FDI - not about pros and cons. Its about the impact!

For most of us FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) in retail is an outdated topic. Few support FDI and few don’t as FDI has many positives and negatives to list out. For a moment keeping aside the pros and cons of FDI and let us think about the impact that FDI has on our economy.

I will try to project this in a different perspective. Let’s go back a couple of centuries in Indian history as we all know history is the greatest teacher. The purpose of East India Company was BUSINESS. There is no denying that East India Company brought money, say FDI or FII (Foreign Institutional Investor). They certainly provided better employment; farmers were paid better; competition and service quality increased and as a negative there were few people who lost their jobs. But what was the ultimate result? THEY RULED OUR COUNTRY.

OK, since we consider ourselves as more intelligent than our ancestors and we know our history let us forget about being ruled again.

What was the major impact other than being ruled? It was the change of our lifestyle! Our production, consumption and education pattern changed completely. A country which was self-sufficient with its own resources and style of living started to mimic other’s living pattern. In the pages of history, for a country which was defined by its wealth and lifestyle, the current economic scenario itself is a proof that foreign investment strategies did not work well.

Coming back to FDI in retail, many foreign companies will come to India and establish their foundations. They will surely provide us better jobs, better pay and of course few will have the negative impact. But the biggest question is ‘what impact this will have on our living pattern?’ Is India ready for this change over again? Is it really necessary for us following some plan designed for us by foreign nations? Or should our own entrepreneurs and government device a plan which is better suited for our living and economic pattern?

I would like to share a picture and a video with this article. Though these are not 100% related to this article, the picture might help us understand how the changed pattern affected us in the history. The video may be helpful in enlightening us about how much wealth is being extracted from poor countries in the name of trade and help.

Here is the video:

Mike : The headless chicken!

When you drive a hatchet through the neck of a chicken, rendering it decapitated, it tends to thrash about here or there for a little while before it dies. Generally one won’t live eighteen more months, only to die on some corn lodged in its exposed esophagus in a hotel room in Arizona. Such is why the story of Mike the Headless Chicken is arguably the most recounted chicken decapitation story in America.

There’s really no wrong way to tell this story: Mike was an unnamed, anonymous 2.5-lb. bird living in Fruita, Colorado when he was chosen to die by farmer Lloyd Olsen who planned on eating him one evening in September 1948. After the hatchet was dropped and the rooster’s head severed from his body, Mike went through the usual indignant rigmarole over the abuse, flopping about and flapping his wings and the like. After a moment, however, he got over the affront and went back to the usual chicken pastimes like pecking for food. Except without a head.

After they realized that Mike didn’t plan on succumbing to death anytime soon, and being humane and soulful people, Farmer Olsen and his wife chose to sustain the rooster’s life by feeding and watering him with the aid of an eyedropper. They also used the dropper to clear debris from his esophagus and didn’t have it with them in that hotel in Arizona, which is why Mike died.

The Olsens were also curious people and they took Mike to the University of Utah, where 1940s scientists looked around his neck cavity and determined that Farmer Olsen had lopped off Mike’s head above the brain stem. This is the most primitive part of any brain, responsible for the most basic bodily functions. Which means chickens apparently operate normally on the same level as a brain dead human who retains the ability to urinate in a hospital bed and whose pupils may still dilate. The scientists concluded that Mike had no real problem with losing his head, aside from the loss of sensory input from the tongue and eyes. The farmer had missed an ear as well as the brain stem, so Mike could still hear, though not so good as he used to.

Being the 1940s, there wasn’t much to do, so people in major cities around the country paid a quarter to gawk at Mike and his head, which the Olsens carried around with them to appearances. The life of a star sat well with the rooster. Over the course of the eighteen months that occurred between Mike’s loss of his head and his death, he gained five pounds. As we’ve seen, he also died in the manner of a star, choking to death in a hotel room.

These days in Fruita, the town holds the Mike the Headless Chicken Day the first week of every May. It’s not so much in the spirit of the freak show gawkers who came out to see Mike fifty years ago, but in the spirit of the Olsens who recognized and honored Mike the Headless Chicken’s indomitable will to live, or at least the continued functioning of his brain stem.

SOURCE

Who invented the electrical light bulb?

Who invented the electrical light bulb? Most of us need no time to say Thomas Alva Edison. Very few amongst us actually know Edison didn’t invent electrical light or even the light bulb. He did, in fact, experiment widely with filaments and light bulb construction to help produce one of the first economically viable light bulbs. The accolade for inventing the first electric bulb is reserved for English scientist Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829).

Here are few main events in the history because of which today's light bulbs glow years:

1809 - Humphry Davy, an English chemist, invented the first electric light. Davy connected two wires to a battery and attached a charcoal strip between the other ends of the wires. The charged carbon glowed making the first arc lamp. The illumination was extremely bright and impractical for residential application. The original demonstration was more a proof of concept demonstration than anything else as the arc lamp quickly drained the battery it was attached to.

Humphry Davy

1878 - Sir Joseph Wilson Swan (1828-1914), an English physicist, was the first person to invent a practical and longer-lasting electric light bulb (13.5 hours). Swan used a carbon fiber filament derived from cotton.

Joseph Wilson Swan

1879 - The inventor Thomas Alva Edison (in the USA) experimented with thousands of different filaments to find just the right materials to glow well and be long-lasting. In 1879, Edison discovered that a carbon filament in an oxygen-free bulb glowed but did not burn up for 40 hours. Edison eventually produced a bulb that could glow for over 1200 hours.

Thomas Alva Edison

1991 - Philips invented a light bulb that lasts 60,000 hours. The bulb uses magnetic induction.

Top 5 smartphones

There is nothing wrong if i say this is a smartphone era! Phones are not just call making devices these days; in fact they are part of our busy lives.

Do you have any plan to buy a smartphone for yourself? Here is a small list of smart phones which are considered are best by many gadget gurus.

5. iPhone 5

With well optimised operating system iPhone is undoubtedly one of the best smartphones available in market today. Eye catching design coupled with a fast dual core processor makes it a good deal. 8MP camera and 4 inch retina display adds up to the quality of this phone.

4. Samsung galaxy note 2

Samsung galaxy note 2 takes the entire smartphone market to the whole new level. There is nothing better Big colorful 5.5 inch super AMOLED display. S-pen with some S-pen optimized apps makes this an unique phone available today. Note 2 includes 8MP camera and a quad core exynos processor.

3. Nokia Lumia 1020

Looks like struggline phone manufacturer Nokia has a winner here. This windows 8 phone has an eye popping 41MP pureview camera which Nokia claims is the best smartphone camera ever made. 4.5 Inch HD display along with a dual core processor and trendy looks make it a good buy.

2. Samsung galaxy S4

It is now an old news that samsung has managed to sell over 20 million S4 devices within 2 months making it the fastest selling android phone ever. There is no match for the 5 inch full HD AMOLED display the device provides. With Exynos octa processor, the samsung galaxy s4 is benchmarked as the fastest device ever. The phone sports 13MP camera with a unique 'Air Gesture' feature.

1. HTC one

With a beautiful 4.7 inch full HD display and grill front speakers HTC one is easily the best looking phone available in the market. The phone features a special 4MP ultra pixel camera which captures great quality pictures even in low light conditions. This HTC flagship comes with a fast quad core processor.

STORY: ONE EXTRA BEDROOM

An Engineering Student must read....

As the dream of most parents I had acquired a degree in
Software Engineering and joined a company based in USA, the
land of braves and opportunity. When I arrived in the USA, it
was as if a dream had come true.


Here at last I was in the place where I want to be. I decided I
would be staying in this country for about Five years in which
time I would have earned enough money to settle down in India.

My father was a government employee and after his retirement,
the only asset he could acquire was a decent one bedroom flat.


I wanted to do some thing more than him. I started feeling
homesick and lonely as the time passed. I used to call home and
speak to my parents every week using cheap international phone
cards. Two years passed, two years of Burgers at McDonald's and
pizzas and discos and 2 years watching the foreign exchange
rate getting happy whenever the Rupee value went down.

Finally I decided to get married. Told my parents that I have
only 10 days of holidays and everything must be done within
these 10 days. I got my ticket booked in the cheapest flight.
Was jubilant and was actually enjoying hopping for gifts for
all my friends back home. If I miss anyone then there will be
talks. After reaching home I spent home one week going through
all the photographs of girls and as the time was getting
shorter I was forced to select one candidate.


In-laws told me, to my surprise, that I would have to get
married in 2-3 days, as I will not get anymore holidays. After
the marriage, it was time to return to USA, after giving some
money to my parents and telling the neighbors to look after
them, we returned to USA.


My wife enjoyed this country for about two months and then she
started feeling lonely. The frequency of calling India
increased to twice in a week sometimes 3 times a week. Our
savings started diminishing.

After two more years we started to
have kids. Two lovely kids, a boy and a girl, were gifted to us
by the almighty. Every time I spoke to my parents, they asked
me to come to India so that they can see their grand-children.


Every year I decide to go to India… But part work part
monetary conditions prevented it. Years went by and visiting
India was a distant dream. Then suddenly one day I got a
message that my parents were seriously sick. I tried but I
couldn't get any holidays and thus could not go to India ... The
next message I got was my parents had passed away and as there
was no one to do the last rights the society members had done
whatever they could. I was depressed. My parents had passed
away without seeing their grand children.


After couple more years passed away, much to my children's
dislike and my wife's joy we returned to India to settle down.
I started to look for a suitable property, but to my dismay my
savings were short and the property prices had gone up during
all these years. I had to return to the USA...


My wife refused to come back with me and my children refused to
stay in India... My 2 children and I returned to USA after
promising my wife I would be back for good after two years.

Time passed by, my daughter decided to get married to an
American and my son was happy living in USA... I decided that
had enough and wound-up every thing and returned to India... I
had just enough money to buy a decent 02 bedroom flat in a
well-developed locality.


Now I am 60 years old and the only time I go out of the flat is
for the routine visit to the nearby temple. My faithful wife
has also left me and gone to the holy abode.

Sometimes

I wondered was it worth all this?

My father, even after staying in India,

Had a house to his name and I too have
the same nothing more.

I lost my parents and children for just ONE EXTRA BEDROOM.

Looking out from the window I see a lot of children dancing.
This damned cable TV has spoiled our new generation and these
children are losing their values and culture because of it. I
get occasional cards from my children asking I am alright. Well
at least they remember me.


Now perhaps after I die it will be the neighbors again who will
be performing my last rights, God Bless them.

But the question
still
remains 'was all this worth it?'

I am still searching for an answer.................!!!

START THINKING

IS IT JUST FOR ONE EXTRA BEDROOM???

LIFE IS BEYOND THIS …..DON'T JUST LEAVE YOUR LIFE ……..
START LIVING IT …….
LIVE IT AS YOU WANT IT TO BE ……