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Monday, November 20, 2017

India: A Patient’s Bed Head Ticket!

Sad to say that the one area where our record is so patchy, uneven and unsheathing is “Health of India”. To say that progress is at a snail’s pace will almost be an exaggeration – it is much lower than that.

Here is the macro picture. India faces a huge disease burden from communicable diseases such as diarrhoea and tuberculosis, besides she bears the brunt of non-communicable diseases like heart diseases and diabetes. Worse, this health crisis is increased by a widening disparity between India’s relatively more prosperous and poorer states, which can block its demographics dividend. 

Some increase in life expectancy.  It (life expectancy and at birth) has improved from 59.7 years in 1990 to 70 year in 2016 for women. For men, life expectancy increased from 58.3 years to 66.9 years. But here again. State level inequalities are stark, with a range of 66.8 years in Uttar Pradesh to 78.7 years in Kerala for women, and 63.6 years in Assam to 73.8 years in Kerala for men in 2016.
While mortality from communicable diseases has reduced come 53.6% to 27.5 %, Deaths from NCD like heart, Obesity extra problems rose from 37.9 % to 61.8 %.

Some of the more prosperous states life Goa, Tamil Nadu and Kerala contribute the largest share of NCDs. These include diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, mental health and neurological disorders, cancers, cardiovascular diseases, chronic kidney diseases and musculoskeletal disorders.

In contrast, malnutrition continues to be a curse in some the poorer states, also called the Empowered action group (EAG) like Chhattisgarh. Bihar, Madhya Pradesh. Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Odisha, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Assam. There is a higher incidence of malnutrition among women.

The contribution of non-communicable diseases to health loss, fuelled by unhealthy diets, high blood pressure, blood sugar and overweight, has doubled in India over the past two decades. Air pollution and tobacco smoking continue to be major contributors to health loss.

It’s better not to talk about our infant mortality, female mortality or stunting of children under age 5, where we are even behind some of our neighbouring countries life Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Unless state governments set aside a significant portion of their budgets (like Kerala, Tamil Nadu etc.) towards health education and social services for the next one decade, we will continue to languish as a “poor health nation”. Let us hope that our politicians will get enlightenment sooner than later!



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Prof. K. K. Krishnan
Chairperson - CCR &
Prof. Centre for Insurance & Risk Management
Birla Institute of Management Technology

Saturday, September 23, 2017

Vanishing Opportunity

Thus the promise of demographic divined for India is fading fast. We are a country with 50% of its population below aged 26 but we rank very low on the global human capital index. This indicates that India’s not able to make use of its human resource. China, on the other hand, does a far better job in developing its human capital which has helped it to emerge as a strong economic power.

There are many worrying data points such as period children spend in school. The American kids spend 13.6 mean years in school wereas the Chinese and India children spend 7.9 and 5.8 years respectively. India’s has a smaller proportion of population working or looking for work (52.5%), while the Chinese have 70.7% and the US has 62.8%. The youth not in employment, education or training in India is a high 72.5%. Our public spending on education is only 3.8% as compared to 5.4% US.  

We have a grim job situation looming ahead of jobless growth. A sea of negative numbers is coming to light. Manufacturing, which accounts for 18% of the GDP and which directly employs 12% of the population, could have absorbed the growing number of young persons had they been trained technically. The problem of unemployment is looming day by day and is getting worse because of the India economy’s inability to generate jobs to those who entre the labour market. Even our youth literacy rate of 89% is well behind other leading emerging markets. India also has the world’s largest employment gender gap.

Even though many who are making policies are aware of these facts, we have not seen any concerted effort to retain the demographic dividend. This calls for joint action between the centre and the states. Since no one feels the felt need to do anything about it, the buck is being passed around and bandaids like the formation skilled development ministry with poor leadership are done half – heartedly. Time had come to deal with the issue on a mission mode. A joint central – state high power body of eminent and experienced people with executive powers should be set up with defined outcome target. Without concrete measures, the many advantages of being a young nation with the nodal age of 27 years would be lost forever. 


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Prof. K. K. Krishnan
Chairperson - CCR &
Prof. Centre for Insurance & Risk Management
Birla Institute of Management Technology

Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Artificial Intelligence is the New Electricity

AI or artificial Intelligence has evoked great interest among all sections of society, especially the academic and business world. Andrew Ng of Stanford University and currently with Baidu is one of the foremost authorities and evangelists of the concept. The following matter is derived from his recent presentations at various fora.

About a century ago, electricity truly revolutionised our living. It replaced steam power machine with electric machines, transportation was transformed, manufacturing, agriculture, healthcare etc also got transformed. Now self - driving is the new industry built on AI. The others are search engines, food delivery etc.

AI is driving tremendous economic value, easily in the billions. And this is only by one type of AI – one idea. The technical term for this is called Supervised Learning, which uses AI to figure out a relatively simple A to B mapping, or A to B response. For example, a system determining whether an email is spam or not, or determining the objects in an image. Another example would be a system that takes in an audio clip and outputs a transcript of what was said.

Today’s AI still very limited compared to human intelligence. “Anything that a typical human can do with at most 1 sec of thought, can probably now or soon be automated with AI.”
AI is certain to affect the job market, the early signs of which are now manifest.

What are major trends in AI?

The earlier generation of AI software and Machine Learning algorithms have been slowing down. However, because of Moore’s law and the utilization of GPUs, even if a Neural network is fed a small amount of data, its performance far surpasses that of traditional algorithms. Now the leading edge in Ai research is shifting to supercomputers or HPCs (High performance Computing).
The magic thing about Neural Network is that you do not need to worry about the output of intermediate layers, because it can figure them out by itself. Part of the magic is when you have enough data, it can figure out a lot of things by itself. All the smarts in a neural network comes from us giving it tons of data.

Some of the exciting opportunities of AI are in the field of speech recognition, facial recognition healthcare, radiology and education.

Ai has had several winters before, but it has passed into the phase of eternal spring!



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Prof. K. K. Krishnan
Chairperson - CCR &
Prof. Centre for Insurance & Risk Management
Birla Institute of Management Technology

Thursday, July 6, 2017

MANUFACTURING MAY YET TURN OUT TO BE INDIA’S SAVIOUR

In today’s Business Standard, eminent commentator and analyst, Mr. A. V. Rajwade has written on the above subject drawing attention to the fact that without rapid expansion of this sector. Fast and consistent growth of Indian economy is unlikely in the near future if manufacturing does not take off.

Notwithstanding our signal success in the services sector, the greatest major current requirement is job creation. Adding to the worries is the prospect of IT industry which seems to be hazy. So, we need to explore how best we can build on our existing strengths to “grow with jobs”. In the last 70 years, no Asian economy has grown fast and consistently without expanding the its manufacturing sector. The government rightly wants to increase the contribution of the manufacturing sector to 25% of GDP by 2025, from the present stagnant level of 16%.

There are some negative developments in India’s manufacturing sector.  General Motors has recently announced closure.  Lafarge, the international cement giant, has sold its holdings in India. Carns UK is in the grip of tax disputes and may not be investing much hereafter. Nokia also left India because of tax issues.  Posco and Arcelor Mittal seem to have given up the idea of investing in Indian manufacturing. As for the big Indian manufacturers, they seem to be terribly investment shy. Project investments have declined sharply in the first quarter of 2017 – 18.

We, at present, rank 130 out of 193 countries in the World Bank’s rankings in the ease of doing business category. The recently introduced GST might help here in the long run. In the short term, as admitted by the Finance Minister, there may be disturbances in the manufacturing sector with a possible fall in output.

There is also urgent need for larger investment in infrastructure, which are highly capital intensive. They will need public funding. The progress is not very encouraging. The other problem is the decline of bank lending or bank credit going to industry. The main reason is said to be the corrective measures taken by the government with regard to nonperforming assets. Measures like the privatization of loss making public enterprises like Air India needs to be speeded up.
All in all, a total fresh look on the subject needs to be taken collectively by the centre and the states. We may just be running out of time.


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Prof. K. K. Krishnan
Chairperson - CCR &
Prof. Centre for Insurance & Risk Management
Birla Institute of Management Technology

Tuesday, June 6, 2017

GLOBALIZATION HAS A NEW CEO: PEOPLES REPUBLIC OF CHINA

After Donald Trump played the proverbial bull in the China shop, wrecked the Paris Climate Agreement and proclaimed that he was elected to serve the people of Pittsburgh and not Paris, all hell broke loose. Till then, US leadership was almost taken for granted in all international initiatives either through the UN or other multilateral forums. President Obama after prolonged negotiations with all countries was able to hammer out the contentious principle of countries preventing the rise in the surface temperature sea within a ceiling of 2° centigrade. Trump with his slogan of “America First” and preference for coal and fossil fuels, openly declared that global warming was a hoax and he was dumping the Paris agreement. 

This created grater uncertainties in the world financial and commodity markets. In the context of the prevailing volatility because of Brexit, the EU countries got together fast and decided to stick with the Paris agreement as well as all other international trade arrangements. In a jiffy, the Prime Minister of China, Li Keqiang, may be in his capacity as the representative of the world’s number two economy, flew into Europe and virtually took his due position at the high table of advanced countries, which was foolishly vacated by Donald Trump. Please remember that when the US was around, China was considered as the leader of the only developing countries. The two important European leaders Merkel and Macron of Germany and France jelled swiftly with Li Keqiang and a new global collective leadership seems to have emerged – all thanks to the abdication of the number one slot by Donald Trump.

In terms of its economic and financial clout – it has 10% of the world market share in exports and imports - you can say that China has for all practical purposes become the spokesperson for the globalization on the back of its One Belt One Road transcontinental project. Moreover, China also is the undisputed leader in the 10 – nation trading block of Asean. But for India’s own reluctance to play a prominent role either in the Asean or in the wider modern world and its miniscule share of 1% of the world trade, China has become the undisputed CEO of globalization.

It would be a long haul for India with active ‘Look East’ policy (which is only in name now)  to make its presence felt as a leading Asian trading nation and subsequently as a prominent world trading nation. This could call for decisive, quick international trade and commerce steps and execution on the part of India.

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Prof. K. K. Krishnan
Chairperson - CCR &
Prof. Centre for Insurance & Risk Management
Birla Institute of Management Technology

Friday, May 26, 2017

STORM SIGNALS IN THE BANKING SECTOR

The banking industry in India today presents a confused picture. On the one hand, super regulator Reserve Bank of India has granted bank licenses to 23 fresh applicants such as Aditya Birla Neo more, Reliance Industries, Tech Mahindra, Vodafone Mpesa, Paytm and Airtel. These corporates have to invest Rs. 100 crore each to gain entry into the banking sector.  And on the other, legacy banks, who constitute the majority seem to be on their last leg.

Ironically, the banking companies in the public sector, who constitute more than 70% of its turnover are in dire straits. Reason: unimaginable NPA burden. This ailment is has crippled almost all of the public sector banks. It is estimated that PSU banks have run up an NPA position of Rs. 6, 11, 607 crore as on March 31, 2016. According to a Credit, Suisse estimate, there could be a default on 16-17 per cent of total bank loans by March 31, 2018. Presently, the food and non-food credit stand set Rs. 75, 20, 30 crore. This would add up to about Rs.12 lakh crore of humungous NPAs.

It is in the above context that we have to examine the recent Banking Regulation (Amendment) Ordinance of May 4, 2017, which authorizes the RBI to take decisions on the settlement of NPAs and a consequent cleaning up of bank balance sheets-part of the twin balance sheet problem raised by the government’s Chief Economic Advisor, Dr. Arvind Subramanian.

It is ironical that in the bank boardd which sanctioned such gargantuan loans to corporates like those of Malya and other defaulters, there was a full-fledged representative of the RBI present on all such occasions. Neither the government nor the RBI is talking about what action would be taken against such board members who sanctioned these unviable loans. A colossal failure of good governance.

As a matter of fact, the issue is the parlous nature of India’s corporate debt, as they rely on banks for their main source of funds. 65.7 % of the Indian corporate debt is funded by banks. Large borrowers account for 56% of bank debt and 88% of their NPAs. Of this, 40% of debt lies with companies with an interest coverage ratio of less than one. Almost over half of the debt is owned by firms whose debt equity ratio is more than 150%.

This mess is because of the sanction of loans to corporates who lacked capital as well as expertise, besides of course politically directed instructions.  If the writing off of Rs. 36, 359 crore worth agricultural loans in Uttar Pradesh was bad economics, then the waiving of corporate NPAs would be worse. It looks like that the public sector banks are on a course to self – distraction over a time period with the cycle of continuous re-capitalization and self – perpetuating defaults. This is indeed a sad outcome brought about by greed of capitalists, collusion of the bureaucracy and criminal negligence in supervision  on the part of RBI and the Ministry of Finance. It would appear that we’ve perpetuated a self-serving system of socialization of losses and privatization of gains!

Will this cycle be broken and health restored to the banking system? As of now, the light at the end of the tunnel seems to be that of the oncoming train………..

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Prof. K. K. Krishnan
Chairperson - CCR &
Prof. Centre for Insurance & Risk Management
Birla Institute of Management Technology

Friday, May 12, 2017

IS DATA NEW OIL?

The first industrial revolution ram on coal and steam. The second and third were fuelled by oil and computer chips. The forth industrial revolution, experts tell us, will run on data. In anticipation, one wit coined this aphorism: “In God we trust, but others must carry data!”

It is common when a particular commodity becomes very profitable generating a growing industry antitrust regulators step in to control the players. The titans of data such as Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft will be facing restrictions of some kind of the other, sooner or later. Many feel that they can’t live without Google or Facebook or Microsoft. Looking at this, the regimes in different countries are planning to impose restrictions. Unlike oil companies, these data firms do not seem to be alarmed by this. Old ways of thinking about competition, finalized in the days of oil, will not work now in the ‘data economy’

What has changed?

Smartphones and the internet have led to data riches, making these companies more valuable. Virtually, every activity from the morning jog to TV watching, sitting in traffic can create a digital trace, generating more raw materials for these very same data behemoths. Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques such as machine learning do data mining effectively to extract value from data. We have been reading about algorithms which can predict when a person is ready to buy, or about a car needs servicing or about warning a person that he is at risk from a disease in the future. Legendry companies like GE and Siemens now project themselves as data firms. The benefits from data usages to customer are real.

The data giants offer “God’s eye view” of activities in their own markets and beyond. They can sense when a new product or services gain traction them to copy it or simply buy the startup which makes it before it grows up to be a threat. Potential rivals thus get eliminated by such “shooting acquisitions”.

The earlier remedy was breaking up the giants as they did with Bell, ATT etc. In mergers, whereas in the past the regulators used size to determine when to intervene, but now they need to take into account the extent of firm’s data assets. The purchaser may be trying to eliminate a nascent threat by buying an incumbent. This explains the astronomical sum paid by Facebook for WhatsApp.

Regulators could insist on more transparency. Governments could encourage the rise of new services by opening up more of their own data banks or managing important parts of the data economy as public infrastructure – just like India’s Aadhaar. Europe is taking an approach of sharing of certain kinds of data with user’s consent. 

Rebooting antitrust for the information edge will be difficult.  It may lead to new risks: more data sharing could threaten privacy. The regulators will have to act wisely and with balance.

[Influenced by a recent article in the Economist]

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Prof. K. K. Krishnan
Chairperson - CCR &
Prof. Centre for Insurance & Risk Management
Birla Institute of Management Technology

Wednesday, May 3, 2017

A NATIONAL RESOURCE GROSSLY UNDERUTILIZED

Recently, there was this news item stating that the Government of India has directed all IITs to increase the number of female students to a significant level. The measure has been widely welcomed. Also for the reason that this can dispel the notion girls are not interested in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects.  Like in the calculation of GDP or in the political decision making level, women’s contribution are either not included or their dues denied.

A recent contribution by columnist Mr. Siddharth Pai in the Mint comes up with lot of interesting data on the contribution that woman technologists are making even in areas like code writing and other branches of technology.

Three women, Beth Holmes, Farah Housion and Michelle Riggen-Ransom, all with liberal arts backgrounds, have been named by Wired as among the 20 technology visionaries who are creating the future. These three women are the brains behind the personality of Amazon inc.’s Alexa, which is an artificial intelligence device already used by millions of customers of the technology behemoth. In fact, Alexa was one of the most popular gifts last Christmas season, and continues to sell heavily.

Wired’s citation includes a brief background on the three women: Riggen-Ransom, who holds Master of Fine-Arts in creative writing composes Alexa’s r aw responses. She leads a group of playwrights, poets, fiction authors, and musicians who complete weekly writing exercises that are incorporated into Alexa’s persona. Housion, a psychology graduate specializing in personality science, ensures that those responses fit customer expectations. Holmes, a mathematician with expertise in natural language processing, decides which current events are women into Alexa’s vocabulary, from current sporting league championships such a the Indian Premier League to the Oscars. The common thread is that all three women have been writers.

Look at our own ISRO and the space programme. Lady scientists and engineers have been carrying our very vital functions and duties. As a matter of fact the project director for the Mars project was a woman scientist, Seetha Somasundarm. Some eight brilliant scientists are powering ISRO. They are Minal Sampath, Anuradha TK, Moumita Dutta, Nandini Harinath, Ritu Karidhal, Kriti Faujdar, N Valarmathi and Tessy Thomas. Hail our women scientist.

BIMTECH, I am happy to state has been enjoying a reasonably good male-female ratio among students. It is hovering around 35 per cent which is way higher than many of the IIMs. Another happy fact is that our top merit positions in all streams have been going to girl students over the years. Glad to state that more or less the same male-female ratio prevails in faculty strength. We hope to improve on the ratios to improve our outcomes.

In the land of Rani Laxmi Bai, Sarojni Naidu and Indira Gandhi we should be doing even better!

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Prof. K. K. Krishnan
Chairperson - CCR &
Prof. Centre for Insurance & Risk Management
Birla Institute of Management Technology

Monday, January 23, 2017

BIG (BAD) DATA?

The term Big Data has well and truly muscled into our daily life. Not only data pundits but marketers, psychologists, academics and policy makers try to exploit Big Data for their own ends, which according to the IT industry, is the most important “natural resource” of our time.

The problem with data is that it can be presented in many different ways. The danger lies in the fact that while individual elements of data are immutable, inaggregate, a database can be manipulated to mean different things to different people. This also increases the possibility of drawing false conclusions from data sets.

One of the major areas where Big Data can be manipulated, whether knowingly or otherwise, is in crime prevention in the form of “predictive policing”– using Big Data to identify potential criminals before the commit the crimes. The pitfall here is the historical biases inherent in our criminal databases. For instance, the Pardhis, a notified criminal tribe are rounded up routinely by the police in many northern states whenever there is a crime in the area. Similarly, there are groups of people in other states who fall into such a category. If our computers were to blindly rely on these historical databases, this would reinforce historical biases and force the community into machine – determined discriminations.

A model’s blind spots reflect the judgments and priorities of its creators. Big Data requires fresh discussion of the nature of decision making, destiny, Justice. There is a great danger of mistaking correlations with decision making, if managed wisely. Big Data can offer key insights. Otherwise these weapons of statistics will turn into “weapons of math destruction”. Society needs to tame and disarm them before they mislead the policy makers.

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[Source: articles in Mint dt. January 11, 2017 and The Hindu Business Line dt. 23, 2017]


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Prof. K. K. Krishnan
Chairperson - CCR &
Prof. Centre for Insurance & Risk Management
Birla Institute of Management Technology