We're toast if we don't get on different path: NASA scientist

An real eye opener for the skeptics not agreeing to global warming.

"Exactly 20 years after warning America about global warming, a top NASA scientist said the situation has gotten so bad that the world's only hope is drastic action.

James Hansen told Congress on Monday that the world has long passed the ''dangerous level'' for greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and needs to get back to 1988 levels. He said Earth's atmosphere can stay this loaded with man-made carbon dioxide for a couple more decades without changes such as mass extinction, ecosystem collapse and dramatic sea level rises."

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The Extremes of Geographical Ignorance

The first time I went to US was for a training. It was a week long training with participants from all parts of the globe (Europe, Asia and Americas).

One day I saw my friend rushing to me at an angry mood. Surprised I asked, “Hey buddy, what happened?” He said, “You know John (name changed) from my team, he asked me where I am from. When I said India, he was asking if it was close to Indonesia. What crap, don’t he have this simple geographical knowledge.” I was definitely amused…

To be honest, this is not the first time I am hearing this. This is nothing to complain about, it happens in all the places, at different scales though.

In India, I have seen that happening to my NE friends, the peoples from the seven sisters. First off all they are confused to be not part of India. I remember on of my friend from Tripura being asked, “Is Tripura part of Guwahati?” Funny huh…

I do not complain again, because, if someone tells me he is from Lesotho, I would ask him where does it belong?

For your information:

Lesotho, officially the Kingdom of Lesotho, is a landlocked country and enclave — entirely surrounded by the Republic of South Africa. Formerly Basutoland, it is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The name Lesotho roughly translates into "the land of the people who speak Sesotho."

Roger Federer, are we seeing the end of an era?

“The end of an era?”

That’s what I keep hearing from people and media around me. But as a hard-core fan of FedEX, I don’t want to digest it so easily.

The voice of the skeptics got stronger after the recent demolition of Federer by his archrival Rafael Nadal (Rafa) in the recent French Open final. So the most favorite topic in the tennis circuit gained momentum, Rafa-FedEX rivalry.

Federer has been my favorite player in recent time, mostly because of the versatility of his style. I have been fan of many previous stars (Sampras, Becker, Agassi). I loved the powerful serve of Sampras and his volleys, Becker’s volleys and fighting attitude by trying for all the points he can reach into was mind boggling, Agassi for his great baseline play and the way he makes the ball hit baseline all the time. I was amazed when I saw all the qualities in a single player, Federer. I became an instant fan of him.

He soon started demolishing his opponents and quickly moved on to become world number one. To be honest, I wasn’t surprised. The player of his caliber deserved it. He has been dominating men’s tennis since then. Well, it sometimes becomes monotonous, but with a player of his class, I am never bored of seeing him.

This year 2008 has been different. Federer has struggled to match his own class and lost many matches (statistically speaking, 8 which is quite a bit for him), two of them in the majors (Djokovic in Aus open and Nadal in French). So the question obviously comes, is this the end of the king, FedEx?

I have a different take on this whole issue. I believe only way to beat a classy player like Federer is by sheer power. Federer has been in the international arena for quite some time now, and the younger guns are catching up with him, not to match his class but to exceed his power. This is evident from his failures in the slower surfaces (like clay) where his opponents nullify all his awesome shots. So I would partly agree of peoples catching up with him, but matching his class would take some more time for the kids in the block.

So fellas, do not get bogged down looking at the statistics you see in the news and media, the king is here to stay. I think he will silence his critics by winning the title in his favorite hunting ground, Wimbledon.

Is the fuel price hike justified? What is the real fuel price?

On 4^th of June 08, the Indian government declared an increase in petrol (Rs. 5/litre) and diesel (Rs. 3/litre) prices because of the mounting losses of the oil companies. The global crude oil prices have been hovering at ~ 130 $/barrel for quite some time now and the oil companies were loosing money in crores on a daily basis. The Indian prime minister even came out to the address the nation saying that this the minimal hike that was possible looking at the current scenario.

This made me to wonder, what is the real price of fuel? Who makes all the money and who carries the losses.

I started doing some basic calculations and started hunting for data in the web. Well, first let do a straightforward calculation, what is the crude oil price (in INR)? Taking a recent crude oil price of $130/barrel and using a conversion rate of Rs.40/USD, the crude oil price becomes ~ Rs.32.71/litre. Petroleum price after the current price rise will be Rs.55/litre (average nationwide). So we are talking about a petrol price which is ~170% of the crude oil price. So somebody must be making money (and not lossi), as it’s hard to believe that refining cost would be that high. I do not have any refining cost data, so the next step would be to hunt for that information. (What’s still in back of my mind is, oil companies are making losses in crores)

I came across a gasoline price breakdown report from “California Energy Commission” website (http://www.energy.ca.gov/gasoline/margins/index.html). They showed the split of all the costs starting from crude oil price to retail price, separately showing the refining cost and also taxes charged by the federal and the state governments. I believe the cost breakdown structure will be similar in India, excluding the tax structure. Looking at the May month’s data, the refinery cost along with the profits accounts for 7.5% of the crude oil price.

Taking this scenario in India, where the retail price is 170% of the crude oil price, and refining expense (with profits) is only 7.5%. The rest of the amount must go away in taxes and other components, which is retained by the central and state governments in India. As a layman what I understand is governments do not want to loose their own share of the money, and they are trying to nail down the oil companies out of their profits, and finally they transferred part of the financial burden to the consumers.

The government should not risk loosing the stream of their revenues, as this might affect the other developmental activities as well as the fiscal deficit might climb up. But looking at the developed economy like the United States, their retail price is ~ 135% of the crude price. Thus the US consumers are paying less then what we pay in India, even after subsidies? Something hard for me to comprehend… May be I needed to go back and check my economics.

Here are excerpts from what the petroleum minister told the Rajya Sabha (pretty old data, 2005) which gives some insight:

http://www.moneycontrol.com/mccode/news/article/news_article.php?autono=193793

“Giving a break-up in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, the Petroleum Minister said the cost of production of petrol was only Rs 19.58 per litre, whereas the Customs duty, excise duty and sales tax take the retail price to Rs 43.49 a litre (in Delhi). The tax component is almost 55%.

For diesel, the tax component in the retail price is almost 34%, with customs duty of 6% (Rs 1.81), excise duty of 17% (Rs 5.07) and sales tax of 11 per cent (Rs 3.39). This takes the retail price to Rs 30.45 a litre in Delhi, while the basic cost of production of diesel is only Rs 20.18 a litre. As for cooking gas, while the production cost of one cylinder of LPG is Rs 261.97, local sales tax of Rs 32.75 takes the selling price to Rs 294.75. For kerosene, the per-litre cost is Rs 8.70, while the selling price is Rs 9.05.”

Who feel's the Inflation?

There are talks of Inflation everywhere in India now (or should I say everywhere in the globe). Prices of food grains have skyrocketed, and oil prices keeps rising every other day. But how much are we each Indians affected by inflation?

The impact of inflation depends on the % of your income spent on food and essential items. This is the kind of expenses you cannot avoid, and qualifies as something we call a basic necessity of life. If this is very small percentage of ones monthly income, people do not really care about it. Inflation hit’s the poorest section of the society the hardest, as most of his/her daily income goes in fulfilling their basic necessities. Even a small increase in the food price makes these basic necessity less accessible to them, and with the current trends, the poor might have been choking!!

I wonder will any one of the richer sections of the society keep track of the prices of food grains. The price of sunflower oil has crossed Rs. 100/Litre. Rice is not available below Rs. 20/-, vegetable prices increasing beyond what someone might call logical. But I guess nobody cares until it starts hitting his or her pockets hard.

To give a personal example, I really won’t care if matchboxes start costing rs.2 in place of 1, even though the price has doubled. I won’t think twice before buying it. This can be similar to vegetables/rice or other commodities for someone else. So everyone has to ask for himself, do I feel the inflation?

Inflationary effect becomes severe when there exists a huge difference in affordability within the consumers. As for food grains, everyone in the world is a consumer. Nobody would disagree that western world has very high purchasing power as compared to the African nations. So, I believe the western nations are least affected by the rising food prices (as compared to their African counterparts). This holds true for ultra rich and the poor in India too. The section of the society who can afford it all sucks up most of the essential resources, at any cost.

Inflation has culprits in the supply side too, and also an increasing affordability of a vast population of the developing nation. But nobody can deny the fact that inflation does not affect all sections of the society equally. It hits hard the section of the society who can’t afford to compete for the same “limited” resources with the ones who can afford much more...

So step back and ask to yourself, are you affected by the Inflation? Are you choking for your basic necessity?

The best we can do is use these resources in a more sensible way, & don’t waste…