[.sushilkumar]

Originally Posted by anonymous

Farmers have no choice but to sell their products in local mandi market which operates as mafia.

What if FDI is implemented.

Local farmers will have choice to sell their products whenever they get high price (Be it local mandi or directly to the big retailers)
Customers have choice to buy product whenever they find cheap and good quality (Be it local kirana shops or these big outlets.
Government will get taxes.

Only time will tell whether farmers will be able to sell directly to likes of Walmart or not But i see little difference coming in the plight of farmers.

We need to understand that farmers are from non organized sectors . The small farmers who go to mandi for selling their produce with continue to do so because like of walmart will prefer to buy from big farmers . Problem is that govt is training every gun on farmers shoulders under the pretext of benefits to farmers. the Truth is that Obama has been facing questions in US for unable to open FDI in India. their own market is more or less saturated and to continue earning they need markets. There is a reason why Mrs Hillary clinton flew to kolkatta to meet Mamta did, than Sonia gandhi went to US Under the pretext of medical checkup and next day FDI got implemented. Some thing is not right.

Coming to farmers plight , every scheme is run by govt for farmers including NREGA But we all know how much they benefited . IMO they are currently struggling and they will continue to struggle in near future until they get organized and form co operatives to deal with middle man. Why govt is not promoting co operative like amul in farming as well . clearly there is a hidden agenda or alas they desperately want Obama to win the US presidential elections .

Some Interesting reading below hosted on NYC govt website.

http://pubadvocate.nyc.gov/news/2011...rden-taxpayers

[apachelongbow]

Originally Posted by samarjitdhar

Why would anybody in the right sense commit to the massive debt of KF while there is no clear vision of how to recoup that debt and make profits? In fact Emirates has said that they would only be interested if KF can work out a debt deal with its lenders. If one were to parse that in real terms, it means if KF can get their lenders to write off their debts. Remember the majority of KF's lenders are PSU banks and if they write off those debts all it would mean is the tax payer is funding KF. That write off would eventually show up as a deficit in the government's balance sheet.

If you were familiar with aviation sector, then you would know that India stands at the crossroads of all the east-west traffic of this globe. We are the natural hub for all transit flights, not Dubai or Singapore. Plus the benefit of a big domestic market which is growing at a minimum of 8-10% yoy. Any airline worth its salt will be hungry to get a slice of the pie, which means right to operate into smaller airports in India and providing international connectivity from there, and also transit halts in India. Once this happens, mark my words, you will see Dubai and Singapore airports almost on the verge of closure.

Other thing regarding KF or any airline, its most valuable assets are not airplanes or ground equipment or office space, these are on lease anyways. It is the manpower. The trained pilots, cabin crew, engineers are ground staff. In the worst of the years too this is a scarce resource. Trained, experienced crew is simply not available. Second big resource is route rights or flying rights. KF smartly has protected all its slots and routes around India and the world. So anyone funding KF today, will be able to operate to all KF destinations immediately. That is the big ticket for any buyer.
8000cr or whatever figure, that is floating around, it includes the interest charges and all other compounding figures. When Emirates or whoever wants to buy in, they will simply ask the Banks to take a haircut. Banks to will be happy to recover the capital, forget the interest.
Mallya is one smart cookie. He is quietly working in the background, syncing with the banks, the potential buyer and ensuring that he will walk to his bank laughing. Why else would it make sense for Mallya to try all kind of antics to keep KF afloat? Airlines have shut shop in the past, so its not a big deal. Without Mallya's intense lobbying the FDI wouldnt have come through!!


Regarding KF share price, if people wanted to raise prices to dump the shares, then we should have seen rapid selling (by promoters) when stock price rose from Rs8/share to Rs17/share. Which has not happened. Hence the share price is in sentiment with something big happening behind closed doors. People have bought the shares and are waiting.

[sgiitk]

Originally Posted by Daewood

That's what the minister of PMO has been parroting for a long time but has shunned away from naming anyone specifically. The issue for the activists and local populace is the secrecy around the plant and the protection of the Russian Operator form the liabilities act. If Kudankulam is USA's instigation who is behind the Jaitapur agitation which is a French plant?

1.Remember Koodankulam deal was signed when India was a nuclear pariah. Beggars cannot be choosers. What prompted the nuclear deal was that Russia was eager to sell more, NSG be d*&êd.

2. Read my earlier post, I never mentioned the US / Russia rivalry.

[samarjitdhar]

Originally Posted by apachelongbow

Other thing regarding KF or any airline, its most valuable assets are not airplanes or ground equipment or office space, these are on lease anyways. It is the manpower. The trained pilots, cabin crew, engineers are ground staff. In the worst of the years too this is a scarce resource. Trained, experienced crew is simply not available. Second big resource is route rights or flying rights. KF smartly has protected all its slots and routes around India and the world. So anyone funding KF today, will be able to operate to all KF destinations immediately. That is the big ticket for any buyer.
8000cr or whatever figure, that is floating around, it includes the interest charges and all other compounding figures. When Emirates or whoever wants to buy in, they will simply ask the Banks to take a haircut. Banks to will be happy to recover the capital, forget the interest.
Mallya is one smart cookie. He is quietly working in the background, syncing with the banks, the potential buyer and ensuring that he will walk to his bank laughing. Why else would it make sense for Mallya to try all kind of antics to keep KF afloat? Airlines have shut shop in the past, so its not a big deal. Without Mallya's intense lobbying the FDI wouldnt have come through!!

Well only time would tell. If Mr. Mallya was that smart a cookie his airlines would not have not come to such a pass that they have not been able to pay his staff for the last six months. This in a situation where the other airlines have turned around their business so I guess considering Mr. Mallya smart would need some handfuls of salt. Obviously we are all entitled to our opinions but what is playing out and the preferential treatment being demanded and extracted by Mr. Mallya is nothing but seems to be crony capitalism at play. Its just probably his political links which is saving him from harsher action from the DGCA and the government while apparently he is putting lives of passenger at risk by trying to operate an airline while pushing the envelope wherever he can.

[faustus77]

Hi everybody
Following is an excerpt from mr.Gopinath's(founder deccan aviation) in the economic times dated 1/10/2012.
"Why this hypocrisy from the opposition? You only have to go to fivestar hotels or watering holes like India Habitat Centre where you see most opposition politicians from extreme right to rabid left, getting off their SUVs, scotch in their hands, haranguing about how foreign companies are destroying Indian culture and taking away Indian jobs.
Opposition parties propose policy changes when in power and oppose without batting an eyelid when in opposition. So, the moot point is: how do you hold them accountable"
The link for the full article,titled"FDI,the opposition and hypocrisy" is as under
http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Defau...&ViewMode=HTML
Regards

[RS_DEL]

Originally Posted by samarjitdhar

Well only time would tell. If Mr. Mallya was that smart a cookie his airlines would not have not come to such a pass that they have not been able to pay his staff for the last six months. This in a situation where the other airlines have turned around their business so I guess considering Mr. Mallya smart would need some handfuls of salt. Obviously we are all entitled to our opinions but what is playing out and the preferential treatment being demanded and extracted by Mr. Mallya is nothing but seems to be crony capitalism at play. Its just probably his political links which is saving him from harsher action from the DGCA and the government while apparently he is putting lives of passenger at risk by trying to operate an airline while pushing the envelope wherever he can.

Yes this man is extra smart!!

He has borrowed huge sums of money based on guarantees if the news reports on this are accurate. The enforcability of such guarantees is moot at best. So we have huge lendings to a private sector Page 3 big shot from public sector lenders who will bloody well collect pennies on the dollar.


Mind you all of these lendings by these public sector behemoths were all in the name of job creation and furthering of aviation services to the hinterland!!

Who the bloody hell says we are not as bad as the yankeeland banksters who did the MBS scam?

[tj123]

Originally Posted by faustus77

Hi everybody
Following is an excerpt from mr.Gopinath's(founder deccan aviation) in the economic times dated 1/10/2012.
The link for the full article,titled"FDI,the opposition and hypocrisy" is as under
http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Defau...&ViewMode=HTML
Regards

Thanks Faustus77 !

Superb article by Capt. Gopinath, very well written, should be read by one and all

[samarjitdhar]

Originally Posted by RS_DEL

Who the bloody hell says we are not as bad as the yankeeland banksters who did the MBS scam?

Oh we are much more than that. There is a huge lack of ethics in every sphere of our lives and the corporations in India seem to be giving our politicos a fitting run.

Originally Posted by RS_DEL

Yes this man is extra smart!!

He has borrowed huge sums of money based on guarantees if the news reports on this are accurate. The enforcability of such guarantees is moot at best. So we have huge lendings to a private sector Page 3 big shot from public sector lenders who will bloody well collect pennies on the dollar.

The way things are heading south for this guy I doubt there will be any pennies left to collect even in the fire sale that is going to follow. Just read that he has now pledged his ancestral properties as collateral. His late father must be squirming in heaven. This guy mistakenly thought that he could be the Richard Branson of India. I wonder how much he has fed the politicos to keep their hands off him even while he paid his way into the Rajya Sabha.

The moot point is if the public sector lending institutions lose money it is the tax payers indirectly who have to foot the bill for this massive loss. This guy somehow arm-twisted SBI through his political contacts to lend him more and more and now SBI is in a pretty big hole on KF. This is exactly what crony capitalism is. Privatize their profits, socialize their losses. Unfortunately that has become the new mantra under the guise of the new buzzwords.

Originally Posted by RS_DEL

Mind you all of these lendings by these public sector behemoths were all in the name of job creation and furthering of aviation services to the hinterland!!

While they are not even able to run their flights between metro cities now, forget the hinterland . Most of the vaunted crew of KF have left actually contrary to popular belief. I read that many of them have joined the hospitality industry now. If someone believes that Emirates is going to rescue KF then that person is living in a fool's paradise. Even if KF holds rights to certain lucrative sectors its not that Emirates does not operate those sectors. They are already running pretty well. Its a downward spiral now converted into a self-fulfilling prophecy. While Mallya throws everything to see if he can rescue KF what is it turning out is he is now throwing his wooden furniture to dowse the fire. We really don't need FDI in aviation now, rather an IMF rescue is called for .

[sgiitk]

I fully agree with Gopinath. One small comment - he BJP has the small traders as their major supporter pool (it is not form nothing that they used to called the Bania-Brahmin party). However, I am not too sure whether they will stick with this once they are back in power. It is like like VAT-GST, they proposed it but do not want the congress to take the credit.

This business of elections all the time is a big pain, I think they should again put the central and state elections i synch.

[samarjitdhar]

To those who want to deny evidence about KF in the face of it here are some notable quotes

An aviation analyst said: "Last year itself, we had predicted that Kingfisher is an absolutely sick company and it should be shut down. One year later, we come to the same conclusion, the airline is dying a very painful death. It has been kept alive because of the personalities, the huge debt involved. Had it been a pharmaceutical company or any other sector, the company would have been shut down by now. In the process much more government and public money is being frittered away.''

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/b...w/16648505.cms

Now for the swell part from the above article

"The airline has bank loans worth Rs 8000 crore, these are public sector banks, the lead banker is State Bank of India. Each bank will have to write-off Rs 1000 or Rs 800 crore. No one is willing to bite the bullet. Every one is hoping it will shut down on its own,'' he added.

Whoa. Would SBI write off my home loan and allow me to continue staying in my house? Why such special treatment for Mr. Mallya?

For the lenders, the lockout is another loud warning that recovering their funding to the beleaguered carrier may not be easy. KFA has looked a "doubtful asset" and, in any case, almost all the banks would have been forced to hike this quarter the provisioning, or the funds they set aside for a potential loss.

The "doubtful asset" categorization marks the steady downgrading of the credit-worthiness of a once marquee airline. Last year, the "sub-standard" tag was slapped on KFA after it failed to settle dues once bank guarantees were invoked. The latest categorization would mean the doubling of provisioning to 30%.

SBI already has set aside Rs 1,300 crore for potential losses, two senior bank executives told TOI. The move has already led to an agonizing debate within banking circles over the due diligence that was carried out before bailing out the airline.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/b...w/16648846.cms

Exactly. Where are the auditors? Or is this another scam like Satyam/Maytas? Not even the auditors at SBI raised their red flags? I am pretty much sure the auditors of the KF group are way beyond culpability. Crony capitalism at its sublime best.

Singh had on Monday suggested that since Kingfisher engineers were on strike, the airline could get its aircraft certified for flying by other certified engineers.

Following this, the airline, which has a fleet of Airbus aircraft, was understood to have initiated discussions with Air India and IndiGo to utilise their certified engineers to check their fleet. However, no firm agreements have yet been arrived at, airline sources said.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/b...w/16638475.cms

And I fail to understand why such preferential treatment for Mr. Mallya? Would the government bend over backwards for other businesses like this? Now I have started believing the concept for "free market" is just an oxymoron as nothing in life is free.

[murillo]

Originally Posted by apachelongbow

Mallya is one smart cookie. He is quietly working in the background, syncing with the banks, the potential buyer and ensuring that he will walk to his bank laughing. Why else would it make sense for Mallya to try all kind of antics to keep KF afloat? Airlines have shut shop in the past, so its not a big deal. Without Mallya's intense lobbying the FDI wouldnt have come through!!

I have a different take on this. I think Mallaya wants to get out without any injury. He wants the banks to write off his debts and Kingfirsher Airlines closed. However, he wants to force the government or regulator to close his airlines down so he can claim victimhood and say he could have revived his airlines but others did not allow him to - and then wash his hands off of this matter. Unfortunately the goverment and regulators are not obliging him. Someone, put this guy out of his misery .

[faustus77]

Hi everybody.
Since Mallya/Kingfisher has been subject of some posts I would like to add a bit more about how the taxpayer has suffered.
SBI,IDBI,ICICI converted a part of their loan to equity and that too at a premium to the market price (sometime before 6th april)(market price less than rs 40 and conversion price more than rs 64)KF prices are down further,rs 14 as of 4th oct.
They were arm twisted to convert.
To that extent the share price reflects this loss which is shared by all of us indians(Indian government being the largest shareholder in SBI,IDBI) and more so for me since I hold shares of all the 3 banks.
Regards

[Wild Phoenix]

Hello everyone,

I read last few posts and I would like to add my two bits to the KFA saga.
It seems mostly everyone is interested to see KFA shutting down. Everyone thinks that it's good if Mr. Mallya shuts down his aviation business. But no one is realizing the impact it's going to have on us - the customers. People are pointing finger at how they have multi crore debt but do you realize that till the time KFA was afloat, the airline prices were in check? It's almost as if they were flying us at subsidized rate and as a result all the other airlines had to keep their prices low to stay competitive.

I have traveled extensively via KFA and IMO, KFA provided the best service in India. Not talking about the hot air hostesses. That too. But besides that, the food, customer care, in-flight entertainment, et all. have been absolutely satisfactory for me.
And no, I am not a KF representative or employee.

Speaking of employees, yes, I do feel sorry for those who haven't got their salaries since months. But contrary to most people, I'm honestly sad to see KFA getting grounded. It's not just bad for loyal customers who've been satisfied with their service, it's bad overall for everyone who flies. All the other airlines are making a killing thanks to KFA going down and have increased air tickets significantly in the false pretext of fuel costs. Of course, fuel prices has gone up, but not enough to make them increase their ticket prices 40-50%. When KFA grounded, there was a deficit of 15-20% air seats. This meant, supply (of air seats) decreased and demand (passengers) is ever increasing - first law of economics.

And for those arguing how public money will go in saving the airline, if the govt. decides to jump in and rescue the airline, don't forget that even IF that does happen, it'll be for good. Rescuing KFA is any day a better deal than rescuing Air India. Govt. helping out repaying KFA's debt is more sensible than Praful Patel splurging cash shopping for Boeing Dreamliner & dozens of other jumbos without any plan-of-action regarding the planes it already has which are sitting in bay for 12-16hrs and paying parking duties for no reasons whatsoever.

[harishpr]

Originally Posted by Wild Phoenix

Hello everyone,

I read last few posts and I would like to add my two bits to the KFA saga.
It seems mostly everyone is interested to see KFA shutting down. Everyone thinks that it's good if Mr. Mallya shuts down his aviation business. But no one is realizing the impact it's going to have on us - the customers. People are pointing finger at how they have multi crore debt but do you realize that till the time KFA was afloat, the airline prices were in check? It's almost as if they were flying us at subsidized rate and as a result all the other airlines had to keep their prices low to stay competitive.

I have traveled extensively via KFA and IMO, KFA provided the best service in India. Not talking about the hot air hostesses. That too. But besides that, the food, customer care, in-flight entertainment, et all. have been absolutely satisfactory for me.
And no, I am not a KF representative or employee.

Speaking of employees, yes, I do feel sorry for those who haven't got their salaries since months. But contrary to most people, I'm honestly sad to see KFA getting grounded. It's not just bad for loyal customers who've been satisfied with their service, it's bad overall for everyone who flies. All the other airlines are making a killing thanks to KFA going down and have increased air tickets significantly in the false pretext of fuel costs. Of course, fuel prices has gone up, but not enough to make them increase their ticket prices 40-50%. When KFA grounded, there was a deficit of 15-20% air seats. This meant, supply (of air seats) decreased and demand (passengers) is ever increasing - first law of economics.

And for those arguing how public money will go in saving the airline, if the govt. decides to jump in and rescue the airline, don't forget that even IF that does happen, it'll be for good. Rescuing KFA is any day a better deal than rescuing Air India. Govt. helping out repaying KFA's debt is more sensible than Praful Patel splurging cash shopping for Boeing Dreamliner & dozens of other jumbos without any plan-of-action regarding the planes it already has which are sitting in bay for 12-16hrs and paying parking duties for no reasons whatsoever.

Your point of view makes sense to those flying regularly. But why must all Indians (majority of them not flying even once in lifetime) bear the cost of saving KFA. This holds good for AI as well.
When private sector makes profit, it's shared with its shareholders only;but when they start making heavy loss and get close to bankruptcy, shouldn't the loss be limited to those shareholders.?? Why should general public bear the loss, an let their tax money used.

[carboy]

Originally Posted by Wild Phoenix

People are pointing finger at how they have multi crore debt but do you realize that till the time KFA was afloat, the airline prices were in check? It's almost as if they were flying us at subsidized rate and as a result all the other airlines had to keep their prices low to stay competitive.

Big deal. Tomorrow, if I start buying vadapavs at 8 Rs & sell them at 5 Rs to keep vadapav prices in check, will you recommend that Govt bail me out?


When Airline industry was first opened up, a lot of airlines used to offer fabulous service at low prices - East West, ModiLuft, Damania, NEPC, Archana etc. Most of them failed.

And from my point of view, KF ruined everything by buying a great airline (Air Deccan) and running it to the ground. Deccan was cheap, provided decent service & actually kept lower end prices in check while making a profit. I, for one, hope KF closes down and Mallya is also sued by banks, shareholders for running his business to the ground. If he is bailed out with public money, it will just mean that rich guys can just take my tax money and do what they want with it.