some cool things with charting on our research platform. Thought I’d have some fun with it. Charts courtesy Google Charts API. Irrationality courtesy US Presidential elections.

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Haryana and Orissa lead Investment Tables

Ila Patnaik reviews CMIE data on state wise per capita investment in 2007. The states with the leading investment per capital are Haryana and Orissa. It just happens that I am quite familiar with both states since I am Oriya and go back there to visit my folks quite often and because I grew up in Haryana and go back there once in a while as well.

Both states have able forward thinking administrations. And some help of course. Haryana’s proximity to Delhi is something they have taken advantage of. Orissa is blessed with more than its fair share of natural resources. But beyond that there is still a lot of good work going on. In Bhubaneswar, the traffic isn’t anywhere near being a problem yet. But the government is working hard to widen roads. Shows that someone is thinking ahead.

Patnaik attributes the differences and the trends in investment per capita to the quality of the state government administration. If I were to drill down a little more and ask myself the question, what would I look at if I were to set up a new center for my business my criteria would be as follows: More »

Big Pharma vs Nature

I read an article about something interesting that I now can’t seem to find on the internet. The article was about a study conducted by some Indian doctors that indicated that wheat grass juice can reduce transfusion requirements in Thalassemia patients. A paper on the subject in Indian Pediatrics from 2004 is what I was able to google.

One of the (many) problems with modern day drug discovery system is that it is driven completely by a template that provides no incentives to discover naturally found active ingredients with therapeutic properties. Discovering new drugs is an expensive process requiring tens of millions as investment before the drug can be commercially exploited. Most drug candidates don’t make it. If you amortize the cost of these failed drugs over the few successful ones, the costs multiply rapidly. The entire edifice of the pharma industry rests upon the ability of companies to successfully exploit a successful drug through patent protected pharmaceuticals. The problem with naturally found active ingredients is that a patient can get the cure without buying the pill. More »

Survivorship Bias and Godmen

I am in the middle of Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. He talks about how we tend to draw the wrong conclusions about mutual fund performance by looking at the historical performance of today’s mutual funds. We don’t include the performance of all the funds that were closed or merged, generally on account of poor performance, because they aren’t around. This is called Survivorship Bias.

I find that Survivorship Bias is very useful in explaining the Godman phenomenon as well. More »

BCCI and Indian Cricket - Monopolies are Never Good

Last week the returning winners of the Twenty20 World Cup, jammed up traffic in Mumbai. Sharad Pawar, the BCCI President and also Union Minister for Agriculture, cancelled all his appointments to receive the Indian cricket team. There was a big press conference, at which he made a speech that was, it seems, more a political speech than anything else.

And why not? He is a politician in a cricket crazy country. Why shouldn’t he take advantage of the rare occurrence that is an Indian team winning a major championship? Many other politicians in various states had the same idea and showered gifts and cash upon their home state players. Everyone loves a winner. More »

Old Retail vs Farmers - Now It Gets Interesting

A couple of months back, I wrote about Kerela’s ban on organized retailing. Most readers agreed that it was wrong-headed. But there was some skepticism about my claim that organized retailing would be beneficial to the farmers. Well, here’s the tangible evidence. More »

Auto-rickshaws in Mumbai

There is much good to be said about autos in Mumbai. They are generally available in plenty at all times of the day. And to a lesser extent even in the middle of the night. They generally charge by the meter, which is more than can be said about Delhi or Bangalore. And they (again generalizing here) have a more positive attitude towards their passengers and humanity at large than their brethren in other metros. More »

Number Games - BEST TV Advertising

Among business newspapers in India, Business Standard is good and is constantly improving; Mint is new but very good too. Both have an online presence [B-S Mint] and do not have irritating pop-up ads. The B-S site is not password protected (Mint is) which makes it an ideal solution for linking to. I wouldn’t want my readers to be subjected to the advertising irritants that an Eco Times creates.

Here is my first link to B-S. An article in today’s B-S reports that BEST buses in Mumbai have installed TVs in their buses which will show ads. The idea is clever but not novel. It has been tried but has met with resistance in the US where fares are not (or less) subsidized. Bus Radio is a similar project that does radio advertising in school buses. In India where the fares have to be kept very low to remain affordable, this could be an interesting way to help keep the fares down. More »

Contaminated Food

The ongoing saga of contaminated toothpaste and food imports from China into the US is in its third month but is far from over.

For those of you who haven’t heard about it here’s what’s been happening.

In October 2006, at least 100 people in Panama died from cough syrup contaminated with diethylene glycol, a poisonous low cost substitute for glycerine. In May 2007 the contaminated glycerine was traced back to its Chinese manufacturer Taixing Glycerine Factory. The same month, the US FDA issues guidance to the industry to test products containing glycerine for diethylene glycol. On June 8, the FDA issued a ‘toothpaste FAQ’ for the general public. More »

In Mumbai

Landed in Mumbai a couple of days ago. Sahar airport has improved quite a bit in the last 2 years that I have been flying into Mumbai. It is far from the kind of airport that one would expect the financial center of India to have, but I think the airport authorities are doing a good job with what they have. The immigration lines are now well managed. Baggage claim has more capacity and the baggage carts are new and improved. More »