[tsk1979]

Originally Posted by Sedate

Go Green or Eco-consciousness was an American theory to put brake on other countries. They first implemented it on South East Asia fishing industry(prawns) in the name of turtles getting killed in fishing nets- to protect their fishermen/fishing industry and advertise their new technology fishing nets.

Sorry but it is not conspiracy theory, but a fact. Our minister(JR) either plays fool or is fooled with that propaganda preventing every development in the name of earth!

If we were so eco-conscious we would never had dams, roads or even ports! Everything harms this world! Even we breath out CO2. After fixing industries will it be human beings labelled as green house gas producers?

Atleast lets allow some one to sell(export) some iron oar, bauxite and coal to bring back the rupee to a sane level!

Are you really serious
Our village is near a place raveged by illegal uncontrolled mining(rock, sand). thousands of acres of land has been rendered unusable for anything, and major rivulets have changed their course.
I don think anywhere else(except maybe china) you have development destroying environment so majorly.
Thanks to the type of arguments and conspiracy theories found in your post, there is no middle path. Either its the stone age, or its the Road to hell.
However, development and environment can happily coexist. Unfortunately, neither the populace(atleast a large percentage), nor the politicians can think in shades of grey.

[Chetan_Rao]

Originally Posted by Sedate

Go Green or Eco-consciousness was an American theory to put brake on other countries. They first implemented it on South East Asia fishing industry(prawns) in the name of turtles getting killed in fishing nets- to protect their fishermen/fishing industry and advertise their new technology fishing nets.

Sorry but it is not conspiracy theory, but a fact. Our minister(JR) either plays fool or is fooled with that propaganda preventing every development in the name of earth!

If we were so eco-conscious we would never had dams, roads or even ports! Everything harms this world! Even we breath out CO2. After fixing industries will it be human beings labelled as green house gas producers?

Atleast lets allow some one to sell(export) some iron oar, bauxite and coal to bring back the rupee to a sane level!

Given your views above, I'm just curious. Do you also believe that the recent Uttarakhand disaster was also caused by a freak rainstorm, and not by decades of rampant erosion and ecological imbalance caused by unchecked & unplanned human activity?

We're destroying our planet bit by bit, and if you think that's just a conspiracy theory, I think I've just wasted 5 minutes typing this response. Good luck with your point-of-view.

[Sedate]

Originally Posted by Chetan_Rao

Given your views above, I'm just curious. Do you also believe that the recent Uttarakhand disaster was also caused by a freak rainstorm, and not by decades of rampant erosion and ecological imbalance caused by unchecked & unplanned human activity?

We're destroying our planet bit by bit, and if you think that's just a conspiracy theory, I think I've just wasted 5 minutes typing this response. Good luck with your point-of-view.

I definitely understand you view point and concern and agree with you.

But what difference does it make in importing Iron Ore and Coal from another country when over sources/mines are locked down with the concern of ecological damage? Are we not talking about earth as whole.

When there was less than average rain in Kerala in 2012, ecologists were telling - "See we ruined the greenery. We wont have any rain going forward". In 2013, we had above average rains and the same ecologist was talking on a talk show - "See we ruined all the greenery, Mother earth is crying and we will all drown to death".

I believe that the world is not a wound clock to work the same way as it is. Earth has its own mechanism for maintaining equilibrium. May be she is laughing at us - 'Save yourselves kiddos, I will take care of myself".

For me this whole go-green thing is like - a flu virus in my body thinking about my health! Hope I made myself clear! In automobile terms - It is like having a car in your garage and not driving it thinking that you son wont be able to drive it when he grows up!

I am not in for an argument nor to demean you views, but just put my views forward for a healthy discussion. Thank you.

[tsk1979]

Originally Posted by Sedate

I definitely understand you view point and concern and agree with you.

But what difference does it make in importing Iron Ore and Coal from another country when over sources/mines are locked down with the concern of ecological damage? Are we not talking about earth as whole.

See my post. Black and white. Illegal mining was taking toll. So whats the solution ban all mining. Nobody wants to ban all mining

When there was less than average rain in Kerala in 2012, ecologists were telling - "See we ruined the greenery. We wont have any rain going forward". In 2013, we had above average rains and the same ecologist was talking on a talk show - "See we ruined all the greenery, Mother earth is crying and we will all drown to death".

You need to do some reading on climate and weather

I believe that the world is not a wound clock to work the same way as it is. Earth has its own mechanism for maintaining equilibrium. May be she is laughing at us - 'Save yourselves kiddos, I will take care of myself".

Absolutely right. there is no need to save the earth.Nothing will happen to the earth. Its the humans who need to worry

For me this whole go-green thing is like - a flu virus in my body thinking about my health! Hope I made myself clear! In automobile terms - It is like having a car in your garage and not driving it thinking that you son wont be able to drive it when he grows up!

I could not understand what you are saying, but if you are saying, to hell with the environment, I will be long dead before the thing hits the fan, then I really have nothing left to say

[carboy]

Originally Posted by tsk1979

I could not understand what you are saying, but if you are saying, to hell with the environment, I will be long dead before the thing hits the fan, then I really have nothing left to say

It's not so simple. There are various issues here

- Is global warming or climate change or whatever it's called caused by human activity?
- Is the amount of change which has happened till now bad?
- Will the amount of change which has happened increase?
- Will the increase happen at the amazing rates predicted by computer 'models'?
- Can the change be reversed by the kind of stuff billions of dollars are being spent on currently?
- Is climate change also a separate industry now with it's own vested interests?

Here is a transcript of a lecture Michael Crichton (the guy who wrote Jurassic Park and lots of other sci-fi) gave at Caltech - https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~scranmer/SPD/crichton.html

It serves as a good starting point for the other side of the argument.

[.sushilkumar]

Now that Rupee will more or less nearing 70 ,I am waiting for those in power to announce a hike in prices across the board citing high dollar prices.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/b...w/22120318.cms


It closed 69 today . 3 rs fall in single day

Keep your gas tanks filled to brim fellas .This time it will be huge and petrol pumps will surely be not a place you want to me in, when this hike is announced.

Edit : - Lady in power is getting ready for next assault . Land acquisition bill . Each of the 120 crore Indian will get a 1 inch long land to grow vegetables.

http://www.firstpost.com/politics/so...g-1066651.html

[tsk1979]

Originally Posted by carboy

It's not so simple. There are various issues here

- Is global warming or climate change or whatever it's called caused by human activity?
- Is the amount of change which has happened till now bad?
- Will the amount of change which has happened increase?
- Will the increase happen at the amazing rates predicted by computer 'models'?
- Can the change be reversed by the kind of stuff billions of dollars are being spent on currently?
- Is climate change also a separate industry now with it's own vested interests?

Here is a transcript of a lecture Michael Crichton (the guy who wrote Jurassic Park and lots of other sci-fi) gave at Caltech - https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~scranmer/SPD/crichton.html

It serves as a good starting point for the other side of the argument.

Where did global warming come in all this. The talk was about whether development and environment can co exist. Global warming is totally false, its not happening. So its okay to cut down the forest cover?
On micheal C, would you go to a medical thriller writer to get your illness treated, or a real doctor? Same way, I will listen to Climate scientists, since I do not have any expertise in the field, rather than some sci fi author
But then, climate change is not the topic of this thread.

The thread is about factors causing falling rupee.
A big factor is blanket ban on mining till next court hearing(who knows when).

Thats why I said, politics is in black and white. Ruin the land, or ban mining. Just two options. What is needed is a balance, not just in this, but everything in life. When you fill inequal amount of air in both sides of your car tires, your car will pull off the road.

[carboy]

Originally Posted by tsk1979

On micheal C, would you go to a medical thriller writer to get your illness treated, or a real doctor? Same way, I will listen to Climate scientists, since I do not have any expertise in the field, rather than some sci fi author

Ad hominem. Argue against what he wrote, not the man himself.

Anyway, I agree mostly with what you wrote about mining.

[idea]

Latest on this. Source: Rediff news portal


The Indian rupee slumped to a record low near 69 to the dollar on Wednesday on growing worries that foreign investors will continue to sell out of a country facing stiff economic challenges and volatile global markets.

The pummelling in markets sent the rupee reeling 3.7 percent to an all-time low of 68.85 with the unit closing just a touch off that, at 68.80/81 per dollar, its biggest single-day fall since October 1995.

It closed on Tuesday at 66.24/25.In absolute terms too, the 256-basis-point fall in the rupee was the biggest ever.

An assault on the psychologically key 70 level now appears imminent, as intervention from the central bank seen mid-morning only gave the rupee a brief respite.


In the stock market, state-run Life Insurance Corp, which was spotted buying shares, allowed the domestic benchmark index to erase steep early losses and end the day stronger."If steps are not taken to implement the reforms necessary to tackle the structural issues, the government will be left with the so-called '3D options': debt default, devaluation, deflation," said Angelo Corbetta, head of Asia equity for Pioneer Investments in London."

In India, devaluation is happening now and deflation could be about to start.

The good news is that the debt default is highly unlikely."Foreign investors have sold almost $1 billion of Indian shares in the eight sessions through Tuesday - a worrisome prospect given stocks had been India's one sturdy source of capital inflows in the first half of 2013. If more foreign investors throw in the towel, traders fear it will put the country in a vicious cycle in which the hit to confidence in turn slams shares and the currency even harder.

Policymakers have consistently struggled to come up with steps that can convince markets they can stabilise the rupee and attract funds into the country despite extraordinary measures last month by the central bank to drain liquidity and action to curb gold imports and cut India's huge oil import bill.

Rising oil prices, fed fears amplify pressure

India badly needs foreign capital as it struggles with a record high current account deficit, growing fiscal pressures and an economy growing at the slowest in a decade.

The failure to address India's economic challenges is becoming an increasing source of tension at a time when fears of a possible U.S.-led military strike against Syria are knocking down Asian markets, with the prospect that the Federal Reserve will soon end its prolonged period of cheap money further raising concerns.

At the same time, rising domestic bond yields threaten to raise borrowing costs across the already slowing economy, while global prices of oil and gold - the country's two biggest imports - have surged this week.

"The end game for the current decline would be the day the rupee stops falling, alongside government measures like a substantial diesel price hike," said Samir Arora, a fund manager at Helios Capital in Singapore.

BNP Paribas on Wednesday slashed its economic growth forecast for India for the fiscal year to March 2014 to 3.7 percent from its previous 5.2 percent - the weakest growth since 1991-92 when India buckled under a balance of payments crisis that required a loan from the International Monetary Fund."India's parliament remains toxically dysfunctional with little, if any, business conducted," BNP said.

"And, with next year's general election looming ever nearer, the government's willingness to instigate a politically unpopular fiscal tightening is close to nil."

India is due to post April-June gross domestic product data on Friday, with analysts estimating the economy grew at an annual rate of 4.7 percent, roughly in line with the previous quarter. It will also post July federal fiscal deficit figures.

Lacking Confidence

The rupee has plunged more than 20 percent this year, by far the biggest decliner among the Asian currencies tracked by Reuters.

India's main National Stock Exchange index fell as much as 3.2 percent, although suspected buying by LIC led the index to recover in the afternoon.Foreign investors are paring equity positions, having sold a net $3.6 billion in stocks since the start of June, but still their net purchases so far this year total nearly $12 billion.

Among the blue chips that fell the most on Wednesday were Axis Bank Ltd and ICICI Bank Ltd, a concern given foreign investors had so far largely held on to their investments in lenders, owning more than 40 percent of each.In bond markets, foreign investors have sold more heavily, with outflows reaching nearly $4.6 billion so far this year.

Yet the government has so far failed to provide a coherent response, analysts said. Its approval of infrastructure projects on Tuesday was trumped by concerns about the fiscal deficit after India's lower house of parliament this week approved a 1.35 trillion rupees ($19.6 billion) plan to provide cheap gain to the poor.

In its latest initiative, the government late on Tuesday proposed setting up a task force to look into currency swap agreements, a measure analysts said could bring some relief if carried out in time by reducing market demand for dollars or other major currencies.

"Let's see what the authorities do, but if the government can come out with some really big currency swap arrangement with some countries, that can be a strong positive," said Uday Bhatt, a forex dealer with UCO Bank in Mumbai.

[amitoj]

Another day, another new low. Sigh!

Originally Posted by carboy

Here is a transcript of a lecture Michael Crichton (the guy who wrote Jurassic Park and lots of other sci-fi) gave at Caltech - https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~scranmer/SPD/crichton.html

Thanks for the link. It was an interesting read indeed! A lesson in question everything, believe nothing.

[Chetan_Rao]

Originally Posted by Sedate

I definitely understand you view point and concern and agree with you.

But what difference does it make in importing Iron Ore and Coal from another country when over sources/mines are locked down with the concern of ecological damage? Are we not talking about earth as whole.

When there was less than average rain in Kerala in 2012, ecologists were telling - "See we ruined the greenery. We wont have any rain going forward". In 2013, we had above average rains and the same ecologist was talking on a talk show - "See we ruined all the greenery, Mother earth is crying and we will all drown to death".

I believe that the world is not a wound clock to work the same way as it is. Earth has its own mechanism for maintaining equilibrium. May be she is laughing at us - 'Save yourselves kiddos, I will take care of myself".

For me this whole go-green thing is like - a flu virus in my body thinking about my health! Hope I made myself clear! In automobile terms - It is like having a car in your garage and not driving it thinking that you son wont be able to drive it when he grows up!

I am not in for an argument nor to demean you views, but just put my views forward for a healthy discussion. Thank you.

The problem isn't mining by itself. The problem is with our methods. Courts had to intervene and shut the entire operation down when nothing else seemed to work. We're taking resources faster than the planet can replenish, and there's only one logical end to that.

You can find a lot of first-hand accounts of people affected by rampant, illegal and out-of-control mining (tsk1979 is one example). Unfortunately, our legal system lacks teeth to enforce regulations, so they took the only other way out: total shutdown. Not necessarily beneficial to the economy, but what alternative did we have?

The climate change argument has interesting opinions on both sides, and can be debated for years without concluding either way. It's off-topic for this thread, so let's not continue that here.

'Hoard everything for tomorrow' isn't a good approach, but neither is 'live like there's no tomorrow'. We need to strike a balance.

[Sedate]

Sorry to have taken the thread to global warming -

But my emphasis is on the adverse business system that we are creating here!

Once almost all companies built production line for diesel engines, we started to remove subsidy for diesel! It was as if government was waiting for Honda Amaze to be launched!

Once we have almost all mobile operators switching to 3G, we(or CAG) wanted to have the price of 2G spectrum to be equal to 3G(at least on books). We all saw how 2G auctions fail after the court order to auction them out. We pissed off the Russians and the Norwegians in the process! Now we are calling them again for FDI?

Once almost everyone started using sun films, the court came with blanket order to stop using sun films. 3M factory shuts down!

Once some miners 'obtained' licenses(in far remote areas - not even mapped by google map), court came up and said - Let all licenses be cancelled. There was no Indian coal available in market and hence businesses starting importing - costing more dollars.

Same was the case with iron ore. Posco had issues with its operation! Koreans are not too happy!

Above all these, workers are killing HR managers! Who will come to invest money here? It is like the music is slowing! Now that is Japan!

A fall in dollar is 'may be' caused by government, but is fueled by our courts too. Its now too difficult to do business in India! Especially with multitude of masters with only teeth and no brain!

The next will be a ban on energy export. We are deficient of electricity, but sell it to Nepal and Bangladesh at a dirty cheap rate - This is for a tactical reason - Next day someone will come with a PIL saying that we must stop exporting as we don't have enough!

The security forces are also doing it acts - they are killing the port of Kochi. It is the largest container transhipment terminal nearest to shipping route. Its utilization rate is now less than 5% due to many CISF/Customs mandates to have every container to be checked - Not only the containers going out of the gates, but each container unloaded on Indian soil! These contianers are then put on another ship to travel to another port in India or abroad - They just sit there for a few days waiting for it next ship! But the checking process takes weeks more and many items go missing!

This is causing us to rely on Colombo/Singapore for our transhipment - Again lost dollar!

Government is busy preventing flat panel tv as hand baggage and preventing import of gold!

And the opposition only cares about onion, rice, diesel price and ayodhya! The court is sure that sun films cause rapes and is busy making people remove them.

People like me do arm chair analysis and do posts in online forum!

Longest post! Puh!

[Chetan_Rao]

Originally Posted by Sedate

Sorry to have taken the thread to global warming -

But my emphasis is on the adverse business system that we are creating here!

Once almost all companies built production line for diesel engines, we started to remove subsidy for diesel! It was as if government was waiting for Honda Amaze to be launched!..........

You've summed up the repercussions of our 'policy paralysis' very well.

The courts may be to blame for some of the mess, but you need to account for the fact that the court only gets involved in most cases because the regulatory bodies and the policymakers failed to devise and implement an acceptable & workable model.

Every resource has some sort of scam attached to it (coal, minerals, wireless spectrum, you name it), and there's ZERO accountability. The government is trying to make up rules on-the-go to suit its own requirements (refer retrospective taxation amendments, spectrum price adjustments post-auction etc.). Who would want to do business with (or in) a country that indulges in such shenanigans?

I pity the courts actually. They're like the headmaster of a school with rowdy kids. Lockdown is the only option that seems to work.

[tj123]

Well I agree with Ratan Tata that India has lost the confidence of the world and the government has no clue or is slow to recognize and react. Read the full article on

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...w/22119537.cms

[Daewood]

I think the thread title should be changed to the 'The Rising Dollar", for the Indian Rupee is not the only one losing value against the dollar. After the recent news about the US FED pullback of stimulus programme, the currencies of most of the Developing Nations like Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Africa, Korea etc have taken a huge hits. In fact the South African and Brazilan currencies are performing much worser than INR.

Originally Posted by amitoj

And I recently read this article about Nokia declaring India as "least favorable", reason being tax disputes.

The Nokia case is unlike Vodafone. It was a clear case of bypassing existing tax sturucture wheras the vodafone case was about applying a tax retrospectively. Any way Nokia is in bad shape worldwide and even had plans of selling it's headquarters to debtors. It's the Kingfisher among handset makers