CAREERS - JOIN US FOR AN EXCITING AND ADVENTUROUS JOURNEY

WE ARE HIRING !!!

Do you want to get the adrenaline rush of being an "emplopreneur" - Employee who is an entrepreneur.  Yup!  That's what we give to our employees - We make them one of our own and treat them like that.

We may not be able to pay you like Google or Microsoft or even the Bharatiya biggies like Reliance or Tata since we are an upcoming start-up with dreams of going beyond the stars, but yes, as our reputation goes, we are very ethical paymasters and will try our best to give you the best of both worlds.  The laws of ethics are simple - We Grow and You Grow.

Presently we are looking for a fresh male graduate for the role of MARKETING EXECUTIVE at our Surat office.  The job requires extensive travelling within and outside the city (Yes!  You can roam and enjoy the country at our expense!). We offer a competitive compensation package with focus on talent retention through an active profit sharing model. Apart from this, we offer a very conducive and flexible working environment which gives you adequate room to grow personally and professionally in your lives.

Job Location:- Surat.  Candidates native of Surat or willing to relocate to Surat need only apply.  At present, the organization is not providing any accommodation facility in Surat.

Approximate CTC:-  Rs. 1 - 3 lacs per annum.  The CTC-cum-benefit package includes fringe benefits like mobile bill reimbursement, medical insurance premium reimbursement as per norms for self and family, accidental insurance, organization savings scheme, fuel reimbursement and conveyance, etc.  Apart from the above, the company offers a fast-paced growth and promotion prospects for candidates who want to grow with us.  We follow a very transparent incentive-cum-profit sharing model which ensures an excellent monetary as well as non-monetary compensation for the services rendered by you.

Age Limit:-  Minimum 21 years old and maximum 25 years old.  There can be a relaxation in age limit up to 1 year for exceptional candidates.

Job Description:-

1.)  Scan and search the market for business proposals in taxation (income tax, service tax, sales tax, excise, customs, and GST whenever it will be brought into effect).  Interact with government departments, schools, hospitals, companies, small enterprises, individuals, etc. for getting quality business proposals of tax return filing work.

2.)  Liaison with various tax departments for clearing out any hurdles/bottlenecks in tax filing processes.

3.)  Take care of customer delight through regular feedback and providing crucial after-sales support in order to ensure customer retention.

4.)  Maintaining database of client information and providing the same to the management on a daily/weekly/monthly basis.

5.)  Maintaining utmost levels of ethics and integrity and protect client data/information/privacy from leaking out into the public domain.

6.) Interacting with customers to thoroughly understand their financial needs and requirements in order to generate leads for our ancillary services like insurance, banking, investment, and loan products.

7.)  Any other work entrusted by the top management as deemed fit and necessary.

The primary requirements for any applicant will be as follows:-

1.)  Excellent communication skills (both written and verbal) in English and Hindi (any knowledge of local language will be an added advantage).

2.)  Applicant should possess a valid driving license and PAN as on date and should not be a defaulter in any financial institution, bankrupt, or having any litigation or history of conviction in any courts of law.  Applicant having own vehicle (two-wheeler) would be preferred.

3.)  Should be a good learner with ability to grasp and absorb work-related knowledge in a dynamic environment.

4.)  Should preferably a graduate with at least a first class consistently from class X onward although it is not a compulsory requirement.

So you think you fit the bill????

The send us your resumes at teamethmos@gmail.com or WhatsApp at 7600796504.  

THE ORGANIZATION RESERVES THE RIGHT TO SELECT OR NOT SELECT ANY CANDIDATE/S BASED ON ITS SOLE DISCRETION.

NO CALLS REGARDING ANY QUERIES WILL BE ENTERTAINED.  FOR ANY CLARIFICATIONS, KINDLY SEND A MAIL ALONG WITH YOUR CONTACT NUMBER.

GO BACK TO CAREERS PAGE

Stand-up India Scheme - Will it really work or will it be another shot in breaking the banking industry?

The Stand-up India scheme launched by the Prime Minister envisages to provide bank loans ranging from Rs. 10 lacs to Rs. 100 lacs (Rs. 1 Crore) to woman entrepreneurs or those belonging to SC/ST category.  The scheme guidelines are available in the official portal of the scheme.  Now the million rupee question is - are all these schemes really going to work?

The answer is paradoxically simple - it just depends!  But at Ethmos we are not presently really gung ho! about this scheme the primary reason being that despite various advises and representations from banks/FIs as well as think-tanks like us, the government has still failed to create a fool-proof justice delivery system for bringing to justice the defaulters, especially the willful ones, in the financial ecosystem.  The result of this lackadaisical attitude is visible in the burgeoning NPAs of the banks and the banks forced to declare loss due to heavy provisioning requirements.

However, we appreciate that the government did the right thing by giving the flexibility to banks to ask for collateral security (property mortgage, gold, deposit guarantee, etc.) if it feels that giving a collateral-free loan would not be prudent.

Our analysis is that considering the present highly stressed banking scenario, banks will not be very aggressive in giving these loans.  But the government seems to have already judged the banking industry sentiment and has made it mandatory for each branch of the scheduled banks to finance at least two loans, one each to an SC/ST and another to a woman entrepreneur.  This is going to be a tough toffee for the banks to chew since the present scenario of defaults by the borrowers has created an environment of defiance in the present lot of borrowers who have slowly but surely realized the loopholes in not only our banking system but also our judiciary, which can put the slowest of the sloths to shame.  It is these kind of dirty defaulters who create the bottlenecks for the genuine sincere ones who wish to just start their business and clear their loans as fast as possible.

We had written previously regarding the urgent need for a brand new legal system in our country and total dismantling of the erstwhile British Raj era constitutional/legal systems which were simply aimed at creating circulatory laws/guidelines/circulars so that the poor Bharatiya public just gives up the hope for justice.  These systems need to be changed before implementing any such grand scheme of things for "distributing" public's hard-earned money in the hands of "stand ups".

Further the scheme should be made open to ALL THE PUBLIC OF BHARAT rather than discriminating on the basis of caste or gender if the government really wishes to create an equitable society.

The pros and cons of Raghuram Rajan - Should he be sacked? - An Ethmos perspective

There is a debate going on around the country regarding the replacement of Raghuram Rajan with our Terminator Subramaniam Swamy writing to the FM regarding his termination of service.  We are no appointment experts, however, we would just like to highlight the achievements and failures of our celebrity RBI governor.  So, being good old optimistic fellows, we would go for the positive ones first:-






1.  Raghuram Rajan tried his level best to reduce inflation by regulating the money flow in the banking system through the rate of interests offered by RBI to the banks, namely repo, base, and reverse repo rates.  If today you are getting your home, car, education, and business loans at lower rate of interests, then he is the man behind it, at least to a very large extent.
2.  He is a non-partisan thorough professional who does not have any political inclinations.  He was appointed by the then UPA government but this was one decision where we won't question the previous government unlike the myriad of scams that it committed since RR was a highly respected personality in the field of finance.
3.  He is the man behind the opening of small payment banks in our country through which you can do money transfer from service providers like Airtel, Vodafone, etc.  He pioneered these concepts in our country which were already in use in foreign countries since a long time.

Now let's be a little bad and find his shortcomings because after all he is just a mere mortal.

1.  Some of the policies of RBI like discarding the old-fashioned (but well meaning and very useful) systems in the banking sector like disposing of confidential bank reports while sanctioning loans and heavy reliance on credit information companies (CICs) for getting the track record of the borrower has done more damage than good.  All this was done in the name of "better customer service" in order to avoid nuisance to genuine loan seekers but this has led to unscrupulous elements entering into the credit system of the banking sector since the CICs are no gospels of track record of any person and nothing beats the personal interaction and inspection of human banking official while sanctioning of loans.  Moreover, he did a blanket implementation of this scheme unknowing of the fact that in the rural heartland of Bharat, the CICs don't have much penetration and many defaulters are not captured in their database.  This is one of the reasons for the high NPA today in our banking system and the subsequent coming of loss of major banks.
2.  In the hurry to decrease inflation by decreasing rate of interests, RR introduced a new system of calculating rate of interest with effect from 1st April 2016 called the Marginal Cost of Funds based Lending Rate or the MCLR.  (Here is an article explaining the nuances of the same).  This system of calculating rate of interest, as per our view, will result in a huge dent in the profitability of the banks since the margins kept by the banks for providing loans are really thin and it becomes really difficult to even cover up operational costs of the banks.
3.  The third and last point is that he is not a "field" man and rather a "board room" man.  We do agree that he is a knowledgeable man (who is even rumored to be the next Noble prize winner for Economics in the near future), but in order to control the Bharatiya banking industry what is required is the ground level knowledge, the "nukkad ki baat" kind of acumen in dealing with credit decisions, and even bigger decisions.  A small error that he committed was to equate our semi-baked urban economy to the developed urban economies of the west without considering the fact that nearly 60% of our economy comes from the semi-urban and rural areas.  Just forcing banks to open branches in such areas will not help unless background changes in recovery laws (of course, it is not fully in his hands) is brought forth and banking policies aligned with the local economies.  A small example is the scale of finance based financing of agriculture sector which has led to over-financing for some farmers and gross under-financing for some.  Not to mention, the tonnes of restructured agriculture and business loans are going to be dead bodies in the cup-board which will be falling off the shelf anytime soon.

So our take - if at all you retain RR, tell him take a Bharat bhraman and understand our local culture and economy for framing new policies and tell RR to make his junior officers also do the same.  It won't hurt if RBI officials are also given a mandatory rural/semi-urban assignments for understanding our country in a better fashion.  And in case you terminate his services, make sure you find another man with a heart of gold like him.

Happy Ethmos to All!

The Owasis and Presstitutes of Bharat are very right - Bharat Sarakar can DO NOTHING regarding ANYTHING - An Ethmos view

Recently a supposed 29-year-old (really really old for a student!) scholar of JNU, Shri. Shri. Kanhayya Kumar, was arrested on charges of sedition (warring against the state) by the Government for giving and supporting hate speeches inside the JNU campus.  Thanks to our great bulky constitution, he got released on bail without much problem by giving a surety and fake assurance which he has broken multiple times (and nobody cares now anyways) since his release.  And the best part - nothing happened.

Way back in 2012, another political person from the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh, Mr. Akbaruddin Owaisi, made an acerbic venomous speech against the government, the Hindus (of course, that is not at all an issue since we are a "sickular" country where killing, abusing, raping, and harassing the peace-loving majority population is taken for granted and there are intellectuals, unfortunately Hindus, who support them also) - and he was also arrested on the same charges and granted bail by giving a surety and a bond of a mere Rs. 10,000/-.  Bingo! You are free to hate, kill, incite to kill, murder, rape, and do whatever you want since Bharat is a Jamuriat (democracy and that too, a secular one - whoa!).  May be we are the only country in the world where we have face more enemies from the inside rather than outside and being Hindus ourselves, we dread the day when there will be mass murdering or extermination of our race and culture as has been happening over the past more than 2000 years.

We hope you all would have heard about the bird called Dodo which was found in abundance in the islands of Mauritius once before it became extinct.  Any ideas, why it got extinct?  It got extinct because of its jolly and innocent trustworthy friendly nature.  When humans inhabited the islands, the Dodo was so friendly to the new found "human friends" that it never tried to escape even when it was captured and killed for food by the humans.  The killings continued till the Dodo became an extinct animal and there are none left in the world as of now.  The death of Dodos gave new metaphors in the Oxford dictionary namely "as dead as a Dodo" and "as dumb as a Dodo".  We seriously fear that one day the word "Hindu" may be substituted by "Dodo."

We feel proud of being a boiling pot of a mixture of cultures and religions.  And that is indeed a matter of pride that so many cultures, creeds, and religions co-exist in this small portion of land that we call Bharat and that the actual natives of this land never ever invaded or attacked anybody for the purpose of destroying "their" religion and "propagating" ours.  Reason - Hinduism is not a religion but a way of life which is why it is called the Sanatan Dharama or the eternal truth.

Coming back to our topic, we very deplorably frighteningly say that the likes of Owaisis, Zaid Hamids, Umar Khalids, and Kanhayya Kumars are and WILL flourish in our land and one day they MIGHT succeed in destroying us.  We know that the prediction that we are making is very dark and hopeless but then keeping the eyes closed and thinking that it is night is foolishness.  Better be true to ourselves and accept the challenge rather than stay in an Utopian world where we think everything as hunky dory.

The recent killings of a HINDU DELHI DOCTOR, Shri. Pankaj Narang (we are sure you would have forgotten him by now!) is also a straw in the hay in the grand scheme of things that are happening around in the country.  The indications are very subtle and not noticeable unless a responsible media does its job with sincerity which is not at all happening in our country.  Here the media houses are owned or have some or the other allegiance to the "first family" of our country and never ever report anything that hampers the vote banks of the party supported by this family.  The most negative yet important of the news is reported in a manner that makes it neutral and unassuming in importance for the general public.  And any news, even a "no-news item" like the comparison of ATTAPADI DISTRICT in Kerala to Somalia by our Prime Minister (which was indeed an apt comparison since the HDI figures are actually similar to Somalia, which has been reported multiple times much much before Modi's speech) will be reported in such a scandalizing venomous hoodwinking manner that people are convinced to believe that Modi insulted "Kerala" by comparing it Somalia.

May be this is the reason why today's press has lost its credibility and are correctly referred to as "presstitutes" in the social media circle.  But then again what can WE do?  As of now nothing more than shouting at them on the internet like we are doing right now.  But what the government can do?  If it is willing to do, then it should enact the Press Reporting, Regulation, and Control Act which we will highlight in our forthcoming articles.

Till then,

Happy Ethmos to All

MCLR - Marginal Cost of Funds Lending Rate by RBI - An Ethmos perspective

RBI [ Bhartiya Reserve Bank]  has implemented MCLR based rate since April 2016, Mr. Superman was bit confused whether this new rate will help him in having reduced EMI [ Equated monthly installments ] towards his existing liabilities. So he met his mentor Mr. Nobody to unravel some mysteries related to MCLR so that it will help a sada bhartiya [ pun intended as it will be really difficult to use the phrase “ AAM  ADAMI” as it might hurt His Highness Shri. Khujliwal ]. Mr . Nobody pushed him to his limits to find about MCLR.

Research : Marginal cost of Funds based lending rate [MCLR]

Marginal Cost of Funds [ Nidhi Ki Simant Lagat ] as per the terminology the rate of interest should be based on the actual cost funds borne by the financial institutions [ SCBs Scheduled commercial banks ]

As per RBI

MCLR comprises of

1. Marginal Cost of funds

2. Negative carry on account of CRR

3. Operating costs

4. Tenor Premium

1. Marginal cost of funds

The basic banking is to accept the deposits from the customer and lend it to customer. FIs make use of this spread to make profit. Marginal cost comprises of Marginal cost of borrowings and Return on net worth.

1.a Whats is the marginal cost ?

The marginal cost is the cost of funds available to the institutions from the customer/ Public. Customers invest in banks in the form of Fixed deposits, Savings and Current accounts[ CASA] etc. For these funds banks provide the interest to the customer in lieu of the money deposited by them. FIs also arrange the funds by way of borrowing to meet their commitments.[ Long term borrowing and Short term borrowing]

Lets take an example ABC bank has total liability of Rs 100 cr , the average rate of interest offered by the bank against these deposits is say 7.5%.

So the cost of funds is 100 Cr X 7.5%=7.5 Cr

1.b The  Return on net worth

Component of Tier 1 capital is 8% of RWA [ Risk Weighted Asset ] as per the RBI guidelines this should be included for the Marginal cost of funds. Probably in future when capital conservation buffer will be implemented as part of Basel III, then this will be increased to 10.5%. As per the Basel guidelines banks have to make provision as per their risk appetite.

Marginal cost of funds = 92% x Marginal cost of borrowings + 8% x Return on net worth 

Negative Carry on CRR [ Eureka moment ]

Why this component has been included for the MCLR ? Earlier the rate cuts offered by the central bank have not been transferred by the FIs smoothly. With CRR in picture whenever there will be an increase or decrease in repo rate it will be passed to the consumer directly.

CRR : cash reserve ratio it is the amount of money need to be deposited by the FIs with RBI, it fetches them a woofing amount of return and the return amount is a big Zero “0 “.

For the calculation of Negative carry RBI has prescribed below formula

Required CRR x (marginal cost) / (1- CRR)

So negative factor : CRR/(1-CRR) - simple mathematics tells that this will always be greater than CRR

CRR    : 4% :  [0.04/(1-0.04)] = 0.0416  

SLR     : 21.25% : [0.2125/(1-.2425)] = 0.2698  [ Maximum CRR ]

So negative factor will always multiply the marginal cost by multiplier which is greater than CRR.

Operating cost

The cost associated with providing the loan product including cost of raising the funds.

This cost includes all the expenses incurred while delivering the loan product.

Training of Staff

Research

Modeling [ Different scoring models]

Appraisal cost [ this may include salary expenses towards staff ]

Promotions and advertisements

Pre paid expense : Tie up arrangement expense

Tenor Premium

Based on different tenor of loans , different premium will be applied to the loans  irrespective of the type of loan.

Mr. Superman was still doubtful regarding the success of MCLR so again asked his guruji Mr. Nobody how this will help the banks to make profit?

Mr Nobody

Lets take an example Mr RBI has very successful brand 27 players [ PSU] approached him for franchise. Then Mr RBI being a boss came up with long list of terms conditions to which these 27 gentlemen merely agreed. However they dint know that they are in the risk business.

Mr RBI came up with an innovative idea of based rate way back in July 2010, which he has gain modified to MCLR in order to serve his customer in a better way at his franchise.

Every year RBI collects a franchise fee from 27 players it has been fixed at Rs 100/year. Now yearly profit of the 27 players stands at Rs 500/year each. Now in order to serve his customers better Mr. RBI came up with an idea of X factor that franchise's should only charge [10-X]% instead of 10%  to the customer.

Lets take a break even analysis of one of the franchises’s   X= 0.50

Description	Cost [ Rs]
Rent	20/month = 240/year
Staff expenses	30/month = 360/year
Advertisement	10/month = 120/year
Maintenance	5/month =  60/year
Franchise fee	100/year
Total	880/year

In order to make a profit of Rs 500 , the franchise has to do a business of Rs 1380/year. Profit is directly proportional to the interest that stands at 10%.

.

Illustration :

Business                                              : 1380

ROI                                        : 10%

Capital employed                    : 1380/.10= 13800

This ROI has been reduced by 0.50%

Business                                              : 1380

ROI                                        : 9.5%

Capital employed                    : 1380/.095= 14527

So in order to maintain the same profit level the franchise has to employ more funds and the cost these funds will again reduce the profitability.

Suppose the excess fund of Rs 727 has been borrowed by franchise from Mr RBI at 6.50% [ repo rate ] , the cost of funds will 47.25/year . Again this reduce the profitability by Rs 47.25.

Description	Cost [ Rs]
Profit	500
Funds required	727
Rate of interest	6.5%
Time period	1 year
Interest to be paid	47.25
Net profit	452.75

Here after doing all this mumbo jumbo the franchise is unable to reach the profit made last year. The same thing is about to happen with this MCLR  to our banking industry.The new base rate is a actually a burden on the Indian banking industry . The banks/FIs should be independent from RBI as far as the policy related to interest is concerned. Customer centric policies are good but if bank will not be there then how will we be bale to cater the customer.

What is the gist of this all? 

In simple layman terms, it means that the MCLR system of charging rate of interest will be a doom for our banking industry since the banks should be only lucky enough to generate operating profit using such a thin profit margin running into 0.XXX percentage points.  Which again means that the dividend being paid to shareholders as well as the retained earnings and surplus funds generated by the banks during its erstwhile days are going to be under heavy stress.  The bottom line advise by Ethmos - Don't go for banking sector stocks in the share market until some clarity emerges on the situation.

Happy Ethmos to All

Are the promotion policies of the Bharatiya Banks the reason for the rising NPAs? - An Ethmos view

So finally Vijay Mallya has fled the country by making banks pauper by more than Rs. 9,000 Crores.  It is a totally different matter that the other companies owned by the Vijay Mallya-backed UB group including Mangalore Chemicals and Fertilizers Limited has posted a profit of more than Rs. 300 Crores in the quarter ending December 2015 (a fact that our paid media presstitutes will never highlight and there are no loophole-free laws to attach the profits of a profit-making sister concern to that of a loss-making concern).  More on the "untold" aspects of the Vijay Mallya story afterwards.

Today we are going to discuss a much deeper rot that has set into the banking system, which threatens not only the base of the banking but also that of the entire economy because a major portion of the common man's hard-earned money is lying with these banks and a loss of these banks means the loss of our money to be precise.  In 2015, the RBI Deputy Governor had made a statement that the high NPAs are due to the poor credit appraisal skills of the bankers.  We had published an article regarding the same.

We also agree, in part, to the statement made by the Dy. Governor, although we would like to analyze the problem to its root rather than mere name calling.  So, what is the reason behind the poor credit appraisal skills of the bankers?  Simply put it, the human resource quality of our banks have deteriorated to an all-time low due to various flawed HR policies adopted by our Bharatiya banks.

Primary Reason: - Blatantly unscientific promotion policies of the banks wherein a person who joins as a peon or a sweeper can rise up to become a clerk or even a manager without much resistance provided he can read or write properly.  And for that matter, a person joining as a mere clerk can get promoted to the managerial level in as low as 3 years.

Why we think it is unscientific?  Because for the simple reason that such liberal and lenient policies are not followed in any other departments other than the banking industry.  For example, a person joining as a peon or a class III or even class II official cannot dream of jumping into class I unless he is having at least 15 to 20 years of quality experience.  Further the ratio of such promotions is kept at a bare minimum of 10% (at the maximum) and the government relies primarily on the UPSC civil services exam or the SSC recruitment tests for taking quality talent as direct recruits from the open stream rather than playing "promotion-promotion" within the population of class III/IV employees.  But the exact opposite goes on in the banking sector.  Nowadays it has become very much easier for any person to join the bank as a clerk since the vacancies are too many, thanks again to the flawed HR policies wherein they never calculated the optimal HR requirement for more than 30 years (the banks did not do any meaningful recruitment starting from the 1970s and woke up only in the late 2010s to  find that a majority of its work force will retire down by the end of 2020).  In the huddle and hurry of things, the banking boards tweaked their promotion policies in order to promote more clerical staff to the officer cadre in order to augment the supervisory capacity of the bank.  They thought it easier to promote the existing clerical staff (since they believed that the attrition level will be lesser in case of clerical promotees) rather than taking fresh "probationer" talent from the open market.  Although the recruitment of probationers was done but the same was much less as compared to the requirement and the banks depended more on their promotions rather than fresh recruitment.

So what is wrong with it??  To answer this question, you have to first question the government policy of recruiting fresh Civil Service Officers in the IAS, IPS, and other All India Services wherein the government recruits hardly 30-year-olds into senior government positions wherein they will be taking policy decisions and supervise their class II/III juniors who will have more experience than the age of the class I probationer.  The reason for conducting a highly competitive exam and recruiting from a much bigger pool is that you get the best of the best talent at the national level.  The problem with promoting from clerical or sub-staff category is that the "competing talent" is itself not of the optimum quality.  For example, most of the clerical staff have joined services by competing for vacancies at the "state level" rather than national level and even worse goes for the class IV or the sub-staff categories which are recruited directly through the employment exchanges without much of a written exam.  Now when these people complete say 3 to 4 years of experience, the banks make them eligible for managerial position.  Hence, the competing pool for the managerial position consists of sub-optimal talent recruited at the state level rather than the best talent recruited after conducting a national level competitive exam of a very high difficulty level.  And furthermore, if the person who joined as clerk was so talented to become a manager, why didn't s/he clear the Probationary Officers exam directly and joined as a PO?? We hope you got our point.

Now the relation with this policy to the NPAs in the banking sector is that when a person with a talent level lesser than the person who is trying to cheat the bank by forging documents or showing inflated figures in order to avail higher credit than s/he can repay, can this "promotee" officer be in a fit state of mind to analyze these tricks and tactics and save our public money from going into the wrong hands???  Are the present lot of new bankers competent enough to protect our money??  That's the big question.

Of course, another problem is also there wherein the banks are blatantly promoting the sub-staff into clerks and clerks into officers thereby creating huge gaps in the multitasking work like filing of documents, dispatching mails, cleaning of desks/cupboards, etc. which will not be done by the "newly promoted" sub-staff; and which in turn lead to mismanagement of resources as well as time.  No wonder we are seeing branch managers in various banks writing dispatch books themselves and many a times going to dispatch the letters also themselves?  He he he...what a manager....Are you listening PM and FM Sir??

The end of my son’s first journey – Mr. Nobody speaks out his mind

My son, Aryan and many of his friends, will be finishing the first and the most important part of their life's educational journey in a matter of few days - their PRESCHOOL.  Although preschool education is a totally and absolutely neglected area in our country with the government not bringing in any regulation or restriction on the practice of this intricate art of molding young minds, there are some exceptional institutions in our country which have made it not only their responsibility but their mission to make sure that they give their best to our children.  And we are thankful to this institution for taking care of my son and many like him and making sure that the foundations of their knowledge are well laid in their little minds – and that institution is none other than Kidzee Vesu (Surat).

When we got transferred to Surat from our rural posting from Jamkhandi (Bagalkot District, Karnataka), our son was around 4 years old and had attended only minimal regular schooling (since we had admitted him to a local school in that village but he refused to go since that kind of traditional education did not fit his style of learning).  Hence, we were forced to do homeschooling for our child till we got transferred to Surat and did whatever best we can at home to teach him everything he wished to learn.  After our transfer to Surat, we searched everywhere for admission of our child as we had come in the middle of the year, i.e. October, and we were apprehensive that many schools may not grant him any admission due to the fact that he has not completed the first half year of schooling.  Although finding a playschool or nursery was not that big a challenge, since as I mentioned above, the preschool education segment is a totally unregulated and free-for-all field where every Tom, Dick, and Harry has opened up a preschool, even in shanties which can hardly be termed as a house, let alone a preschool.  And yes, everyone was willing to give Aryan an admission to their "preschools" (just to give a term of expression to such entities!) since all they cared for was the money that they will be earning.  For them, we and our son, were their "customers".  And this was what irritated us the most - if you treat us like customers, tomorrow you may not give us an honest opinion regarding our child, which may sometimes be negative and requires corrective action and would be very important to shape the child's personality in a positive direction.

Luckily for us, since we were new to Surat, we were not much aware of the roads and took a wrong turn to reach our home but that wrong turn turned out to be right one for us since we were able to see Kidzee nestled in between the houses.   Honestly speaking, we never knew that there was a Kidzee in the Vesu area of Surat and the fact that the Kidzee people never put any stupid advertisements in the newspapers or pamphlets added to our ignorance!  I strongly believe that a good brand never needs cheap advertising strategies and the brand name itself, the quality of its people, the level of its curriculum, and the hard work, dedication, and perseverance of the staff do the marketing job for them automatically. The next day we visited Kidzee Vesu and were guided properly and were relieved finally that we will be sending our child for his first journey in a safe and sound manner and that he will be a changed boy once he passes out of this institution - and we are happy to say that we were more than right in our decision.

What determines and differentiates a preschool education from a regular schooling is that the mind of a toddler works, understands, and functions at a totally different level than kids in the "schooling" age group.  Research shows that children are at their creative best during their preschool days and if nurtured properly, they can make the best out of their lives in future with better decision making and analytical skills than those children who were neglected in the preschooling stage.  In another words, preschooling is similar to nurturing the seed of a plant with the right amount of water and fertilizers in order to get optimum growth and to make sure the roots are firmly grounded in order to stand the plant in good steed during rough weather conditions.  Unfortunately the government is totally looking the other way around and has completely neglected this important area of education.  There are presently no regulations whatsoever for opening and running a playschool and no educational grants to institutions like Kidzee who are doing a great job by investing their own capital and resources.

In fact, we at Ethmos, genuinely believe that the government should not only bring strict but transparent regulation in this area but also provide assistance for starting more such playschools or its branches so that the benefit of this methodology of teaching can reach maximum population at an affordable cost.  The government should also develop a preschool teachers' training programme in order to prepare preschool teachers for our future generations to come.  Since Kidzee is itself a very recognized and reputed brand, the help of such well-established institutions can be taken for developing the overall curriculum as well as its implementation and delivery.

Coming back to my point, I would finally like to personally thank all the teachers and staff members of Kidzee Vesu (Surat) (especially Prateek Sir, Rosie Miss, and Shefali Madam) who have taken all the efforts, pain, and time in order to make sure that my son gets one of the best care and education away from his home.  In fact, I write this article with a hope that one day, say after 15-20 years from now, Aryan and all his friends who are studying with him now, will be reading this article and remember those great people who were there for them during their budding years.  I hope at that time they do acknowledge the great work of these people who laid the foundation of education for them - who taught them about alphabets, numbers, words, sentences, names of things and places, showed them various things and places; taught them how to read, write, eat, and speak; took the effort to mimic things before them in a funny manner so that their small brains can understand and digest a complex subject in its most beautiful simplicity (and believe me, it is no joke to simplify things in a most understandable manner)!

But for the time being – please accept my sincere thanks on everyone’s behalf and on behalf of Ethmos and Gyanarth.

THANK YOU

WHAT IS PRESSTITUTION???

My experience with the JNU incident - An Ethmos solution of many problems.

So, now everyone in our country wants "Azaadi" (Freedom), Bhagwan (oh sorry....I forgot to mention Allah and God....just  to be on the good books of the grand seculars of our country) only knows what sort of azaadi they want when the bulky constitution of this ancient land provides them with all sort of freedoms ranging from expression, information, and education.  May be it is this excess of freedom that has led to this kind of worsening condition of our Bharat which is going from worse to worst as days progress, no thanks to the ISI or any "external forces" but all thanks and deepest heartfelt gratitude to our own homegrown secularist partisan forces who for their own petty gains have sold the nation to these external forces.

However, the JNU row or incident has opened up a Pandora's box for our country with all sort of problems occurring at the same time for our unfortunate PM whose intentions are nothing but to make a better Bharat for all of us.  But thanks to this incident, I got a glimpse of a solution to all this issue and many more plaguing our nation.  However, I am really to sorry to say that the solution is not unique as is the case with other Ethmos solutions, but it is a great solution nonetheless.

So before we go for the solution, let me just share with you a small incident that is happening with me in our own house, which enlightened me with the solution.  As we all know by experience of science that the macro, in majority of the cases, mimics the micro.  So, if you have to study the macro, better observe the micro.  So, here goes.

I was keenly following the JNU incident since that is nowadays the best entertainment available on the TV and many of our national news channels are doing their level best to make it the most interesting TRP-vomiting drama to their viewers.  Unfortunately, I failed to notice that my 5-1/2-year-old son was also watching and listening to this stuff about "azaadi", "freedom", "secularism", "democracy", "tolerance-intolerance", "suicide", etc. and started asking me questions regarding the same.  When I explained to him about these concepts in a simplified manner for his 5-1/2-year-old brain to grasp & understand, I forgot to notice that I was pressing the wrong buttons altogether.  From the next morning onward, he started demanding for his "azaadi" to not brush his teeth, not take a bath, and not go to school.  He demanded his democratic freedom to play all throughout the day and also that since we, his parents, were responsible for bringing him into this world, it is our solemn and secular duty to make sure that we give all of our time exclusively to him only.  He demanded we should not go to work and should be there for him 24x7x365.  When explained regarding our problem and the bigger problems that will come if we don't work and earn and also explaining to him that we are actually earning and working for him only, he just remained adamant and started shouting slogans "Aryan maange azaadi (Aryan demands freedom)", "Nahane se azaadi (freedom from bathing)", "safaai se azaadi (freedom from cleanliness)", and the best but not the last one, "Kitne Aryan nehlaoge, har ghar se Aryan niklega (how many Aryans will you bathe, every house will produce a dirty Aryan)", "and finally threatened us to do "zuzide" if his demands are not met.  And yes, he also demanded that we should not be henceforth taking him to any doctor for any sort of vaccination since injections/vaccinations are painful procedures which infringe on his personal space and secular democratic constitutional freedom and which many a times require him to get denuded in front of doctors who are strangers for him, which is again a gross infringement of his personal democratic space.  I was totally aghast at the attitude of the boy and at first plucked my hairs out in frustration to explain to him the larger picture and the benefits that accrue out of our actions and also that anything and everything good in life is obtained after sacrificing and taking some pain.  But I was again missing one thing - he was my son after all and it was but natural for him to have some of my mental and physical faculties as well as genetically transferred traits and hence it will be very difficult for me to preach him "intellectually" since he is also as skull-headed as I am with the ingrained notions of "right" and "wrong" - and what "we" were doing was actually "wrong" in his eyes.  Anyways, I solved the problem in one day itself because after all I am his "baap" (father).  How??  I sat calmly on the sofa, thought for some time, and then called my son towards me with all the love and affection I had for him.  And with the same fatherly love and affection, I gave him a nice hard tight slap on his small face, so harsh that my fingers got 'signatured' on his snow-white face.  He understood what I wanted to say and the problem just solved on its own.

Which finally brings me to our solution.  Sometimes brute force is absolutely necessary to bring in some iota of wisdom in the boneheads who think that what they are doing is "right."  Forget about the country, I request each one of you reading this to ask yourself this question - Have you not ever used some or the other force on your child to discipline him/her and show him the correct path which you yourself have learned through precious and costly experiences?  Our college kids are no better than the children at our homes the only difference being that the perspective and the magnitude of perception of a problem varies with a small child and collegian. And yes, for the "sickulars" reading this - you might argue that I am questioning the entire democratic process of the country but yes, I actually am doing the same thing because simple maths tells me that only 65% of my country's population is literate (and believe me, writing one's name in any language is not literacy!).  So out of the 65% population, how many are who can actually think critically and analyze a situation to find a solution for the greater good?  This is a question which needs to be debated and of course, not to be "protested" or "intolerated".

The kids who are shouting in the JNU campus or the Jadavpur University campus or any part of the nation are just that - kids - who need to be disciplined and for bringing about discipline, preaching won't help as I have learnt from my own experience.  Fear is the best solution and I fully and unconditionally support the stand of the NaMo Government in slapping sedition charges against "intellectuals" who think they are above the nation and its government.

Which again brings me to an age-old question which I could never find an answer to - What is the requirement of a "students" union in a democratic country?  Are they any sort of daily-wage-earning labourers who need the support of a union to protect against "capitalistic discrimination"?  It is high time to ban all the union activities in all campuses in the country.  If this is brought forth, education and research quality will improve, politics will be decrease, and students will actually do what they are supposed to do - study. Period.

Thanks a lot Ethmos for permitting me to put forth my frustration.  I had been writhing to poop this thing out of my mind.

Happy Ethmos to All!

The Reservation Debate - Is there light at the end of the tunnel? - An Ethmos perspective

The tragic suicide of a Hyderabad PhD scholar (no, we will not call him a "Dalit Scholar" as most of the "presstitute" media is calling him, because we don't believe in castism and for us, he was a scholar since the University considered him qualified enough to admit him to the PhD course) has led to the rekindling of the 'Dalit' and 'reservation' debate in the country.  With most of the 'heavy weight' CMs and political party leaders (who have no better work to do in their respective states or constituencies hellbent on giving a political turn and getting mileage out of a poor man's death, the country really seem to be heading in a totally wrong direction.

Since we had never written anything on this topic of reservation (in fact, we have not written anything since the past many days!!) and since we know that Nobody cares to listen to our views, hence it becomes our duty to at least tell Nobody regarding our views.  So, here goes:-

Why was reservation given??

The reason was very simple.  What our founding fathers of the constitution thought was that since the caste system was very deeply entrenched in the minds of our general junta and they were not ready to mingle with people whom they thought to be of "lower castes", it would be better if the government takes things in its own hands.  The government decided to "positively discriminate" some castes in our society so that they can be given jobs in government/public sector by giving relaxations in the selection criteria.  In this way, there will start a homogeneous population of all castes in the public sector organizations and thus removing the misconceptions regarding "upper and lower" in the minds of the people over a period of time.  This time limit was initially fixed to be 10 years.

After 10 years, when the netas realized that reservation was an excellent tool to garner votes by bringing more and more people under the reservation net and giving them laddoos of easy government jobs (while they all knew that increasing the reservation was neither going to increase the vacancies in the government jobs nor going to reduce the competition in a significant way).  They continued this system as such and this system is being followed till now.  Neither the system nor the modus operandi of hoodwinking the poor population in the name of "reservation" has changed.  Now more and more castes/tribes/sub-castes, etc. are coming forward and want to get the status of 'backward' so as to get 'better representation' in the public sector space since they feel that if the person sitting on the sarkaari chair belongs to his/her 'own caste' he may favour him/her. The recent Paatidar agitation in Gujarat is a glaring example of the same.

So what is the problem with the present system?

The straight verbatim answer is:-  The majority of the people who are presently benefiting from the system are those who have already once taken the benefit of reservation and are very well off due to that.  For example, a person who has become an civil servant or any officer in any PSU in the 1970s or 1980s will be a financially well off man today and very well be living in a group A metro city with his children getting some of the best educational facilities.  But still the same convent-educated children get the benefit of reservation when they appear for competitive exams thus taking away the rightful dues of the really backward, poor, and the downtrodden castes, many of whom are not even educated enough to know that government is offering them incentives to study and get on their feet.

What is the way out then?

The way out is pretty simple but not easy at all since the netas will never let anybody (even plain simple logic) to take over their vote banks since in our country people don't caste their vote but vote their caste.  But then we are famous for finding a "practical path".  We propose the following:-

1.  Reservations should be continued definitely because there still lies various anomalies in our society and the wealth and economic distribution of our society is not at all homogeneous or equitable.  The spectrum of economic condition in our country span from a person earning 1 million rupees a day to just 1 rupee a day.  The reservation has become a necessity for the latter person - whether anybody likes it or not.  But for this to happen, reservation should be invariably given on the basis of economic condition of the family rather than on caste specifications.

2.  Reservation should be made a "one reservation per family" concept.  That is to say that if a person who has taken the benefit of reservation and has become an IAS, bank officer, doctor, engineer and is doing financially well, then their children should not be given the benefit of reservation since they are educated enough to know their rights and have grown economically and financially.

3.  Ghettos of societies to be dismantled by removing caste/religion-specific institutions.  The origin of discrimination lies in the minds of the people.  Why should be reinforce the same by creating institutions which are caste/religion-specific?  For example, there are many castes/creeds/religions that go for creating educational and charitable institutions throughout the country for the "upliftment" of their own castes.  Although it is argued and it is there in our constitution also that people are free to propagate their castes/religions, etc., what such kind of structuralism does is to create a barrier in the minds of the "other" people regarding that particular caste/religion.  Any institution formed in Bharat should be for the Bharatiya junta as a whole and not for any particular section of the society.  However, reservation should be given in order to generate a homogeneous profile within the institution and to prevent groupism by particular sections which may form a majority.

4.  Recruitment can be conducted based on the grounds of proportionate representation for all sections of the society.  This is another area where the government needs to bring a paradigm shift in the policy.  Rather than giving blanket reservation, why not give proportionate representation to all sections of a society in a particular geographic area while conducting the recruitment.  Say for example, there are six castes/sections in any state, say A, B, C, D, E, and F.  And say their respective populations are A - 60%, B-20%, and C, D, E, and F each 5%.  Then the vacancies can also be distributed in the same proportion so that any government department will mirror the actual population density of that area and their will be equal and proportional distribution of opportunities for all sections of the society.  But then the problem with our Bharatiya netas is that as soon as this policy is brought forth, they will further divide the sections into sub-sections and further sub-sub-sections so as to divide and rule.  They will then ask for separate reservation for that particular sub-section and the cycle will continue.  And that brings us back to point no. 1!

Hence, we have tried to analyze and provide an amicable solution to this reservation conundrum because right now, whether anybody wishes to acknowledge or not, the country is boiling from within.  There is a lot of discontentment among the masses regarding these policies which have brought further division of our society through vote bank politics rather than actual upliftment of the people and social integration.  Something needs to be done urgently to prevent such kind of incidents in the future - and just as our PM told, it is a son who has been lost rather than a person belonging to any particular community.  This should never happen again.

Happy Ethmos to all!

Are our Bharatiya bankers turning into pesky shameless insurance agents? - Mr. Nobody's first-hand experience - PART II

In our previous article, I told my ordeal in getting a collateral-free loan named as Mudra loan by our PM.  I was pestered by the Branch Manager into taking an insurance policy for getting a loan sanctioned.  During my interactions with other "aam junta" like me, even they informed me that many a times the people are advised by bankers to break their fixed deposits and invest the same in insurance policies, especially ULIPs or unit-linked insurance policies.  For the layman, a ULIP is type of policy wherein the money that you pay is invested in the stock market and there are no fixed returns, except the assurance that you will get a fixed sum upon dying.

Since my personal experience with the Bharatiya bankers was really bad, I went about to do some homework and small research regarding the risk:reward ratio for insurance versus other investments.  It is really sad to note that the general public approaches the bankers not just for depositing or taking money but also for general financial advice and all they get in return is a policy from a particular company which pays a handsome commission to the banker.  What about the so-called "bankers' trust"?  If the protector becomes the destroyer, where will the world head?  Enough of my nonsense, and here comes the sense:-

We at Ethmos have decided to do some number-crunching ourselves (please don't think that we are boasting, but it would be an understatement if we state that we are more than excellent in number games...he he he).  But before we begin the insurance number games, we want to provide some basic information to our layman junta regarding the gobbledygook of insurance industry.

Basically, insurances are of two types in our country:-  General and Life.  General insurance can be done of anything (including any service) that is not a living being.  Life insurance is also called assurance because the sum is normally payable on "natural or accidental" death except sometimes in cases of suicide.  Now life insurance again consists of various products (and this is where the insurance companies and banks try to hoodwink the poor junta!).  The strategy is very simple - put so many products with different number combinations so that the person studying the same is confused from his head to toe and finally agree to whatever "they" tell him to take.  The people who develop these number games for the insurance companies are called the actuaries (no offence meant for the actuaries profession, of course).  Insurance products consists broadly of two products:- term insurance and money-back insurance.  In term insurance, the premium paid by you is non-refundable while in case of money-back, the premium is refundable.  But then why will somebody "waste" his premium when there is an option to get it back?  There lies the entire game.  In case of term insurance, the annual premium payable for getting a huge sum assured (say Rs. 50 lacs) will be only around Rs. 10,000/- to Rs. 15,000/- (depending on various factors like age and health of the individual) for a period of say 20 years.  But if you want to take the same sum assured in a money-back policy, the annual premium will be generally given by the formula:
                                       Sum Assured
                                        Policy Term
That is to say, if you want a Rs. 50 lacs cover under money-back, then the annual premium would be approximately Rs. 50 lacs divided by 20 years, which is around Rs. 2.5 lacs.

We hope we have made our point clear; however, we beg to say that we have made things too simplified and the actual calculations are done based on a multitude of factors which are beyond the scope and requirement for the aam junta - just understand that money-back policies charge much much much higher premiums.

Now, we will give you a live example from a premium and reputed insurance company of our country which is having tie-up with one of the largest banks in the world, SBI Life Insurance company.  We have taken their two products namely Smart Champ insurance (money back plan aimed at the future education of children) and Saral Shield (pure term insurance plan wherein you get the sum assured only on death and premium is non-refundable) to illustrate our point:-

SMART CHAMP

We have highlighted the portion that needs your attention.  Here I have taken my age as 31 (which is the average population age size of our country).  The simple point over here is that for getting an insurance cover of Rs. 20 lacs for a period of 15 years, the company charges a premium of around Rs. 14,800/- monthly and the amount returned in case of survival of the person is Rs. 28,28,000/- after 15 years which is again NOT GUARANTEED and is only shown for the purpose of illustration only.

Now please take a look at the Saral Shield (pure term insurance plan) of the same insurer for the same amount (Rs. 20 lacs), the same term (15 years), and for the same person:-
SARAL SHIELD

Please note that the monthly premium is only Rs. 402/- inclusive of service tax and Rs. 351/- if you exclude the service tax.

Now here is the Ethmos analysis as well as advise for our junta:-
1.  Please note that in case of the money-back plan, you are being charged service tax (since of course it is a taxable service).  If you make a simple calculation, you are paying around Rs. 40,000/- as service tax during the entire policy term for which you are not getting any income-tax benefit during the entire period of 15 years.
2.  For getting the "money back" in case of the money-back plan, you have to pay around Rs. 14,400/- extra every month (Rs. 14,800/- actual premium minus the Rs. 400/- as per the term plan for getting the same cover).  The money that you pay will only come back after the entire period of the policy is over.  And in case you want to get the money back for any emergency purpose and want to break the policy midway, only the base premium minus the company charges and service tax will be payable, i.e. there are chances that you will get less than what you have paid.
3.  Another drawback for the money-back plan is that you pay the premium for 12 years but the returns are generated only after 3 years, that is to say, that you again have to go for a waiting period of 3 years to get back the entire amount and the amount is given in yearly installments, which again erodes the time-value of the invested money.
4.  Now suppose, you take a pure vanilla term plan like Saral Shield for Rs. 400/- and invest the rest (i.e. Rs. 14,400/- monthly) in a post-office fixed deposit or the PPF scheme of the government, then guess how much you can receive after 12 years (which is the premium paying term for money back plan) considering that the government keeps the rates at 8.5%.  Any guesses??  The calculations are again out of the scope of this article, but you can get around Rs. 35,80,000/- in a span of  just 12 years considering a return of 8.5% and if you consider a return of 8% (as is being given by the company), then you can get around Rs. 34,60,000/- in a span of 12 years and that too without paying a penny of service tax and totally tax-free!
5.  Furthermore, in the calculation sheet provided by the company, it is clearly mentioned that the returns of 4% and 8% mentioned are not guaranteed and depend upon the performance of the company (he he he).

So, why does a sane man who can earn around Rs. 34-35 lacs after just 12 years and also get Rs. 20 lacs of term assurance, pay the insurance company for getting a mere Rs. 28 lacs and that too in installments?  And why is it that the company pays such less returns while better returns are possible even for the general public?  The reason is very simple:-  the company has to first recover its operating costs from your investments and then pay you the balance. That's why the returns generated by the company are less and you get better returns when you directly invest rather than through any company.

We hope we have made our points clear but in case of any further doubts, please tell the AIB guys to make an episode on this!

Sorry for this "time-wasting" marathon and thanks a lot for tolerating me!

Happy Ethmos to all!