Some of the biggest mistakes in the history of INDIA.

Hi…..
It’s very long since I have posted any topic. I’m back with something informative regarding the history of INDIA. It’s very important for us to know our history, but this bleady society and educational system doesn’t give us the opportunity or leaves any chance to get to know about the various happenings in politics not only in the past but also in the present. I’m here to share some information regarding our past which many of us don’t know and which is very essential for every one of us.
According to me, some of the major drawbacks of our country, why our present Indo-Pak “Kashmir” problem is going on, is because of this. I would like to tell u about some of the historical events. Once lets recap what it had been going on, at the time of independence. During that time, we were celebrating independence and merging of all the 586 princely states have been taking place for the formation of INDIA.
Some of the important events which have taken place in sequence were like
· At that time In the elections were taking place, ,the iron man of India, SARDAR VALLABHAI PATEL has won the majority of the seats but JAWAHARLAL NEHRU has been made the prime minister, Gandhiji has made PATEL to absolutely resign for the post and made NEHRU, who’s lovable to him as the Prime Minister. Even this is thought as, for the good of the country, as PATEL is assumed to be a HINDU PATRIOTIST, who was if made as the prime minister at that time, may have deteriorated the hindu-muslim relations.
· PATEL was at that time busy merging all the princely states and Kashmir state has also been made independent. He has efficiently tried his best, using all his skills and merged all princely states into one. Kashmir was still independent and was given the option to join India, and the Pak has also been given the independence at that juncture, so Kashmir has to join anyone. But in the meanwhile Mohammad Ali Jinnah was looking desperately for power and Kashmir, so he made an attempt to take over Kashmir by taking the help of afghan soldiers backed by Pakistani troops. Then having no other chance, the Kashmir King had to come in contract with PATEL for getting saved from the troops. So the Indian troops which have already landed in Kashmir had taken the control over there and started kicking the armed troops away back, this was continued till Lahore, it was then supposed that if we had battled for one more day may, we might have taken complete control over Pakistan but Nehru has ordered our troops to backoff. if this wouldn’t have been happened Pakistan wouldn’t have been there now.
· Indian army which had to back off, has been followed by Pakistani army and they came approaching till the place, what is now called as POK, ” The Pak occupied Kashmir”. if the army had not given the chance of entering into the Indian territory, that POK also would also have been under our control.
· Nehru, then has announced in radio to give the opportunity for Kashmir people to either join India or Pak, which can be regarded as the big mistake. As it was given the chance to decide, all the other princely states which have been merged into the present India, should also have been given the choice,which was done in vain.
· To add to this big blunder, NEHRU has made this issue of Kashmir worldwide, by sending it to the UNITED NATIONS. But we were quite lucky at the juncture, that we had an efficient external affairs minister, who had spoken about this issue for about 11hours and defended ourself very well .The UN delegates had to decide on this, but as India has been evolving into one of the major developing countries in the world, the UN had kept this issue aside and nothing has been decided on it till date.

Experts views regarding the tech industry

The global IT market

Market is still growing, although barely IDC predicts the slowest IT markets will be the United States, Japan and Western Europe, which all will experience around 1 percent growth. The healthiest economies will be in Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.
Similarly, Gartner's worst-case scenario for 2009 is that IT spending will increase 2.3 percent, according to a report released in mid-October. Gartner said the U.S. tech industry will be flat. Hardest hit will be Europe, where IT expenditures are expected to shrink in 2009.
Overall, Gartner said global IT spending will reach $3.8 trillion in 2008, up from $3.15 trillion in 2007.
"We expect a gradual recovery throughout 2010, and by 2011 we should be back into a more normal kind of environment," said IDC Analyst Stephen Minton. If the recession turns out to be deeper or last longer than four quarters as most economics expect, "it could turn into a contraction in IT spending," Minton added. "In that case, the IT market would still be weak in 2010 but we'd see a gradual recovery in 2011, and we'd be back to normal by 2012."

It's not as bad as 2001
Even the grimmest predictions for global IT spending during the next two years aren't as severe as the declines the tech industry experienced between 2001 and 2003.
"Global economic problems are impacting IT budgets, however the IT industry will not see the dramatic reductions that were seen during the dot.com bust. . . . At that time, budgets were slashed from mid-double-digit growth to low-single-digit growth," Gartner said in a statement.
Gartner said the reason IT won't suffer as badly in 2009 as it did during the 2001 recession is that "operations now view IT as a way to transform their businesses and adopt operating models that are leaner. . . . IT is embedded in running all aspects of the business."
"This time around, none of that is true," Minton said. "Today, there isn't a glut of bandwidth. There is high utilization of software applications, which are purchased in a more modular way and integrated much faster into business operations. Unlike in 2001, companies aren't waking up to find that they should be cutting back on IT spending. They're only cutting back on new initiatives because of economic conditions."
"We're anxious about whether the economy will resemble what the most pessimistic economists are saying or the more mainstream economists," Minton said. "But we don't see any reason that it will turn into a disaster like 2001. It shouldn’t get anywhere near that bad."

A recession is a good time to get on with studies
Not only can you duck a possible layoff, but returning to college can help you gain useful new skills that could boost both your employability and your paycheck.
Career Advancement: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that well-learned workers generally gross more annual pay than less-educated employees. While people who only have high-school diplomas earn an average yearly salary of around $31,000, for example, employees with doctoral degrees garner a mean annual pay of about $75,000.
When researching possible degree paths, seek out programs that can improve your skills in your chosen field . If you work in middle management, for example, a Master's in Business Administration (MBA) program could help you catapult into a senior management position. Paralegals or legal secretaries might look into advanced law degree programs, including human rights law, commercial law, and international property law. A medical assistant could upgrade his or her paycheck by gaining certification as a registered nurse (RN). But remember, advanced training doesn't just increase the salary; it can also lead to more job responsibility, increased workplace challenges, and higher career satisfaction.

Reasons for Economic Slowdown

History:
In order to understand what is now happening in the world economy, we need to go a little back in past and understand what was happening in the housing sector of America for past many years.
Initially in US, a boom in the housing sector was driving the economy to a new level. A combination of low interest rates and large inflows of foreign funds helped to create easy credit conditions where it became quite easy for people to take home loans, the demands for property increased and fueled the home prices further. As it was a good time and property prices were soaring, the only aim of most lending institutions and mortgage firms was to give loans to as many potential customers as possible. Since almost everybody was driving by the greed factor during that housing boom period, the common sense practice of checking the customer’s repaying capacity was also ignored in many cases. These types of loans were known as sub-prime loans as those were are not part of prime loan market (as the repaying capacity of the borrowers was doubtful).Since the demands for homes were at an all time high, many homeowners used the increased property value to refinance their homes with lower interest rates and take out second mortgages against the added value (of home) to use the funds for consumer spending. The lending companies also lured the borrowers with attractive loan conditions where for an initial period the interest rates were low (known as adjustable rate mortgage (ARM). However, despite knowing that the interest rates would increase after an initial period, many sub-prime borrowers opted for them in the hope that as a result of soaring housing prices they would be able to quickly refinance at more favorable terms.
Blow out….:
However, as the saying goes, “No boom lasts forever”, the housing bubble was to burst eventually. Overbuilding of houses during the boom period finally led to a surplus inventory of homes, causing home prices to decline beginning from the summer of 2006. Once housing prices started depreciating in many parts of the U.S., refinancing became more difficult. Home owners, who were expecting to get a refinance on the basis of increased home prices, found themselves unable to re-finance and began to default on loans as their loans reset to higher interest rates and payment amounts. In the US, an estimated 8.8 million homeowners - nearly 10.8% of total homeowners - had zero or negative equity as of March 2008, meaning their homes are worth less than their mortgage. This provided an incentive to “walk away” from the home than to pay the mortgage. . During 2007, nearly 1.3 million U.S. housing properties were subject to foreclosure activity. Increasing foreclosure rates and unwillingness of many homeowners to sell their homes at reduced market prices significantly increased the supply of housing inventory available.Sales volume (units) of new homes dropped by 26.4% in 2007 as compare to 2006. Further, a record nearly four million unsold existing homes were for sale including nearly 2.9 million that were vacant.
Complication of the issue….:
For original lenders these subprime loans were very lucrative part of their investment portfolio as they were expected to yield a very high return in view of the increasing home prices. Since, the interest rate charged on subprime loans was about 2% higher than the interest on prime loans (owing to their risky nature); lenders were confidant that they would get a handsome return on their investment. In case a sub-prime borrower continued to pay his loans installment, the lender would get higher interest on the loans. And in case a sub-prime borrower could not pay his loan and defaulted, the lender would have the option to sell his home (on a high market price) and recovered his loan amount. In both the situations the Sub-prime loans were excellent investment options as long as the housing market was booming. Just at this point, the things started complicating.
The subprime loan market became a fast growing segment. Major (American and European) investment banks and institutions heavily bought these loans (known as Mortgage Backed Securities, MBS) to diversify their investment portfolios. Most of these loans were brought as parts of CDOs (Collateralized Debt Obligations).
Owing to heavy buying of Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS) of subprime loans by major American and European Banks, the problem, which was to remain within the confines of US propagated into the word’s financial markets. Ideally, the MBS were a very attractive option as long as home prices were soaring in US. However, when the home prices started declining, the attractive investments in Subprime loans become risky and unprofitable. As the home prices started declining in the US, sub-prime borrowers found themselves in a messy situation,the lending companies, which were hoping to sell them and recover the loan amount, found them in a situation where loan amount exceeded the total cost of the house. Eventually, there remained no option but to write off losses on these loans.
Havoc in the Banks….:
Global banks and brokerages have had to write off an estimated $512 billion in subprime losses so far, with the largest hits taken by Citigroup ($55.1 billion) and Merrill Lynch ($52.2 billion). A little over half of these losses, or $260 billion, have been suffered by US-based firms, $227 billion by European firms and a relatively modest $24 billion by Asian ones. The crisis has also seen

• Lehman Brothers - the fourth largest investment bank in the US and the one which had survived every major upheaval for the past 158 years - file for bankruptcy.
• Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, two giant mortgage companies of US, have effectively been nationalized to prevent them from going under.
• Reports suggest that insurance major AIG (American Insurance Group) is also under severe pressure and has so far taken over $82.9 billion so far to tide over the crisis.

Since banks and other financial institutes are like backbone for other major industries and provide them with investment capital and loans, a loss in the net capital of banks meant a serious detriment in their capacity to disburse loans for various businesses and industries.
Money Market Status :
Money Market is actually an inter-bank market where banks borrow and lend money among themselves to meet short-term need for funds. Banks usually never hold the exact amount of cash that they need to disburse as credit. The ‘inter-bank’ market performs this critical role of bringing cash-surplus and cash-deficit banks together .The inter-bank market got frozen and shrank as a result and this began to hurt the flow of funds to the ‘real’ economy. The liquidity crunch in the banks has resulted in a tight situation where it has become extremely difficult even for top companies to take loans for their needs. The meltdown in stock markets across the world is a victim of this contagion.

• Governments and central banks (like Fed in US) are trying every trick in the book to stabilize the markets.
• They have pumped hundreds of billions of dollars into their money markets to try and unfreeze their inter-bank and credit markets.

None of this has stabilized the global markets so far. However, it is hoped that proper monitoring and controlling of the money market will eventually control the situation.