Association of personalities with different brands and its impact
In the past, we have had sports personalities earning money for advertising almost anything; so for example, many very fit sports personalities advertise junk fizzy drinks that do nothing but add empty calories to diets all over, and nobody seems to have objected in the past. It is only now that there seems to be more people expressing an opinion when they see a sports / film or other important personality forming a tie-up with something that may be objectionable. With the advent of more media, and hence the need to form issues out of anything in order to stay ahead, even a slight hint of some kind of improper association is enough to start a campaign – the good point is that this is like a check on how personalities (who are role models for many people) behave; the bad point is that even if there is nothing wrong, the feeding frenzy of the media can create issues out of nothing. Let us consider 2 examples:
- Shahrukh Khan owns a IPL team, the KKR, and is always on the lookout for how to earn more money from advertising and other associations for these teams. He has spent a large amount of money on buying this team, and is entitled to earn money so as to make this a profit-making step. However, he seems to have not done his calculations right in one respect. He tied up with a hosiery brand called ‘Lux Cozi’, and nothing wrong in that. However, this is a brand owned by the Ashok Todi, who is heavily suspected in the death of Rizwanur Rahman (who made the mistake of marrying Todi’s daughter). A protest from residents of Kolkata seems to have stopped the tie-up, although this break-up seems to be restricted to the IPL team, with Shahrukh continuing to remain the brand ambassador.
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Categories: Alliance Tags: Advertisements, Celebrity, Controversy, Endorsements
The gap between the BJP and the Shiv Sena
At one time it seemed that the BJP and the Shiv Sena were natural allies in Maharashtra. Both have similar ideologies, both believe in appealing to Hindu thoughts and promote Hindu revivalism. And further, in the divided politics of Maharashtra, where there are 4 main parties (the Shiv Sena, Congress, BJP, and NCP), it always made sense to have an ally to prevent the division of votes. Further, the 2 parties have strong support bases in different sections of the state, and by themselves would always lag behind the other party alliance.
However, in the last few weeks, there seems to be a sense of division between the parties, with the leaders of both parties willing to criticize the other party. Even in the past, the parties have had some sense of friction, especially in the Presidential elections when a Maratha lady was in the fray, and also when the Shiv Sena became much more energetic in its extremism, especially in earlier times when the Shiv Sena spoke against North Indians (not the same extent though to which Raj Thackeray spoke out against the taking of jobs by North Indian), but they have always agreed to disagree.
Categories: Alliance, Allies, BJP, Maharashtra, Politics Tags: BJP, Maharashtra, Marathi, Nation, Shiv Sena
Price Rise and the politics around it
A couple of years back, there was a sustained push in terms of liquidity in the global system, and as a result, the huge amounts of cash were pushing up the prices of all commodities, resulting in food inflation numbers being high. However, the recession for the past 2 years brought down this excess liquidity in the system to some degree, causing a reduction in the inflation numbers through 2008. But, to combat the poor economic condition and to ensure that the recession does not become stronger, Governments the world over had to open their purses and spend huge amounts in order to push weak companies (whose collapse could set off domino effects) to remain afloat. One problem with the spending of such huge amounts of money was that they also pushed in an excess of liquidity in the system, causing too money in the system.
This in turn resulted in an overall increase of prices of commodities, and since the Indian Government has been pushing up the prices that they give to farmers for the different crops, there was a push to food based inflation. The Government may well be arguing that they cannot stop international trends, but there are a number of steps, in terms of better monitoring, quick decisions on importing or procurement, letting more players into the retail business for pushing more efficiencies and reducing waste, and a number of other steps. For example, the productivity levels of Indian farmers is not very high, and yet there is no effort by the Government to push for more education to increase the growth levels per acre.
However, politically the increase in prices hurts the Government, and hurts the party in power (the Congress), and gives the opposition a stick to beat it with. Nobody wants to be associated with the political blame game that happens with an increase in prices, so State Government refuse to accept any part of the blame, even the agriculture minister (Sharad Pawar) would rather that all steps taken so far are actually Cabinet decisions (since he does not want the blame to stick to him), and so on. In such situations, the Government can only make statements such as assuring that the worst is over, and that prices will soon fall. It cannot do something else for the short term.
Categories: Agriculture, Congress, Consumer, Inflation, Politics Tags: Congress, India, Inflation, Politics, Price Rise, Sharad Pawar
