“Solar power has the best ROI”

George Khoury from Princeton Believes that Although Solar Energy is Expensive, it can Provide The Best Return on Investment

B&E: What initiatives from the businesses and policy makers do you think are necessary to encourage solar power generation?
GK: I believe that business and policy makers must present to the public three important facets to encourage solar power generation. First is energy efficiency – they must present quantitatively the efficiency of solar power. The second is safety. Thirdly, they must present how much cheaper and cleaner this energy source is in comparison to the alternatives. Not only must they present these, but they must demonstrate them consistently. Only then will the public embrace the use of solar Beyond this, effective advertising campaigns to promote the use of solar energy would be important as well.

B&E: Please elaborate on the challenges that both these technologies face towards becoming major sources of energy generators in the near future?
GK: Nuclear energy generation is always challenged with the problem of safety, especially in the light of those recent unfortunate events in Japan. If nuclear energy companies could demonstrate ample safety controls (much beyond their current levels) to ensure the safety of the public and biota in the surrounding regions in the event of a disaster, only then do I believe that the public can embrace its use with ease.

Comparatively, solar energy is much too expensive at the moment. Although considered an investment that will pay itself off in several years of use, the funds needed to purchase solar energy systems are still too expensive. I believe this that with time, the costs will decrease (similar to how the cost of sequencing a human genome has starkly been lowered over time as technology & innovation persisted & improved).

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management

Pakistan: The Real Rogue State And why India should not Trust America at all

In case we forgot, not very long back, Pervez Musharraf, the former President of Pakistan had told in an interview to CNN, “I think now, frankly, he [Osama bin Laden] is dead for the reason he is a kidney patient. I don’t know if he has been getting all that treatment in Afghanistan now. And the photographs that have been shown of him on television show him extremely weak. I would give the first priority that he is dead and the second priority that he is alive somewhere in Afghanistan.”

Cut to 2011, Osama bin Laden was hunted, and killed, not in any remote hideout in any tribal area of Pakistan, but in Abbottabad, which is just a few kilometres away from the Pakistan Military Academy and merely 60 miles from Islamabad. So much so, the entire region is known to be a hotspot and a boiling epicentre of terrorists, particularly al-Qaeda. This March, an Indonesian terrorist, Umar Patek, having links with al-Qaeda, was captured from this region. He was the one behind the Bali bombings and was an important agent of Jemaah Islamiya Tahir Shehzad (an al-Qaeda facilitator) who was also spotted in the same region.

The series of incidences and the proximity to Islamabad and the Pakistan Military Academy, suggest nothing else but how the Pakistan government always knew about the whereabouts of Osama and also provided him a safe haven. Otherwise, how else could have Osama stayed safely right under their nose? In spite of his members being found and killed, he never got spotted. It is normal military and anti-terror routine to sanitise the vicinity of such strategically sensitive locations and check for other such terror elements, even after a single capture. Moreover, the military academy near Osama’s hideout was visited just a month back by the Pakistani military chief General Asfaq Parvez Kayani. All these clearly indicate that the Pakistani government always knew about Osama; and similarly, they know of all such other such extremist leaders and groups, about whom they habitually and perpetually feign ignorance.

And it is not just about al-Qaeda or Osama, but even masterminds like Abu Zubaydah (found in a safe house in Faisalabad), Ramzi bin Al Shibh (the key facilitator of 9/11, caught in Karachi) and Khalid Shaikh Mohammad (cornered in Rawalpindi) were all hunted down in Pakistan. Call it coincidence, but all these terrorists were found not in any remote locations of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, but in urban cities of Pakistan. Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar was captured on February 8, 2010, from Karachi while so many more were captured in Quetta, a prominent city in Pakistan. Not just this, WikiLeaks has time and again provided information about how Pakistan has gone about harbouring terrorists! It has pointed out that a Pakistani general Hamid Gul was linked with al-Qaeda operatives. And to hit the final nail on the coffin, on May 4, 2011, WikiLeaks revealed how Pakistan’s security services tipped Osama whenever US troops approached and “smuggled al-Qaeda terrorists through airport security” to ensure that they escaped capture.

When it comes to India, even the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), known for their terrorist attacks on Mumbai in 2008, are still active in Pakistan. Almost a decade back, the TIME magazine had reported that the Pakistan Army, through its 12th Infantry Division, aids and funds members of LeT and also provides fire cover during infiltration. In December 2001, the Indian Parliament was attacked by a well-trained set of terrorists, funded by agencies within Pakistan. Later, it was confirmed that the Inter Services Intelligence agency (ISI) was the one funding the attack. The July 2006 terror strikes in Mumbai local trains were executed by SIMI, Lashkar-e-Taiba and ISI. Even the July 2008 attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul, which killed 58, had ISI involvement as per a New York Times report and WikiLeaks. The terror group SIMI, also called the Indian Mujahideen, which was banned in 2001, has been active with the support from al-Qaeda and other extremist outfits based out of Pakistan. The icing was when Ajmal Kasab was captured alive in the November 2008 attack (which killed 130 people), that confirmed Pakistan’s complete involvement. Even after all this, Pakistan has maintained its hypocritical lip-service towards handing over Dawood Ibrahim and terrorist leader Masood Azhar to India.

All of this clearly indicates that Pakistan has outgrown into a real rogue State and is increasingly becoming a threat to global security, and India in particular. And this is exactly where we need to realise that the enemy is not just Pakistan, but America as well. They have killed Osama because Osama dared to attack them only. Otherwise, one must never forget that Osama was created by the Americans to destroy the former USSR. It is common American practice to use such elements to destabilise countries. From using Osama against USSR, to killing Presidents of neighbouring countries, to putting ruthless dictators in countries of strategic importance for their own gains, to bombing countries shamelessly for oil, the American establishment has done it all. What they are doing right now in Libya is the worst possible act. They are taking revenge on a 40-year-old issue and settling scores with Gaddafi for having united the OPEC nations then and for having raised the oil price – something which resulted in the massive transfer of wealth from the Western nations to the Middle East. Today, in a totally undemocratic manner, America is bombing that nation and killing people for no reason but oil. The heights of it is that all this while, they knew Pakistan is the nation which is hiding Osama and supporting his terror activities; yet, since they need to use Pakistan against India, they have not been acting against the nation. They have just been cleansing it of those terrorist elements who are potentially dangerous to US – but still not declaring it a terrorist nation, at a point when the reality is very clear now. Pakistan is the terrorist nation #1 in the world today. Such is the sham that even during the presidential address, Obama maintained that Pakistan was cooperative – while the truth is that the US didn’t even inform Pakistan of the operations, knowing fully well that they would then shift Osama away.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

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Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
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Arindam Chaudhuri: We need Hazare's leadership
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri - A Man For The Society....
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management

Consolidation is Inevitable

The Nuclear Crisis in Japan on March 11, 2011 has in a way Provided enough fodder for The Industry which was Projected to Witness a surge in M&As. As Nuclear Projects Globally are Adopting ‘adjust and Improve’ Strategy Projects, The Inorganic mode will Gradually pick up...

Twenty five years after the Chernobyl disaster (Ukraine, April 26, 1986) and a month and a half after the Fukushima Daiiachi (Japan, March 11, 2011) nuclear crisis, the political and civil reactions globally have re-ignited the debate on nuclear concerns. Speaking strictly from an investment perspective, the nuclear debacle and the debate thereafter fuelled by extrapolation and sentiments have only helped add to the already existing volatility in the uranium industry. In a knee-jerk reaction to the aftermath of the nuclear crisis in Japan, the financial market’s view on the industry has turned negative with share price of miners such as Saskatoon (Saskatchewan, Canada) based Cameco Corporation (which accounts for approximately 16% of world production) registering a fall of 22.5% (between March 11, 2011 and April 25, 2011) and the NYSE listed Global X Uranium ETF declining almost the same, 22.4%, during the given time period.

However, while the industry is now set to trade primarily on news flow and not fundamentals and with the valuations eroding faster than ever, the state of affairs has given rise to new speculations and new possibilities opening doors for a lot more activities both in organic as well as inorganic modes of business. Nevertheless, given the equations in the industry dynamics (the speculation that investment in nuclear energy will decrease), where the free fall of the miners share price are yet to bottom out, takeover speculation are at an all time high. Statistics has it that the global M&A activity in 2011 is expected to total more than $3 trillion and consolidation in uranium space – as a fuel for the nuclear power industry – would certainly play a pivotal role.

At the same time, as Nomura International points out, the burgeoning construction of nuclear new-build in Asia and the concerns over fuel security to power these plants will in all probability increase the international merger and acquisition activity to ensure supplies of uranium. Estimates go on to suggest that around 200GW of nuclear power capacity are currently planned or under construction with India, Russia, China and South Korea as key drivers of uranium demand. What is to be noted at this juncture is the fact that by 2015 the global uranium mine production is projected to be pegged at approximately 86,393 tonne while the demand would increase to 91,719 tonne (a deficit of over 5300 tonne); and it is this growth in demand and the subsequent deficit that, for sure, will fuel growth competition for supplies. Though growth in uranium requirement is projected to witness a moderate growth of 1.6% annually between 2015 and 2030, growth in energy consumption may still accelerate depending upon the economic and population growth – the key determinants of the above mentioned global uranium consumption over the period to 2030. Apparently the brewing competition will play a vital role as far as consolidation in the industry is concerned. Amidst the fact that demand will slightly outstrip supply through 2015 taking prices to $80 per pound, it is clear that the requirements will have to be met through expansion of global uranium production, reasons enough as to why consolidation could be a possible way out.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

IIPM Best B School India
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age WomanIIPM's Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
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IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management

A Hollywood Sojourn

To celebrate 100 years of Hollywood, Ganjam along with Tasveer and Magnum hosted a rare photographs collection of yesteryears’ stars like Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Audrey Hepburn, Clark Gable and Elizabeth Taylor. The pictures displayed were captured by some of the world’s ace photographers like Robert Capa, Dennis Stock, Eve Arnold, Phillipe Halsman, Burt Glinn, Martine Franck , David Hurn, Marc Riboud etc. The event was marked by the presence of Bollywood star Sharmila Tagore, who is also the Chairperson of the Central Board of Film Certification. In all, the event was received considerably well by art enthusiasts as many of the photographs exhibited creditably qualified on the heritage factor too.

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2011.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

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Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri
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IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management