Prakash Kumar

     Gandhi Setu (bridge), the lifeline bridge connecting Patna with North Bihar is one of the longest river bridge in India on the Ganges. It was planned in 60s , construction started in 72 and finally two lane western flank was completed in 1982. Before this bridge the common mode of transport was with passenger  steamer from Pahleja Ghat on Hajipur side and Mahendru in Patna and also a ship for carrying vehicles runs from Pahleja to LCT ghat in Patna. And by road only connection was through a bridge on down stream  Ganges in Mokama (Rajendra Setu) opened in 1959,75 km from Patna. The Ganges during that time used to be flowing through out the year.       I fondly remember that Indian Railways used to run regular double storey medium size steamer from Pahleja to Patna. Pahleja ghat was railway and bus terminal on northern side connected from Muzaffarpur and Sonepur side. The other company which runs both passenger and vehicle steamer was of ...

I remember one of the poll promises of BJP was to revamp the education sector and a high level committee was set up under the leadership for Mr. K. Kasturirangan , eminent scientist and educationist in 2018 for a thorough look at the current system and suggest a new education policy for the country. The new policy should take into account  aspiration of country after 1992 liberalization, subsequent transformational changes and  emerging need of the country for both knowledge and economy super power. The policy should also be in line with the ambition of India in 21st century , synchronize with educational pattern in developed countries , integrating the generational changes after the last policy change 34 years ago, focus on  all round development of childhood education , emphasis on research, higher education , attractive destination for foreign students and supporting many regional languages from extinct. In line with above the NEP 2020 is a bold policy initiative and f...

It is a old custom/tradition in almost all Hindu families in India to worship their Kula-Devata in the month of Sawan ( July-August). Sawan is also known as the month of Shiva and every Monday special worship of Shiva being done by all Shaivites across the country in Shiva temple  but particularly very important in North India. The Kula-devata or Kuladeva or Kuldevi puja takes place every year in the  month of Sawan and thats'why also known as Sawani puja. The kuladevata is actually the ancestral patron God worshiped by successive generations of a clan and treated as the divine protector and guardian of the family. The Kuladevata is different from the personal God ( Isht-Devata) or village deities. This year I got an opportunity to be part of Kuladevata puja at my ancestral house which is  more than 100 years old and the Kuladevata worship place is at same place since the construction of ancestral house by our forefathers. I don't remember my last  Kuladevata puja bu...

Corona is teaching very important lessons in all  walks of life and it is going to effect each of us in some  or other way. We already started talking of new normal post corona where there is going to be excessive focus/shift on new emerging digital technology armed with AI and robotics. IOT would get further boost. Some sectors like banking & finance , education, process automation, home entertainment,mechanized production, online marketing ,healthcare,transportation will see major change. Work from home (WFH) is going to be new normal for many sectors and this big shift in work from home or remote working with newer technology/interface without physical presence will give new boost to women employment. In all likelihood share of women workforce in WFH is going to increase exponentially and it will help in reducing the gender gap in many important sectors. So it is time for Women to gear up world wide for increased share in work force post Corona.

I don't know how many times I miserably failed in building a good  descent portfolio due to several reasons, mainly  not enough information, slow in reaction, emotional attachment etc.  This year also my pre-corona portfolio was battered badly and I tried to shuffle it but again the shuffled portfolio were poorly selected. After too much back and forth finally I decided to do it again and this week picked seven stocks out of 20  with glancing whatever the information available on net for long term , minimum two years. It is a mix of large , medium and small cap companies with moderate risk. My choices are: 1. Bharat Dynamics (large) : Public Sector  2.Jubilant Science (medium) 3. Torrent Power (medium) 4. Deepak Nitrite (medium) 5. Birla Soft (small) 6. IRCON (small ) : Public Sector 7.Garden Reach Ship Builders (small) : Public Sector

Once upon a time, not too distant, we thought that  China is fully cut off , Iran  far off , France far away , Spain out of the way and Italy unimaginable. But we crossed all and looking to close up with UK and then unthinkable USA. I am talking about corona cases and mortality during early days in March/April and our reaction to corona cases in above countries. In terms of cases currently India is at number 3 and in terms of number of  deaths at number 5 by surpassing Italy.  This is the status after successful  nation wide lock down of 70 days and after several local state wide lock downs, some still going on. The narrative about the corona changes significantly every week since march 22nd 2020. We were only doing comparison with above countries and finding a sense of relief in early days that India has defeated Corona whereas developed countries fall prey to it. Where we have failed ! We primarily  gave Corona too much attention, chest thumping  and...

I don't have any memory of such a wonderful summer at Patna in last three decades. Through out the season the weather was so pleasant and tolerable that during this period only 3-4 days in third week of May there was some discomfort due to heat. Otherwise the weather was pleasant. There were several days when in fact one do not require even fan forget about cooler or air conditioner. It is easy to notice its  linkage  with complete lock down due to Corona which gives the much needed breathing space to our environment.   Less pollution, less movement, less toxicity in air  and also less outing, it all added to this once in a life time feeling of natural tolerable summer. It certainly remind me of our childhood days in 70s without cooler/A.C and also absence of consistent electricity to run fans. Summer were manageable without too much fuss till late 80s or early 90s but suddenly after the opening of Indian economy in 92 and rush to cities situation got out of control ...

Building a robust stock portfolio  is like chasing a dream that never comes true. It is like finding the meeting point between earth and sky, balancing your greed and rationality , fear and triumph , finding a common thread between logical and illogical , emotion and detachment, loss and profit , stillness and response , being patient and impatient , picking up fast and slow, able to see long and short etc. It seek a balance between  almost all human behaviors and then only one can think of building a robust portfolio.  It is about diving deep inside the business and understanding more and more about the company and its future. There are so many determinants that it is sheer impossible to satisfy all parameters and then comes the emotion , likeness and longing for a particular stock or sector or business. It only indicates that trying to build or construct such portfolio is almost near impossible. There are few wizards who may have achieved this but for a normal worldly h...

Politics is an addiction. But there are few occasion when even hard core politicians also stop politicizing things such as during war,disaster and pandemic. The current  Corona time is also one such rare occasion which demands such truce at the top of  government.   These are critical time to  be above politics and take decision in the larger interest of its citizens by using  best available resources in the system. It  helps in saving precious lives and supporting community to back to normalcy.  However in Bihar, politics has not spared this time as well. In fact it is in full force. The one simple example is the  unwarranted ill timed transfer of Mr. Sanjay Kumar , Principal Secretary health from health to tourism. The situation of corona in Bihar was under control during his tenure and things were moving in right direction. He was in full command with extensive support from all stakeholders. He is one of the few bureaucrats in the  st...

The transformation of Danish Dong Energy to 'Orsted' is an inspiring journey for all fossil fuel based energy companies in the World to emulate. Traditionally dong energy model was 85/15 , 85 % power generation based on fossil fuel and 15 % through renewable. This model was highly profitable. It took  Dong energy  almost three decades to built and operate on this model. But taking a first mover and remarkable shift in their strategy to reduce carbon footprint and contribute for the sustainability   in 2008 the company  decided to reverse this 85/15  to 85% renewable and 15 % conventional and set a time line of three decades. But they did it in 12 years  and currently they are the World leader in wind power generation. What a remarkable journey for a coal based company and by 2024 Orsted will be carbon neutral energy company. But the bigger question is why the World has only one Orsted and why other energy companies are not taking this route which is very mu...

It reminds me the book of Gabriel Garcia Marquez , " Love in the Time of Cholera". I am sure there will be some compelling love , romance and human touch during Corona time as well. But largely the Corona time of 2020 is a big shift in terms of human and  social interaction for the society. This is true for both who got infected and  those taking precaution and safety not to. The agony for those who got infected is unbearable due to isolation/quarantine and this makes them bereft of seeing their loved ones and also the care providers. It is slowly instilling a strong sense of alienation, depression and mental agony. People are not getting the food for heart through human interaction , touching , talking, seeing and feeling. The life is more difficult for those under treatment in hospitals ,slowly getting robotic and mechanical and becoming getting a untouchable thing . The human touch is missing and it is frightening them to their core. The corona fear is not only limited to ...

When I was in China, I used to hear lot in late 2007 about China daily to start a new daily to put forward the Chinese news across the world . It came out in 2009 by the name of Global Times and in a decade time it has become the apparatus of China across the world. As its parent China Daily,Global times is also directly or indirectly controlled by CCP and become one of the strongest organ of CCP to increase its influence world wide by publishing, shaping opinion on the line of CCP. Global Times has become the propaganda dissemination machine of CCP and in last decade it has contributed immensely to further and shape Chinese interest world wide. The best part of China is that it has closed all other means to influence their own people, Facebook, twitter , google search and many other such social media is still not allowed to Chinese people but through Global times it is expanding its world wide reach and making the world to believe in its propaganda. The world needs to understand this ...

As the time passes the misunderstanding and mismanagement of COVID in India is visible and in process  doing long term damage to all aspects of life. The CORONA was officially reported by China in last week of December. However unofficially it was known since November 2019. We just watched and wasted crucial one month in denial that it will not come to India. However there was no restriction on movement from China and also special evacuation flight for Indians from Wuhan. Our deep understanding was that there is some sort of immunity for Indians due to virus load in India. It was true to some extent in terms of lower mortality but it was just wishful thinking and living in denial for not preparing for coming pandemic from the neighborhood. We completely fail to develop India specific plan to tackle it due to poor or absolutely no forecasting and prediction in the local context. Things started moving a bit when it spread in Europe and USA and by end  January the first case was ...

These days media and particularly digital/social media are full of past references to almost every aspect of life in India. Be it the development of country, culture, religion,poverty alleviation,politics, external affairs , India-China relations, India-Pakistan relations, you name it any and there is backlash. It seems that after independence only after 2014 India has moved. There are propaganda like 6 years versus 60 years etc. There are clear goal of these propaganda but a sizable number of educated people with understanding of the situation has also become part of this brigade to denounce our past. They become critical individually as well. Why this is happening ? and why people without thinking too much become part of this propaganda machinery  and started criticizing the earlier periods since independence . One thing is very clear that they don't have any interest in going to the details and become part of the crowd and to some extent hypnotized by the daily doses of such new...

There is no doubt about Mr. Mukesh Ambani vision/ability/capability to read things before hand, quite early than anyone could even sense it. He was the one who diversified into digital space by launching Jio knowing fully that oil and gas dependence is not going to sustain Reliance any longer . It pays off like anything. Jio revolutionized the telecom space in India and fueled the ambition of common and affluent Indians alike to be active participant in digital India and take the path on data highway. But it was a master stroke during Corona time,when the world was reeling under corona outbreak, he knew that the bread and butter business of Reliance in oil and gas sector will be under tremendous strain and if he waits further then valuations will go down and difficult to recoup in next 2 -3 years. He beautifully used corona opportunity to his full potential proving that there is opportunity even during such pandemic. He started offloading Jio platform stake to various players some gian...