Over the past few days, i have greatly resisted to write anything about the FDI issue which i have written about in the past. FDI in Retail according to many is not the most singular pressing reform issue facing the present administration in Delhi. I am supportive of FDI in Single Brand Retail, in Luxury and Consumer Products like an IKEA or an APPLE Store or even a Barnes & Nobles or a Borders for Book Store Retail. I would like major Coffee Chains like Starbucks and Seattle Coffee/ Second Cup to replace the miserable expresso which i drink from CCD vending machine in my office everyday.

FDI in Multi Brand Retail involves agri commodities; the power centre will move from the ‘Mandi’ to the Corporate Offices in Bentonville, Arkansas. The ordinary farmer who feels helpless and indebted to the loanshark and the dalal, can’t fight the local businessman, is now expected to expect rights and respect from Corporate MBA-wallah type folks, Naaah…. Media seems to be peddling a dangerous, illusion in the name of Agri based Food Chain FDI. And Food  Cold Storage Infrastructure  can be bulit by the Mahindra’s and Tata’S Too. I am not calling for protectionism, just pragmatism.

The concentration of the present regime seems to be on stuff which are totally diversionary from the actual matters of effective governance. They are seemingly more interested in Social Media Censorship, and getting cartoonists arrested than delivering reform where growth synergies will be discovered and so called ‘animal spirits’ unleashed to unshackle the economy out of its policy paralysis.

Can we now get real stuff done please, like Infrastructure and Rural Reform, otherwise the Crown Prince will have to remain one for a while.

Historians studying this decade in the future will have a lot of archival data to work on in re-creating historical narratives and elaborate mindscapes which past maestros of ‘past’ recreators have done over the eras. Social Media is ‘Human Sharing on Steroids’ as the Singaporean Media Commentator Cherian George quipped yesterday at a think tank forum (paraphrasing a tweet from the Asia Trends Monitor and SIIA twitter accounts). History as Voltaire famously said is the victors version of the Story. As my middle school history teacher in Oman said that History is ‘His’- Story or it is our story. With the quantum of information generated every single day, we are indeed dealing with information pollution as the human senses can only bear that much information. 

Social Media is catalyzing revolutions in the Middle East, with Wael Ghonem – the Google Executive in Egypt emerging as a hero for safegaurding the information superhighways for citizen activism. Governments all over the world are trying to curb content defamatory to their interests on social media. Trillions of terrabytes of written, audio and video content for scholars to pour over to analyze and re-frame the narrative, such as the Green Revolution in Iran in 2009 and the Arab Spring phenomenon, occurring in the social media age. Of course there are questions to how much more fair is the content created by the blogging or the tweeting community, as these are educated folks mostly college educated of a certain socioeconomic strata.

Literature in the fiction genre has been considered alternative narratives of events since long and now since people generated content is huge, a more rounded picture of the a phenomenon can be etched. Will look forward to a read regarding Social Media content related to the curation of historical narrative in the near future.

I am just back from my very short trip to Muscat, Oman where i have spent the most precious years of my life probably during my undergrad degree. I am a half-pat, not a complete expat as i always had one leg in Mumbai where ever i went. Negotiation of internal identities is an eternal ongoing process. As i have lived in Muscat for so long every trip even this one after ages, seems very familiar and i had expected the usual, sometimes very positive as stability is appreciated in data packets from time to time in order to feel grounded.

I really got a ‘pleasant’ shock when the immigration officer when he wished me: ‘Welcome to Oman’, as this was the first time any one has ever told me that! The roads in Muscat seems the same, albeit better this time. New Intersections and Highways cut travel times from my residence to the main traditional shopping district called Ruwi, and Old ‘Musqat’ and Muttrah. 

I had a nice ‘Fishy’ meal with my parents at the Yacht parking complex of Oman’s super-rich known as Marina Bandar which has a tony pool side and sea side pub which serves brilliant continental fare. It also one of the fistful of places in Oman which serve both beer and pork which are antithetical to the local cultural patterns. I dug into some delightfully yummy Beef Stroganoff with some rice, which i normally avoid. The Gulf has a tendency to load on the kgs as there is something ‘lazy lamhe’ about the ambiance there.

I guess the only thing which changes in Muscat are some new buildings like the new parliament or Majlis Al Shura complex or the vacant plot beside my apartment block where i used to play cricket in being occupied by a multi-storey structure. Memories seem relegated to Real Estate Market Dynamics in the upmarket Al Khuwair area in Muscat, as is in any other emerging metropolis in the Gulf.

I went with a couple of friends to a nice continental diner called D’Arcy’s Kitchen in the Shatti Al Qurum area, which is the happening diplomatic area district of town. Beside the beach again, and along a string of cool eateries is one of the reasons Muscat remains etched in my memory. The Irish Pub at the Sheraton@Qurum Beach with Fish n Chips plus a couple of pints, was refreshing too while watching EPL, a surreal experience where the culture is as different as chalk to cheese, inside the pub in contrast to what it is outside.

Muscat Airport which was one of the smallest of the airports in the Gulf is now in expansion mode and is turning in to an aviation hub with its diversification towards tourism as Oman is a negligible Oil Producer in contrast to its neighbor across the road Hatta Border i.e. The UAE. Every Gulf State is now trying to be an aviation hub with Qatar, Dubai and Abu Dhabi already major hubs within one hour flying distance.  There honestly seems to be a glut in a recessionary economy is not the best step forward going by economic rationale, but Gulf Rulers fueled by petrodollars buck the trend normally. Singapore Airlines is backed by the State as well, but is run according to market forces.

Every place reinvents itself however static it is. We sometimes need to move away from a place which we care about in order to notice the change. All that’s needed is a fresh lens. It was fun to re-engage with the place which i thought i knew pretty well. We can only know the place as much as we engage in. In a known place we try to detect and imbibe the finer nuances unlikely to be known to the first time traveler. Looking forwards towards re-exploring more explored territories.

Cafes are places which i love in general; a warm cup of coffee, some music and a book in my hands just make for a prefect setting, whether i am sitting with a pretty girl or not (naah, a pretty girl’s company adds color to the conversation). Cafes are awesome places to chill, observe interesting fashion trends and gently study group behavior. The more aesthetic cafes i have been to are on the waterfront or the beach. A cup of coffee in Clarke Quay, Singapore or a Jumeirah Beach Dubai are beautiful. Cafes in Star Hotels are the places where one can see celebrities in flesh and blood, and not on TV.

Malls are the Public spaces which people share in order to have social interactions all over the world. This is indeed a symbol of Americanized monoculturization but it is indeed very function- hence it thrives. The Starbucks and the Coffee Beans of the World are my comfort zone. A cup of coffee at Shatti Al Qurum Starbucks is something i look forward to. Even the Cafe Coffee Day opposite my apartment block in Mumbai is a place i hang out after work. As Starbucks is not available in India yet, Costa is decent substitute with its cafe Mocha. Barista Lavazza has a smooth Moroccan Mint Green Tea which is nice on my tastebuds.

Now i will take you on a little tour of my favorite coffee shops in Singapore. The Pacific Coffee Company in Harbor Front Singapore at Vivo City Mall is my current Favorite. The view overlooking the Passenger Ferry Terminal is priceless. The Coffee Coniessuer at Clarke Quay with its Straight Black ‘Columbia Supreme’ is the best Black Coffee ever. The Tully at the Orchard Central has a better Coffee of the Day than even a Starbucks. The Turkish Cafes along the Corniche in Muscat have their own essence too.

A Cafe is not only about the coffee, it is the ambiance, the culture, the service, the people and most importantly the conversation. Lets see where my next cuppa takes me next as I don’t like to dilute my Caffeine stream 🙂 

As a kid growing up in his formative years in the 1990’s, in an era where satellite TV was a luxury to now where we have set top boxes for DTH, we have indeed come a very long way. The early 1990’s were a time immediately after the liberalization agenda was announced although the full extent of the reform agenda was not doled out until 1994. The Cinema we left behind in the late 1980’s was Ram Lakkhan, Tezab, and Maine Pyaar Kiya were US returned Prem was busy romancing the pretty plain jane girl. This was the time when Khandaan was more vital than Kanoon or Family Prestige more than Law or the powerful are the law.

The 1990’s was welcomed with the brilliant soundtrack of Aashiqui (and Kumar Sanu) and the youthful exuberance of Phool Aur Kaante with Ajay Devgn on two motorcycles in the opening shot.  Then we move on to the anti hero of Jaalaad, Dar and Baazigar. There was a sentiment of moving against the system. These were still residues of the license raj ethos. Then we move on to the mid 1990’s with Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge revolutionizing cinema for the next two decades with their genre of feel good family cinema made for diaspora viewing. The fruits of liberalization were being felt by the middle class as everyone had a VHS player or even a music system plus color TV at home.

The mid 1990’s was also a period of intense underworld gang rivalry. Bhiku Mhatre from Satya was as known as Raj from DDLJ and again Prem from Hum Saath Saath Hain and Hum Aapke hain Kaun. Sanju Baba from Vaastav and Hathyaar was iconic too.  Dil Toh Paagal Hai and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai were films which epitomized the post liberalization generation for whom Branded Attire, Overseas Education and Consumerist Culture were a day to day affair. 

Poverty, Revolution, Struggle, Challenge to the system was very 1980’s- people seemed to embrace affluence and globalization with open arms. This sentiment was sealed with the release of Mohabaatein which was a feel good college romance whose protagonist was a violin teacher Mr. Raj Aryan and his confrontation with the Narayan Shankar- the dean of the school, was glossy escapist cinema glorified. It seemed no one had time to watch cinema that was real. Salman Khan with Pyaar Kiya toh Darna Kya and Judwaa was again cinema that defined Bollywood and Society in the 1990’s- a transitionary neither global nor local, may be more local in flavor….. 

The Triple Helix Model of Innovation essentially has three strands: Academia, Government and Industry to foster an innovation economy. This is necessarily true of the industrialized world but the real Triple Helix in Developing Economy is the relationship between resources to be exploited in the emerging markets, the internal private sector with its technological prowess and monetary muscle and the often feeble home administration playing facilitator to the corporate forces and multi lateral agencies.

Development in terms of Infrastructure and access to livelihoods are the main priority of governments in the developing world and often Graft is the negative externality of the process. Corruption eats in to progress, but development is  given more priority. Development normally reduces poverty levels and a middle class grouping emerges. But at a certain inflection point, graft stifles growth. This is the case with India currently with this phase with the skeletons of a scam a day popping out of the closet. Spectrum, Coal and now Thorium, our kids now will know all the name of minerals by heart, all thanks to our present dispensation including the rare metals grouping in the periodic table of elements which hardly anyone remembers beyond grade 10th.

Valuation of extractable resources in developing countries prior to extraction is contestable, but the nexus between politicos and the corporate sector for resources is natural yet un holy. Graft in a queer manner, can speed up the developmental process like in many a country like Turkey, Indonesia and Malaysia. Graft in a way can be categorized as an unofficial transactional cost of operating in a developing nation. No one can deny that day to day fact. 

The question which arises here is whether it is the lack of institutions with the teeth to bite can account for accountability in the allocation process. On an even more basic level- what is more precious; power from coal fired plants or a super transparent and super long time time consuming process for resource allocation. I will let the reader decide for himself.