DIPLOMACY// Planned talks between the National Security Advisors (NSAs) of India and Pakistan collapsed under the weight of intense diplomatic acrimony, with New Delhi insisting the meeting must focus on terrorism, and Islamabad saying parleys with conditions would serve no purpose. It also marked the collapse of the framework agreed by the two prime ministers when they met in the Russian city of Ufa only last month. Both sides did not categorically state they were calling off the talks and blamed the collapse of the process on the other.

The final break was over two issues — the agenda of the talks, and the proposed meeting of Pakistan’s NSA Sartaj Aziz with the Hurriyat leadership. It was Aziz who made public his intentions known first through a press conference in Islamabad. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj responded with clear redlines in New Delhi. A formal Pakistani statement late at night announced the talks “would not serve any purpose” if conducted on the basis of conditions laid down by Swaraj; finally, India got back through the external affairs ministry spokesperson, calling the Pakistani decision “unfortunate” and emphasising there were no pre-conditions.

In the clearest articulation of Delhi’s policy yet, Swaraj said Aziz would be welcome in Delhi if Pakistan provided an assurance that he would not meet Hurriyat leaders and add a “third party” to the process, and accept that talks would only focus on terror.

“Keeping in mind the spirit of the (1972) Simla Agreement, don’t make Hurriyat a third party to the talks, and keeping the spirit of Ufa, don’t expand the subject of talks beyond terrorism,” Swaraj said. When asked what would happen if Pakistan did not accept the position outlined by her, she said categorically, “There will be no talks.”

VISIT// Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in the United Arab Emirates in the first Indian prime ministerial visit in over three decades, with boosting trade and investment on top of his agenda. Modi, who was there on a two-day official visit, was received by Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan at the airport and accorded a ceremonial welcome. Modi, the first Indian prime minister to visit the UAE after the 1981 visit of Indira Gandhi, went straight to the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, the biggest mosque in Abu Dhabi.

Modi also held talks with the UAE leadership on ways to enhance bilateral ties of friendship and cooperation and exchanged views on a variety of regional and international issues of mutual interest. Later, Modi also visited the ICAD Residential City, a labour camp housing about one lakh migrant workers from India and other countries of the subcontinent. Modi interacted with a select group of Indian migrant workers there.

IPL// The blood bath on Dalal Street continued unabated, with the benchmark Sensex now crashing more than 1,624 points, but stock market experts are not painting any bleak picture for local equities yet, and instead see steady growth prospects and weak global commodity prices to aid sharp revival in local shares.

Although over Rs 7 lakh crore worth of investors' wealth may have been wiped out in today's crash so far, experts see the freefall as a good buying opportunity as India still remains a rare bright spot in a weakening global economic scenario. Jayant Manglik, president, retail distribution, Religare Securities Ltd said, “Our markets may well be first off the block in recovering from this fall, it is time to look for bargains in high quality stocks.”

In an interview with CNBC-TV18, Atul Suri, trader with Rare Enterprises, said the extent of fall in Dow and global indices will have a knock-down effect on India and although India will relatively outperform, it will stand out among emerging markets and will be the first market to recover. Suri expects money to flow back to IT and pharmaceuticals, and sticks to his Nifty target of 10,460 with a stretched timeframe. He still feels we are a part of a larger bull market and retains longterm bullish view on Indian market and is optimistic on India in the medium to long-term.

According to G Chokkalingam, founder and managing director, Equinomics Research & Advisory, India’s equity market would also be impacted badly in the short term along with the global rout; however, it would fall lesser than rest of the global markets.

ACHIEVEMENT// Saina Nehwal made history as the first Indian woman to make it to the finals of the World Badminton Championships played on Sunday at Jakarta in Indonesia. However, she lost in straight sets to Carolina Marin of Spain and had to settle for the silver medal. Marin was the defending champion at the event. This is the second time in 2015 that the Spaniard has defeated Saina Nehwal in an important final. The Indian had lost the All-England Championships final to Marin earlier this year.

Nehwal said the loss was due to silly mistakes early in the game. Her nervousness at playing her first-ever World Championships final may have also contributed to her loss. Before Nehwal’s silver, India’s best performance at the World Badminton Championships was the bronze won by P V Sindhu in 2013 and 2014. No Indian — man or woman — has ever won the Championship.

ELECTIONS// Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is set to take oath again after leading his party, the United National Front, to a victory in parliamentary elections, defeating the opposition led by former President Mahinda Rajapaksa. "Let us together build a civilised society, build a consensual government and create a new country with equal opportunities for everybody," Wickremesinghe said as results from the keenly fought battle for 225 parliament seats showed the UNF inching towards a win. Election officials said Wickremesinghe’s United National Party (UNP), the main constituent of the UNF, had got 93 seats to the 83 of United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) of Rajapaksa.

UNP leaders expressed confidence that it would reach the figure of 113 MPs needed to form the next government with the help of smaller parties. Minister Karu Jayasuriya, who led the election campaign for his party, said the UNF was confident of winning 105-107 seats and secure the help of friendly parties to take office, the media reported. The UPFA's victories came from Sinhalese-majority areas including Hambantota, the bastion of the Rajapaksa family. But the UNF made inroads in districts where Rajapaksa had the upper hand in the January contest.

The main battle was between the UNF led by Wickremesinghe, and the UPFA, which had Rajapaksa as its main candidate, although its leadership is with President Sirisena.

CRICKET// In the world of cricket, names don’t get much bigger than Kumar Sangakkara. The 37-year-old Sri Lankan player has earned accolades from just about everyone in the sport. He retired in August after the second test match against India after an illustrious playing career. Kumar Sangakkara holds multiple world records for his country, which includes four top run records on the test circuit. In fact, Kumar Sangakkara was so good that Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena offered him the position of High Commissioner to Great Britain. Sangakkara said that he’d “think about it,” although he’s not sure if he currently has the skills to do the job.

STUDY// There will be no end to world population growth in this century, says the UN, adding that the world's population will increase from 7.3 billion people to 9.7 billion in 2050, and 11.2 billion at the century's end! Asia, with a current population of 4.4 billion, is likely to remain the most populous continent, with its population expected to peak around the middle of the century at 5.3 billion, and then to decline to around 4.9 billion people by the end of the century.

Developing countries with young populations but lower fertility such as India face the prospect of substantial population ageing before the end of the century. "India, along with China and Brazil, need to invest some of the benefits of their demographic dividend in the coming decades toward provisions for the older population of the future such as social security, pensions and health care,” said John R Wilmoth, director of the United Nations’ (UN) Population Division. “The probability that world population growth will end within this century to be 23 percent,” he added while addressing a session focused on demographic forecasting at the “2015 Joint Statistical Meetings” (JSM 2015) in Seattle on August 10.

You know you can’t go wrong in a country where two new restaurants open each day. Seriously, Singapore means food.

MOVING COUNTRY in the middle of a stable career does demand a well thought-out plan. It’s neither easy for grown-up kids nor for a family to pitch the tent in a new country. However, as they say, the action is in Asia. Singapore is not only the gateway to Asia, but also the most promising alternate to a Western country. The city-country that is smaller than New Delhi, offers impeccable infrastructure and a great quality of life. We moved to Singapore two years ago, and the first thing that amazed us was the ease of getting assimilated into the Lion City. It’s hard to say what attracts so many expats from all over the world to Singapore. Perhaps, it is lower taxes, or fantastic infrastructure and public transport, or maybe it is the great food choices. You know you can’t go wrong in a country where two new restaurants open each day. Singapore means food.

Singapore is a melting pot of several cultures and it’s a great place for an Indian family, too. English and Tamil are among the four official languages, so it is a plug-and-play transition for most Indians. However, once we started fixing up the dinner table, the real sense of global citizenship became evident.

With no resources of its own, Singapore relies heavily on global supply chains. Thus, at any point of time, my shopping basket has the produce of at least six countries, with another 21 countries’ products vying for attention. And this is in the vegetable section alone. I started my observation with the humble potatoes — the staple vegetable for an Indian platter. A glance through the vegetable section and the varieties of potatoes is astounding. There are potatoes flying in from Australia, Indonesia, Israel, Malaysia, Thailand, and the US. On a certain day, my inner earth citizen woke up and I ditched the supermarket and opted for a local grocery store. After picking up the selective pieces I enquired about their origin, only to find out these were flown from Holland to land up in my pakodas. Scandinavian aloo bonda, anyone?

On a regular day, the kids drink milk from Australia, although there is the option of Amul milk as well. The bread, although baked in Singapore, is made of wheat flown in from India. My wife packs my daily ration of fruits, which has Kiwi fruit from New Zealand (obviously), apples from the US, grapes from Brazil, and blueberry from Norway. I am not a meat lover, but the observation of meat stall is equally intriguing. The meat options on the stall span from Scottish salmon fish and beef from Australia, to the poultry from neighbouring Malaysia. While doing this analysis of potpourri in my plate, another point of view seeps in. We seek what we consume. Likewise, there are people of other nationalities tracing the origin and logistics of their food. This means that while my point of view is skewed by my Indian palate, there are many variations of views available. The thought is humbling in a sense.

While the city is mapped with speciality and regional food stores, one can visit the 24-hour store Mustafa to see the wide array of ingredients. Mustafa is akin to the Library of Congress for food connoisseurs. No wonder it was included in the “Icons of Singapore” list during this year’s SG50 celebrations. The sheer variety of food in Mustafa is mind boggling. Out of 63 aisles, I start my voyage with sugar. I am spoilt for choice with 13 varieties of sugar. Spice section can increase your general knowledge of food by manifold. If the aisles of Mustafa were not so narrow, it could have been a great place for school excursions.

Singapore’s community integration programme has been in force for many years now. Only the experts can analyse and dissect its impact on creating a homogenous society. However, from a bystander’s point of view, the results are already evident. I think it is the palate that has so many distinctions and yet, it is the best uniting force of Singapore’s multicultural society. All hail the food courts!

Why a boring investment strategy works in the long run

When you are too obsessed with finer details, you sometimes miss the big picture; which could be much better than what it looks like when seen with a microscope.

Remember the story of blind men made to feel different parts of an elephant and asked what they were touching. Each one of them come up with a different answer — pillar (for legs), hand fan (for ears), rope (for tail), and so on — which may be correct if seen separately, but none of them could tell they were touching an elephant.

Similarly, in the stock market, investors’ narrow focus on short-term price movements and the factors leading to these movements often make them ignore the broader, long-term prospects. While a slowdown in China, higher than expected inflation, or slow exports growth may be a cause of concern in the short-term for equity investors, these situations would not continue forever. Things do change — for better or worse — as in life, so in the economy and stock markets.

Indian equity markets have seen a lot of bad times in recent past, but things are changing. Just a couple of years ago, the country was battling with double-digit consumer inflation, high interest rates and slow GDP growth rate. Today, the inflation is below 6 per cent, GDP growth is comfortably above 6 per cent (as per earlier GDP calculations), and RBI has cut interest rates twice since the beginning of the year.

Despite all these, equity markets have hit some stumbling blocks due to some short-term global and domestic factors. The National Stock Exchange’s Nifty index after hitting 9,000 in March this year, collapsed below 8,000 levels in June, only to recover 500 points by August 14. For a developing country such as India, the prospects of positives neutralising the impact of negatives in the long run is much higher. Therefore, investors would have to take into stride the intermittent volatility and stay invested over a long term to make money in the equity markets.

Volatility: Rhymes and Reasons

Price volatility is an inherent nature of any market, where there are many buyers and sellers. Each participant has a different target and a time horizon for which she is in the market. Once that target is met, she would exit from the market. There are short-term players, who invest for a day, a week, a month or for a longer period. Some investors come and go at regular intervals. Because there are so many investors, and all have their own way of measuring the impact of a certain event (in or outside the country) on the equity markets or a company stock, they keep re-valuing an index or a stock at regular interval. If the numbers of investors who are positive about equity markets of a particular country or on the prospect of a particular company are more than those who have negative views, the stock or the equity market of the country would continue to grow in the long term, despite the intermittent volatility. While volatility rattles investors, a long period of sideways movement (accompanied by intermittent volatility) also makes investors impatient. The impatience stems largely from unrealistic expectations from equity markets.

Investors expect equity markets to churn out 25-30 per cent returns every year; after all they are investing in the most risky asset class. Such high expectations are benchmarked to the best years of equity markets. There were times between 2004 and 2007, when equity markets delivered 25-30 per cent returns every year. However, Indian equity markets have generated 16-17 per cent annual return in long term (past 30 years). Even a 17 per cent return is stupendous given that bank fixed deposits have typically give at 9-10 per cent return over the same time.

Why boRing is best

Often, I have heard investors saying they prefer investing in direct equities to investing in mutual funds because there is no “fun” in investing in mutual funds. It gives them a kick to find a “cheap” stock (they often end up buying penny stocks of companies, with little-known promoters running their companies from a garage), and wait for the stocks to treble or quadruple in no times. Sometimes, the wait can be forever. Markets reward stocks that have good future prospects, have competitive advantage and good corporate governance. These stocks, more often than not, come at a premium valuation — which cannot be gauged by the price of the stock. Remember, a stock priced at Rs 250 can be more expensive than one priced at Rs 1,200. Many retail investors do not know this basic difference.

Without proper knowhow and resources, many investors plunge into stock markets simply because it gives them the kick, and end up incurring huge losses. Equity markets reward only those investors who have the patience and discipline to stay invested for long terms, without bothering too much about sudden dips and getting excited about sudden runups in the equity markets. Investing regularly in equity mutual funds, which are managed by trained professionals who have at their disposal a number of analysts, sector specialists and tracking mechanism, is the best way to invest in the long-term. They are driven by laid-out processes and methods of picking and dropping stocks, and react to events and policy changes with more alacrity than a retail investor would do himself.

Systematic investment plans, or SIPs, are said to be a no-brainer (and therefore boring) since they do away with the need to time the market, and the regularity of investments help the investor capture all market conditions. An SIP even in a mediocre fund such as LIC Nomura Growth Fund starting on January 1, 2008, (the year markets saw the worst ever fall), would have given 15.15 per cent annual return as on August 14, 2015. If only investors remain indifferent to all the “noises” in the market, and continue investing in a regular and disciplined manner, they can reap the benefits of equity investments in the long term. No analyst worth his salt can predict market movements correctly all the time. Therefore, stop getting swayed by their articulation on television channels or newspapers and just follow the right script, which can be low on excitements but high on delivery.

Mind over matter? Or matter over mind? You'll never know till you try mindfulness

YOUR MOTHER! Thus began several of Amma’s stories. The recipient was the son, in various stages of growth from toddler to surprisinglynot- angsty teenager, to calm-andcollected adult, the family anxiety genes having got misplaced somewhere in biological transit.

This time the story was: Your mother! When the neighbourhood kids came to call her to play, she would hide under the bed and make me tell them she wasn’t at home. As if they would believe me! Well, they didn’t. Not too often in the beginning anyway. One particularly sharp memory is of being dragged along by an older girl, my hand tightly clutched in hers (as per Amma’s strictures) along with the string of a kite — you know, the part with the powdered glass stuck to it. My hand was in shreds by the time I got home. Amma was more convincing in her “She’s doing her homework” act after that. Amma’s nice like that. Then again, maybe, that’s why I never did learn to ride a bicycle after that first fall.

And I did hide under the bed. Until I discovered the underside of the bed was not quite the safe haven I thought it to be. There were creatures there, spiders and — OMG! – even cockroaches, sometimes. Also, the fan’s breeze did not find its way down there. I’ve always thought anxiety was born with me, issuing out simultaneously from my mother’s womb, angry and red at the indignity of having been forced out with this. It stalked me at every turn, constant companion, albeit a companion I could have done without.

The years passed and anxiety found a new friend to help it along. Stress. Well, it was a fashionable thing to tote around. And I was not too displeased with it tagging along. Really. At 10.30 pm, faced with a news editor telling me to try once more for that elusive headline for a page that was to have been sent off two hours ago, I was stressed. And glad to have a descriptor that fit, even if the headline didn’t. And so we chugged along, the three of us. A high point was when the son left for college. We really lived it up then. Earlier this year, I turned 50. I don’t think that was why really, but, hey, who needs an excuse to party? Certainly not my two friends. They painted my mind red. And I finally saw red.

stressed, in July, I decided to do something about it. “I shall attend a Stress Alleviation and Mindfulness workshop,” I announced to the husband. Who grunted, fingers clicking ceaselessly over the Kakuro board on his laptop. Then, “Whaaat?! I’m not coming with you.” “I can go on my own, you know!” I said, sniffing self-righteously. As D-day arrived, we compromised. He dropped me at the workshop place and promised to be waiting when I got out. “It’ll be all right,” he said, patting my hand through the car window as he prepared to reverse. I took a deep breath and prepared to enter a room full of strangers, already hyperventilating at the prospect.

As it turned out, it wasn’t too bad, really. The girls conducting the workshop seemed quite nice and most of what they said was being projected on a large screen behind them. [This was more important than you might think. While I always write “English” when asked what my first language is, the UK vies favourably with India in terms of incomprehensible local accents.] Plus the girls promised there would be no interaction. I sighed in relief at the thought that all I needed to do was listen. For the next two hours. For the next two weeks. That was before Daphne entered our lives. The lead trainer was called Peggy, the second one, Liz. So who was Daphne and why was she all over the place? It took me till Day 3 to realise Peggy was saying “Definitely” every time I heard Daphne. Gosh, that was stressful!

Several of the examples of stress the girls talked about had people who were afraid to go to the supermarket. I was frankly amazed. Supermarket was major therapy area for me. In fact, it was one of the areas I had come to be mindful about. I could spend weeks in a Tesco Extra. If the family would let me. The only place I could think of as stressful to go to was the hairdresser. You don’t believe it? Try walking into a salon with my hair! But that stress point, too, had been taken care of in Swansea. I had a hair stylist who cooed over how my skull-hugging hair would suddenly wake up with a no-nonsense curl as the moisture left it. Back at the workshop, it was time to enter Mindfulness territory. “Your mind tells you hurtful things about yourself,” I was told. True, it did. Then, “Ignore what your mind is telling you. Don’t listen to your mind!” Excuse me, but I thought this was a mindfulness workshop. I hadn’t realised I had to leave my mind back at home. What if I lost it? Stress would be small coin then. The slides showed various people who were in acute need of mindfulness therapy — Pete, Dave, Sam, Judy, Ellen, all of them laughing at the camera. Why did all these happy, smiling people need mindfulness? It bothered me. In fact, it stressed me.

Then we got a mindfulness CD to take home. And the husband stood over my head and said through gritted teeth: “Try it! Now!” So I did. Whereupon it all kind of fell into place. “Cool!” I said, “So that’s what they meant!” The husband gnashed his teeth. It kind of felt at that moment that the stress had swapped partners. For the moment at least.

The rest of the workshop passed without incident. Some amount of grumbling was offered as token resistance by my two companions, but now I was learning to ignore my mind. I was feeling lighter, and it was a heady feeling. The husband gratefully noted the change and said when I got home on the last day, “So it does work!” He spoke too soon. The next day, I got an email from AVG Antivirus protection, which I had once downloaded for the tablet, which had since been bequeathed to the son. “Was it something we said?” the email asked me sadly. “Now, look, you made them feel bad! How would you feel if someone did that to you?” scolded Anxiety. Really, it was just like having Amma around. “Suppose they refuse to let their app download for you next time?” asked Stress. I shuddered.