30/12/2016
Wishing all my friends a very happy new year 2017, while feeling the impressions of 2016....some of which are going to be firm to leave long lasting marks.....
Impressions 2016
Year-end nears and we always look-back & feel like how quickly the year passed this time!
Yes…time has come to bid “Alvida 2016”. A lot happened this year, building upon my last article, I really love to reflect my thoughts as ‘how 2016 going to impact Indian society’.
Just like heavyweight Bollywood productions usually released near/in last quarter each year considering festivity & holiday mood in India; following same patterns 3 big impactful disruptions happened late this year, which will not only leave long lasting impressions for years to come but also transform Indian civil society, these are: -
1. Indian army surgical strike across border (September 2016)
2. Reliance Jio launch (September 2016)
3. Demonetization (November 2016)
On 29th September 2016, The Indian Army conducted surgical strikes on terror launch pads across the Line of Control in a fitting response to Pakistan sponsored terror attacks on Uri army base.
Indian community was amazed on above news break (and I am sure world community as well) with wondering comments as “Surgical strikes in Pakistan by the Indian army? Never heard of them,”.
Traditionally India always displayed restrained & perseverance against Pak sponsored terror missionaries; and never crossed LoC (since after 1971 Indo-Pak war) not even during recent Siachen & Kargil conflicts, so keeping sanctity of LoC. Incidentally, India was maintaining high moral ground for last few decades on bases of ‘If you do to Pakistan what it does to you, you will become like Pakistan,’.
On other hand, Pakistan, on receiving heavy reputation damages from world community after Mumbai attacks killing many civilians; was now trying to ensure that it did not harm Indian civilians but instead launched several attacks focused on Indian military and police installations. This leaves Indian army with no option but to strike terrorists inside their own homes, crossing LoC.
Having justified the Indian reaction, how is it going to impact us? In short run, on minus side, the people in border area got the immediate impact in terms of human & emotional casualties resulting from cross border shelling and village evacuations. On plus side, India’s information and psychological campaign has put Islamabad under pressure & Pakistan feel secluded from world community absorbing reputation damages again. In long run, India resolved to keep Islamabad always on heels on issue of harboring terrorism. In long run, there are increased changes of escalations along LoC impacting civilians on both sides of border. Taking benefit of situation and emotions of Kashmir people, Pakistan may seed & harvest new generations of terrorists from land of Kashmir. I do not see any special need to focus on nuclear threat here, as in current global political scenario, any nuclear equipped nation can intend trigger it.
Moving over to next big disruption, rather IT disruption of the year, after much delay Reliance Jio finally made Jio SIM cards available for ‘public sale’ from 5th September 2016, opening “4G-only network” with VoLTE technology. As happened with earlier Ambani’s launch of CDMA network, this time as well, people queue up to buy SIMs & police need to be called in at many places. Reason? … same as last time…. everybody loves monetary benefits, yes Jio SIM data usage is FREE in inaugural months, in fact now extended till next year as well.
Not talking much about 4G broadband technology, as Jio Gyan already spread all over in media, coming over directly to its impact; telecom sector shakes up on launch news itself as market slides down resulting capital losses to all telecom scrips. Message from financial market was loud and clear, Jio going to hit DATA revenues (& ARPU) of rival telecom players; I would not be amazed if we see more consolidation in Telecom operators in year 2017. 100M target by Jio may/will be achieved by subscribers having dual SIMs for now, but let the “day of calling” (when Jio FREE period ends) come, the needle can swing to either side, depending on how well Jio betters “user experience” of new Jio users.
It is well accepted fact worldwide that widespread usage & development of “Broadband” across length, breadth & depth of a country, impacts positively the knowledge-intensive activities, Service & process innovation taking GDP upwards. Looking into economic data plans & best priced smart phones, it is going to be easy ride for Jio in rural market of India which harbors the largest chunk of mobile users in India. This is going to give good boost to Government run Digital initiative, e-governance, jobs & economic activities in rural areas, online services (included in this are e-banking, e-government, online after-sales services, e-commerce, Outsourcing and off-shoring, BPO etc.). The power of DATA/4G has been a moving force in current geo political scenario to increase connectedness across a multitude of platforms. Let us see how it unfolds in 2017!
Moving over to 3rd disruption of 2016 (it is more rightly a revolution or movement) and need no introduction as covered in almost all Media platforms of India…. Yes .. I am talking of Demonetization or Modi Movement. While whole world was engrossed in US election results, on 8th November 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the demonetization of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes. Although it happened earlier (1946 & 1978) also in India, but the scale & way it implemented this time, it is no match at all to previous attempt.
Immediate impact of this was same as last disruption, people queue up but in front of Banks & ATM (& not Jio outlets) to change their Rs.500 & 1000 bills. In short term, demonetization initiative caused a sudden breakdown in India’s commercial ecosystem. Due to liquidity crisis, trade across all facets of the economy was disturbed, cash rich sectors like agriculture, fishing, and retail market were virtually shut down. The poor were taken totally off guard as they do not have access to banking infrastructure in deep pockets of rural India. The “tech class” having good exposure to banks & online payments, could recover early. Although people appreciated the good intentions behind demonetization, what they only question is its way of implementation.
Now cashless transactions (online payment tools like RuPay, UPI & PayTM apps) have been encouraged by discounting across the board, which may rid India of its massive shadow economy run by black money; in a long run. Another long term impact, with black money going out of system will be prices of real estate may fall drastically, which will make real estate more affordable for honest people. Please note that only 6% of illegal assets are held as currency notes. So there is REAL ‘lot’ in property & gold. Black money used to do deals with politicians to buy favorable treatment, and with judges and police to avoid prosecution. That nexus corrodes the culture into the very core of society. Buying goods and services is a useful economic activity, but bribing officials is bad because it merely transfers the black money - it stays black.
Primarily, in the long run, tax and interest rates are expected to come down as result of higher tax collections. This, in turn, will drive up disposable income & increase in consumer demand. Another great IT change in this will be, India, a cash transaction rich society will start moving over to online transaction rich society, paving way for lot of new business opportunity in financial sectors specifically mobile finance market.
That is all for now, I hope it is good reading for you! Will always look for your valuable feedbacks.
!! AND WISH YOU ALL A VERY HAPPY 2017 !!
