Showing posts with label Kenya. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kenya. Show all posts

Friday, December 30, 2016

Modi's BHIM App Is Tectonic

PM Narendra Modi launches Aadhaar based mobile payment app called BHIM

This is the most monumental step India has taken to date over my entire lifetime.

India has done a trailblazing super job of taking the biometric ID to all Indians. This has to be done for every human.

India should similarly get every business venture in the country registered, no matter how small. Make it digital, easy, fast and announce no taxation for businesses up to a certain size in annual revenue. Perhaps no taxation upto a million rupees in profits. This registration will open the doors for credit. Small businesses can take loans and create jobs. This is the most important sector of the economy.

Tuesday, December 06, 2016

Done Right Demonetisation Will Prove Early Election

If the execution of the decision goes well it will be like Modi won the 2019 election before it was even held, with his opponents like Mamata and Kejri utterly vanquished.

It has been a big, bold move. It had to be done at some point if the Indian rupee was ever going to become a credible global currency, like the dollar, euro, yen.

12 lakh crores have been deposited into the banks. That is massive.

Gold is another major drag. And it is cultural. That is so much capital sucked out of the economy.

As for the anti corruption drive I am sure Modi knows this can only be the first step. Benaami property has to be one of his New Year resolutions.

T N Sheshan cleaned up elections in India. Modi is out to show corruption can be controlled across India.

Anti corruption moves are indispensable to robust economic growth rates. Done right this will catapult India to double digit growth rates early next decade.

The biggest concern of course is the cash crunch. I have noticed Ambani is giving three months free on his new data network. There ought to be a massive push for digital money. They do it in Kenya. It is called mPesa.

America should similarly recall the 100 dollar bill to empty the wallets of the druglords around the world.

Saturday, December 26, 2015

2016: The Year For Barack Obama's Revolution From The Top

2016: The Year For Barack Obama's Revolution From The Top



Barack Obama’s autobiography Dreams From My Father is full of little references to what Nelson Mandela in his autobiography called “a thousand little indignities.” But one was talking mostly about America, the other about apartheid South Africa. Can one black man’s ascension to the top make up for racist snarls at the highest levels of government like in the US Senate?

It is time we faced the fact the United Nations is not a world government. It is time to call a spade a spade. It is time to see this institution designed by the World War II victors no longer works. This is not a world government by the far stretches of the imagination. Often when we talk of civil rights movements, we think in terms of ordinary people marching out in the streets. But now is the time for a civil rights movement in which the heads of state march.

What we have is essentially apartheid. The leading country remains fundamentally racist, nowhere more evident than in the country’s criminal justice system. There is no world government. There is a need for one. The thorniest global problems, the loftiest trade deals are worked on outside the UN framework.

America itself needs to be reimagined if it is to fulfill its original mission of a total spread of democracy. It needs to become a country where African immigrants are as at home as European immigrants. White is black is white.

In a democracy you get to vote because you are a human being, not because you are literate or rich. But in the community of nations, there are countries that are rich and have guns, and most have neither. The entire continent of Africa stands disenfranchised. This landmass that is the most central of all, from where we all originated, is still in the clutches of a contemporary incarnation of colonization, slavery and apartheid. We don’t have a name for it yet, but the affliction is very real. Its poverty and disease stem from that disempowerment, not the other way round. And so, any voice that seeks to address its poverty and disease without taking stock of its disenfranchisement is shedding crocodile tears.

What is Barack Obama going to do? Leave the White House and do paid speeches? Write books? Launch a foundation? Raise money for AIDS? Share a stage or two with Bono and George Clooney? The guy is still young. This guy who has cleared up half century old cobwebs every year he has been in office is best suited to lead this revolution from the top. And this is not a cry for Africa, although Africa could use some empowerment. This is a cry for the world. Right now we are a species looking down a sinkhole of uncontrolled weather patterns that just might wipe out life and civilization as we know it. We still have immense poverty and disease that Bill Gates says “only a world government can solve,” and Gates is a guy who has thrown the kitchen sink at the problem, one of the leading entrepreneurs of the era in whose wake many billionaires have given money to fight basic poverty. We face security threats that no one government can solve. Globalization continues to move at breakneck speeds speeding up as the Internet takes deeper roots everywhere, but we have not done the task of institution building that that globalization requires.

Let’s open our eyes and take a look at the elephant in the room. Yes, what we need is a world government, and there is no person better than Barack Obama to take the lead on it. We are lucky we have a George Washington precisely when we need one. And lucky us that the guy is almost done with his current job where he has been stellar every year. Heads of state across the world should join in this chorus and shape this revolution from the top. Lucky us that our thorniest global problems have solutions in political concepts we have already designed, like one person one vote taken to its logical, global conclusion.

There is always inertia. Every monumental political change that in hindsight looks so obviously positive has faced inertia. And this likely will be no different. But the blueprint has to be made, and it has to be presented to ordinary peoples on all continents, so a groundswell of support can build around it.

We want to live in a world where human beings can feel equal everywhere. We want to live in a world with abundant clean energy. We want to live in a world with abundant water, and food and green space. We want clean air. We want to create the industries of tomorrow. We seek unprecedented rises in productivity, as well equitable distribution. We want people to be happy.

It is time the heads of state across the world came together and created the world’s first world government in the leadership of Barack Obama. In his birth as well as personality and outlook, he bridges the world. In his person the world has a chance to come together to reach new heights. This century can not only be the best ever, it can also be one where we have gone past our existential worries, where we have created a truly global civilization, one grand village where everyone can feel a sense of belonging everywhere, where people can take pride in their heritage and claim the common future at the same time, without hassle.

This is in essence a political struggle, where all you start with is a voice. Ordinary people have done it many times before. Heads of state can do it this one time.

It is still about Hope. It is still about Change.

We need a world government because it is time we established rule of law between nations. That is the civilized way.



राजेंद्र महतो लाई ICU पुर्याउने सरकार राजीनामा दे, काठमाण्डु छोड़, देश छोड़, ये धरती हमारी, ये मुल्क हमारा
E for Education, E for Entrepreneurship, E for Energy
Barack Obama: George Washington
आर्थिक क्रांतिका पाँच पाण्डव: सुशासन, शिक्षा, स्वास्थ्य, संरचना, (उद्योगव्यापार) सुलभता
Barack Obama Is Biologically Superior
An Open Letter To Barack Obama

Saturday, August 01, 2015

Mr. Obama Comes To Africa

Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo during a meeting...
Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo during a meeting with Lula da Silva, President of Brasil (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Barack Obama In Kenya
FDR = Keynesian, Barack Obama = Kenyan

What President Obama didn’t see on his trip to Africa
it is unlikely he saw many Africans engaged in modern, high productivity jobs at all. ..... Ethiopia and Kenya, the two countries on this visit, are among the region’s least successful countries in converting economic growth into employment growth. .... One of the enduring “stylized facts” of economic development is that in poorer countries like Ethiopia and Kenya workers generally move from agriculture to higher productivity sectors. This is good for growth and for the workers themselves. In Asia, where poverty has fallen most rapidly over the past quarter century, millions of households have been drawn out of poverty through the rapid expansion of industry. In Africa structural transformation of this type has contributed very little to growth and poverty reduction. As recently as the turn of the 21st century a growing share of African workers found themselves trapped in low productivity, low-wage employment. ....... Four out of five workers leaving agriculture are finding or creating jobs in services such as trade and distribution. These jobs are not the high-tech service jobs celebrated during President Obama’s visit to Kenya. This is movement from low-productivity to marginally higher-productivity employment in markets, on sidewalks, and in food stalls. ..... about 80 percent of Africa’s workers are employed in either agriculture or services. ...... output per worker in manufacturing across Africa is more than six times that in agriculture. Despite the potential that industry offers, it has not been part of the African success story. In 2012, the average share of manufacturing in GDP in sub-Saharan Africa was about 10 percent, unchanged from the 1970s. .........

In Cambodia and Vietnam—two emerging Asian economies that as recently as a decade ago were very similar to Ethiopia and Kenya in terms of income, infrastructure, and human capital—manufacturing has grown to 20 and 24 percent of GDP, respectively.

....... “creating the transparency, and the rule of law, and the ease of doing business, and the anti-corruption agenda that creates a platform for people to succeed.” .......

However, they are also the easy answers of the aid industry.

...... the sad fact that donors—the United States among them—have not been willing to address

the more fundamental constraints to Africa’s industrial development: simple but costly things like infrastructure and skills or politically difficult things like expanding preferential market access.

....... the failure to extend the African Growth and Opportunity Act to most agricultural products were notably absent from the president’s published remarks. ..... Africans, especially the young seeking good jobs, deserve something more from the U.S. president than cheerleading and conventional wisdom.
The Five Worst Leaders In Africa
Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, President of Equatorial Guinea ..... Equatorial Guinea is one of the continent’s largest producers of oil and has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world, but this doesn’t necessarily translate into prosperity for its people. The country ranks very poorly in the United Nations human development index; the vast majority of Equatorial Guineans hardly have access to clean drinking water. ......... José Eduardo dos Santos, President of Angola ...... Angola is extremely resource-rich. ....... the second-largest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa and the seventh-largest supplier to the United States. Angola also has massive diamond deposits and occupies an enviable position as the world’s fourth largest producer of rough diamonds. ........ 68% of the country’s total population lives below the poverty line of $1.7 a day, while 28% live on less than 30 cents. ......... Robert Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe ....... GDP growth in 2011 was over 7% and the Southern African state has experienced single-digit inflation since 2009. .... Mugabe’s government has also recorded significant achievements in education as a result of extensive teacher training and school expansion projects: At over 80%, the country has one of the highest literacy rates in Sub-Saharan Africa. ........ Zimbabwe’s unemployment rate is the highest in sub-Saharan Africa: it’s over 60%. ....... King Mswati III, King of Swaziland .... nearly 70 percent of the country’s citizens live on less than $1 a day and 40 percent are unemployed. ...... Omar Al-Bashir, President of Sudan
What Obama Didn't Say in His African Union Address
in his controversial speech, Obama addressed corruption, democracy, and civil rights, yet there was still a lot left unsaid. ...... we have to remember that President Obama is the head of the U.S. empire. .... But all three of their policies have been devastating for the African continent. If we look at President Clinton, he championed a so-called new breed of African leaders, where we focus on Ethiopia, Rwanda and Uganda, where we see Rwanda and Uganda invaded Congo and triggered the deadliest conflict since World War II where an estimated 6 million people lost their lives, and the people in the Central Africa still live in a deathtrap, and U.S. policy is playing a key role in that. ....... President Bush egged on the Ethiopians to invade Somalia in 2006, which set back stability in that region that was being developed by the Islam [Accords]. And of course we know with President Obama, he led, along with Sarkozy and NATO, the bombing of Libya and the regime change in Libya that has devastated a country and has had deleterious impact on neighboring countries. ...... Especially if we can, we look into the manner in which the United States has supported so-called presidents for life on the African continent. Probably most prominently and classically is after the U.S. overthrew Patrice Lumumba in 1960, it supported President Mobutu for over three decades. And it was only with the backing of the United States that Mobutu was able to remain in power, and he destroyed the country and ran it into the ground. ....... What we see on the African continent is almost, in his speeches, it's almost like the international version of you know, pull your pants up. Do your homework, and this respectability politics that he pushes domestically, or he has pushed domestically, he pushes on the international level as well. ....... the U.S. role in stifling democracy and stifling the development and the plundering of the African continent, if he was to acknowledge that and then get into some of the policy issues, I think then his proclamations would be a bit more credible, let's say. ....... So we have as a part of his entourage and his administration individuals who have been cozy with quote-unquote friendly tyrants on the African continent. ...... So we see where the United States and the administration and the Congress, they've been cozy with some pretty nasty characters who repressed their people, who restrict the rights of their population. ...... And they continue to do that, because we only have to look at Uganda today with Yoweri Museveni, who's been in office for some 20-odd years. And he's a key ally for the United States. ........... So many Africans have told me, we don't want just aid, we want trade that fuels progress. ..... it really depends whether you're talking about coming from a neoliberal framework, from the idea of the Washington consensus formed for Africa, or whether you're talking about the kind of trade we see in Latin America that is lifting all boats, so to speak. .......

since President Obama's been in office, 2008, trade with Africa has declined by half. I believe we went from about $142 billion to $73 billion. Compared to China, for example, our trade between China and Africa is three times that of the United States. It's valued at around $222 billion.

...... are we talking about trade that benefits the elites in Africa and the elites in the West, where you have some $65-70 billion of illicit outflow of capital from the African continent as a result of the plundering of the continent by its local elites and foreign corporations coming from the West.
Africa to Obama: Mind your own business
United States President Barack Obama is the most admired foreign leader in Africa because he has ancestral roots in our continent. .... we African elites have internalised the ideology of our conquerors that presents us as inferior, inadequate, and incapable of self-government. ..... behind Obama's seeming concern for our good lies the social contempt he holds us in. ..... Why doesn't Obama openly admonish leaders of Western Europe whenever he visits their countries? Is it because they govern better? .... There is a lot of corruption and widespread human rights abuses (especially of migrant minorities) in Western Europe - not to mention the brutality, genocides, forced labour, and racism that characterised their governance of Africa during colonial rule. ...... Humanitarian Imperialism, the US and Western Europe behave like a mafia godfather who, as he grows old, decides to defend law and order and begins to attack his lesser colleagues in crime, preaching brotherly love and the sanctity of human life - all the while holding onto his ill-gotten wealth and the income it generates........

In the US, a black person is killed by the highly militarised police force every 28 hours .

..... Scores of black people in the US are stopped and searched every minute for no other reason than the colour of their skin. ..... Blacks constitute 12-13 percent of the US population but 43 percent of its prison population. Although there are only 33 million blacks in the US, there are one million (nearly four percent) of them in jail. ...... the incarceration rate of blacks in the US is 10 times that of blacks in apartheid South Africa. .... The New Jim Crow, there are double the number of blacks in jail than in college. .....

There are more black people in jail today than were enslaved in 1850; and more blacks are disenfranchised today than in 1875

, when the 15th amendment prohibiting discrimination in voting rights based on race was passed. ....... In Obama's hometown of Chicago, the total population of black males with a felony record is 80 percent of the adult black male workforce. ..... The 48 countries of sub-Saharan Africa Obama admonishes have a combined population of 961 million and their total prison population is 830,000. ...... If sub-Saharan Africa jailed its people at the same rate as the US jails its black population, we would have 38.4 million people in jail. ..... mass surveillance programmes that allow the federal government to eavesdrop on almost every communication of American citizens and allies ...... The corruption of Washington and Wall Street - where corporate profits are privatised and losses nationalised - goes without saying. ...... Invading sovereign nations and toppling their governments while leaving chaos in their wake, the large scale use of drones which kill innocent civilians in Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are the kind of crimes the US commits. ..... Obama's choice to lecture Africa is a product of the social contempt he and his countrymen and women have for black people. ...... Many African leaders do not treat their people with the cruel contempt with which the US treats its black citizens. ...... True some of our leaders use the police against their political rivals. But the US uses its police daily against innocent poor black people who are not even contesting for political power from the white financial, industrial, and military aristocracy that rules that country. ...... Africans fight for more freedom, democracy, and clean government daily...... And in these struggles, the US has consistently sided with our oppressors......... Steven Biko, a hero of the anti-apartheid struggle, said that the greatest weapon in the hands of an oppressor is never his guns and armies, but the mind of the oppressed. ..... Like all imperial powers before it, the US seeks to dominate the world in order to exploit it. This is how it sustains her greedy consumption.

Sunday, July 26, 2015

Barack Obama In Kenya



Obama's 'homecoming' to Kenya highlights economic boom
Better stocktaking methods and new software have helped cut delivery times to supermarkets from two weeks to two days and sales have grown by 50 percent ..... Obama's visit reveals Washington's desire to fix ties with Kenya - East Africa's top economy and a partner in the fight against religious radicals - after they slumped while President Uhuru Kenyatta faced international charges of crimes against humanity. ....... Obama also faces pressure from rights organisations to use his popularity to address Kenya's problems with corruption, media freedom, and the battle against militants from Somalia's al-Shabab group, who have spilled blood in a shopping mall, a university campus among other targets. ...... bullish about Kenya's economy, which grew by 4.9 percent in the first quarter of 2015. It is one of the world's fastest-growing markets and part of a long-term expansion across sub-Saharan Africa that is building a middle class of new consumers. ...... "The UN projects that over 1.8 billion children will be born in the next 35 years across Africa. That's a huge market that's available for anybody serving the baby industry, everything from diapers to baby food. There is lots of opportunity" ....... technology start-up firms in its western suburbs seek to build on such successes as the mobile phone money transfer system, M-Pesa. The innovation hub along Ngong Road has been dubbed Silicon Savannah. ...... "You can feel the confidence in Nairobi these days, a sense of swagger and bravado on the part of Kenyan elites" ........ "A sense that Kenya, for the first time since independence, really does have its destiny in its own hands and does have options in terms of who it chooses to partner with internationally" ...... The US president has an 80 percent approval rating there and is lauded as "our son" ..... he will not visit his ancestral village Kogelo, the site of his father's grave, amid al-Shabab security concerns. ....... Obama appears dismayed that he will be tied to his security detail and motorcade, rather than be free to meet with distant relatives, such as his step-grandmother Sarah Onyango Obama ...... visiting Kenya as a private citizen is probably more meaningful to me than visiting as president because I can actually get outside of a hotel room or a conference centre ....... Upon arrival, he will meet his Kenyan counterpart, Kenyatta, whose presidential bid Washington lobbied against because, at the time of the election in March 2013, he faced International Criminal Court charges over his role in the 2007-08 post-election violence. ........ The court dropped all charges against Kenyatta in December. ...... Kenya's economic boom is part of a wave of modernisation and entrepreneurship that is sweeping sub-Saharan Africa and challenging deep-rooted prejudices that the continent is forever blighted by poverty, war, disease, and corruption. ........ "The pundit's pendulum will not always swing from Afro-pocalpyse to Afro-optimism" ........ "There will essentially be a mixed bag of billionaires emerging at the same time as we see people risking their lives to reach Europe across the Mediterranean. They will exist side by side, in much the same way we as see the super-rich and a homeless population in Washington DC"
US holds summit with African heads of state
Afua Prempeh says she will never wash her frock again. She was hugged by Michelle Obama during a feel-good event for young African go-getters in Washington last week, and Prempeh does not want the US first lady's impressions to be rinsed away. ...... the allure that the Obamas retain in Africa, despite their waning approval ratings at home. The couple's charisma, together with President Barack Obama's Kenyan lineage, will be used to full effect at the first US-Africa Leaders Summit ...... "I'm still recovering from the excitement of hugging Michelle," says Prempeh, 28, a Ghanaian environmentalist who won a six-week study tour in Florida. ...... "The Obamas are a symbol of hope, that people can look beyond the colour of my skin or the fact that I'm a woman." .......... a continent where Europe and China are bigger traders. ...... Almost 50 African heads of state plan to attend Monday's three-day summit on business, security and governance. The four dozen presidential motorcades circling downtown Washington could cause traffic gridlock reminiscent of Nairobi, Lagos or Johannesburg. ...... European Union trade volumes with Africa hit $200bn in 2013. China's rocketed from $10bn in 2000 to more than $170bn in 2013. In recent years, US-Africa trade has stagnated at about $60bn. ........

Africa's population could eclipse China and India with two billion people in 2050, consisting of one quarter of the world's working-age population.

....... A bigger US footprint in Africa is far cheaper than pivoting to Asia ......... a small bit of effort now could mean better market access and closer economic ties in 25 years, when Africa will be better positioned to buy the goods and services that America is best at producing." ...... The US may lag in trade, but it has more African diplomatic posts than any other country and is stealthily expanding its military presence. Last month's revelations of US secret military advisers in Somalia added to the list of known hotspots where US trainers, spies, drones, and commandoes operate. ...... Visiting leaders cannot trumpet their feats in the plenary speeches of typical multi-lateral events. Worse still, they won't have one-on-one time with Obama, unlike the guaranteed presidential face time at Beijing's triennial Africa meets. ........ Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe and Omar al-Bashir of Sudan were not invited. ...... Kenya's president Uhuru Kenyatta appeared on the guest list because he cooperated with the International Criminal Court over his role in the ethnic bloodletting of 2007-08. ...... Adebayo Alonge, 27, said it will be tough to use the skills he gained at Yale University to grow his business distributing low-cost drugs across Nigeria's countryside.

Saturday, June 06, 2015

The M-Pesa Concept Applied To Voting

Just like the blockchain technology can be used for bitcoins but also for many other things, I believe the basic technology and promise behind the wonderful m-pesa can be leveraged for the cause of democracy in the developing world.

You should be able to vote through SMS. You should be able to participate in internal voting inside political parties. You should be able to use this for what is often called electronic voting. You would reply to a SMS, send 1 for candidate A, send 2 for candidate B and so on.

Mobile phones that do voice calls and text messages are pretty widespread by now. Almost everyone has one.

I believe SMS can also have ecommerce applications.


Why does Kenya lead the world in mobile money?
Paying for a taxi ride using your mobile phone is easier in Nairobi than it is in New York ...... now used by over 17m Kenyans, equivalent to more than two-thirds of the adult population; around 25% of the country’s gross national product flows through it. M-PESA lets people transfer cash using their phones, and is by far the most successful scheme of its type on earth. Why does Kenya lead the world in mobile money? ...... Once you have signed up, you pay money into the system by handing cash to one of Safaricom’s 40,000 agents (typically in a corner shop selling airtime), who credits the money to your M-PESA account. You withdraw money by visiting another agent, who checks that you have sufficient funds before debiting your account and handing over the cash. You can also transfer money to others using a menu on your phone. Cash can thus be sent one place to another more quickly, safely and easily than taking bundles of money in person, or asking others to carry it for you. This is particularly useful in a country where many workers in cities send money back home to their families in rural villages. Electronic transfers save people time, freeing them to do other, more productive things instead. ........ M-PESA has since been extended to offer loans and savings products, and can also be used to disburse salaries or pay bills, which saves users further time and money (because they do not need to waste hours queuing up at the bank). One study found that in rural Kenyan households that adopted M-PESA, incomes increased by 5-30%. In addition, the availability of a reliable mobile-payments platform has spawned a host of start-ups in Nairobi, whose business models build on M-PESA’s foundations. Mobile-money schemes in other countries, meanwhile, have been held up by opposition from banks and regulators and concerns over money-laundering.

Wednesday, June 03, 2015

100 Smart Cities, 100 World Class Universities



Modi talked of "100 Smart Cities" on the campaign trail in 2014. In 2019 he should perhaps talk of 100 World Class Universities. A world class university is one where people from all over the world come to study. He should also talk of 100 World Class Hospitals doing cutting edge work that caters not only to domestic needs but also to medical tourism.

India is a big, diverse, rich-poor country where you have to come from the low end, but also from the high end. It has to build toilets, but also missions to Mars. It has to wipe out poverty but also think of creating the industries of tomorrow at the same time. And you can not create the industries of tomorrow without having a stable of world class universities.

A world class university of today will be built around all that is available and possible online. MOOCs will be at the core of it. All journals will be available. Guest lectures will be the norm.

You get NRIs to contribute to the endowment.

India's Goal: $50 Trillion