OHh!!!!.....Placements are hard hit..!

In this intensely competitive, dog-eat-dog world, "PLACEMENT" invariably becomes "THE MOST WANTED"  attribute of modern lifestyles... 

Placement, as you see, can take different shapes and can have diferent meanings on different occasions..

When you get inside a jam-packed train or a bus , it is "the placement" that is paramount in your mind....  When you play a classy cut shot in the middle of a lovely lush green cricket field, it is once again the "placement" that is going to translate your shot into runs... When you..........

So placements are an integral part ( though not much noticed) of everyone's life..But it shows its true claws and fangs only during the final year of engg , or of management ( the two courses so popular in india that even a paan-waalah would have volumes to tell you about which college to choose and which not to.. As you move around in the city where majority of outsourcing took place ( i.e. BANGALORE) you can overhear a paan-waalah declaring, "As u see babuji  'The R V J college of engg'  isnt tat great a college becoz the "placements" arent good."  

Huh!!!

But suddenly a country who was buoyed by the placements that her colleges were offering is now reported to be in a crisis.. The "crisis" as we were told was not "desi" but "videshi" and since we indians have an uncanny habit of imagining "something" great about "anything" that comes from the WEST, everyone (including me) was hooked to learn more about the " SUBPRIME MORTGAGE CRISIS emanating out of a HOUSING SLUMP in the USA ."

I want to say something here..I really want to pat on the back of the person ( probably sleeping at this hour) who devised the above terms for the financial "crisis" sitting miles away from us , for two reasons..ONE , obviously he could name a crisis less understood , and TWO , for naming it so well that that it went well over the heads of countless lesser mortals like me..

I wonder whether Mr. BUSH ( THE GREAT COLONEL) gave him some extra dollars for coming up with such mind-boggling terms for a mind-boggling crisis , because he must have thought that by the time people in america and india understand what the "terms" implied , he will have "successfully" completed his overstayed presidential tenure without any further aspersions..

But that was not to be.. The citizenry turned out to be more intelligent than THE COLONEL had imagined. As the youth gripped on every aspect of the "crisis" , THE COLONEL felt the tightening of the noose around his neck, during his last days in office..  

So, coming out of the complicated terms that would only confuse us further,  it all boiled down to this: THE ENTHUSIASTIC AMERICAN BANKS GAVE LOANS TO UNQUALIFIED OWNERS WHOSE ASSETS DID NOT JIBE WITH THE VOLUME OF LOAN THEY WERE BORROWING. 

And so a credit crunch would arise , rendering some of the best known investment banking companies, on which countless IIT and IIM graduates (and also lesser mortals like us who have passed out from uncelebrated colleges somewhere in the "DARKNESS" )  had pinned their faith, BANKRUPT....

It is now public :The indain economy is in a tailspin..for no fault of her's 

It is now public :The placements are hard hit...for no fault of our's..

The slowdown in the economy worldover throws up some interesting points for discussion..Firstly it demonstrates the might of american economy and tells us that even after so much of LPG ( liberalisation , privatisation & globalisation ) , the "MASTER KEY" still lies with the americans. The ever bullying attitude of rich nations and the helplessness of our govt ( seen everytime a WTO meeting is convened) has reduced us to slaves . And as a result majority of the engineers and management graduates of our country passing out with hefty pay-packets find themselves trapped in a "ROOSTER COOP" , where their fate is only to take orders from the "WHITE SKINNNED MASTERS" .. and hey someone just told me that we are a "FREE" country since 1947.....

Ha!!!

The ongoing turbulence in the financial market has had one positive outcome and i cant resist the temptation of mentioning it..

It was indeed heartening to see a host of desi business barons           ( TATA's , AMBANI's ...) for the first time talking about the immense potential the indain rural sector has for taking india's economy to a new high..Who would have thought that the solution to a  problem  originating in the USA, would be found in the "DARKNESS" of india ??

But we need more than mere lip-service..Its true that rural sector has been ignored over decades , but even the industrial sector performance showed perpetual downward growth during the same period..The best example is that of the innumerable PSU's which have become an albatross for the govt. The huge losses that these govt enterprises register is to the tune of 10% of india's GDP ( and india's poverty alleviation programmes collectively cost 3% of GDP. A deficit of a staggering 7%).

As Bimal Jalan , probably the best known indian economist, rightly remarked that one needs to set its house in order before embarking on any journey that is risky and dangerous, its about time that govt of india shrug off its role as guardian of people, and allow private entrepreneur to make the most of recources available.

It might take a few decades to happen , but it is the only way left before us to realise our dream of becoming a self sufficient economy,  relatively insulated from global shocks, poverty free and job for everyone, so that no one passing out from the colleges says " OHh .. Placements are hard hit..!!