Sunday, September 25, 2011

A review of the past 969 days!



Folks, I realize it’s been quite a while since my last post on my blog (24th Jan 2009 to be precise). Hence thought of taking a moment to reflect on what has changed since then. And this is the subject of my latest post:
·         Demographics:
o     ~68 million babies were born in India  (~70,000 babies per day * 969 days). Many of these kids now scream in flights.
·         Economics/Finance:
o    Sensex had crashed temporarily, trading at Rs. ~8,500 in Jan 2009. It soared to 21,000 thereafter and now is back to 16,000-17,000 levels. That means, if I invested Rs. 1,000 back then, I would be sitting on Rs. 2,000 today (and about Rs. 2,500 at the peak). No, I did not invest.
o    The world was just stepping out of recession and the economic outlook was turning positive. The world is staring at “double dip” recession today and potentially a fully-blown out global macroeconomic crisis.
·         Politics:
o    2G scam,  CWG scam, Hasan  Ali money laundering scam, Bellary mines scam, Adarsh Housing Society scam, Lavasa scam, IPL scam, UP food grain scam, PF scam and many such big-ticket corruption cases one after the other greatly angered the people and India found a new hero in Anna Hazare (Anna Hazare sangharsh karo, hum tumhaare saath hai!)
o    Middle Eastern political landscape resembled the 90s (or perhaps the 80s): Osama bin Laden was alive, Egypt was run by Hosni Mobarak, Tunisia by Ben Ali, Syria by Bashar al-Assad and Libya by Col Gaddafi. Who would’ve thought these gentlemen would be powerless today (and running for their lives!)
·         Sports:
o    India won the World Cup with a six!
o    Sachin hit another purple patch in his career, scoring 200* in an ODI against South Africa. The God just got greater!
o    Manchester United won two Premier Leagues and were finalists in two Champions Leagues
·         Tech:
o    Facebook’s user base grew from 175 million to 850 million!
o    Groupon was a 2 month old company with 5 employees then. Today, some analysts peg its valuation at $25 billion!
o    The world did not hear of iPads in Jan 2009 (not even in Jan 2010)!
·         Personal:
o    In Jan 2009, I lived off my parents but was the President of my college and had people working “under” me. After graduating, I started earning. But I was “under” everyone in both the companies I have had the good fortune of working with.
o    I took over 100 international flights between May 2010 and May 2011 (and now pretend to be a seasoned traveler)
o    I was single

I welcome your feedback/comments. I can also be reached at utsavmitra@hotmail.com