Gujarat tops new logistics index that flags inefficiency of states

Gujarat tops new logistics index that flags inefficiency of states
Gujarat topped the Logistics Ease Across Different States (LEADS) index, Punjab and Andhra Pradesh took the second and third positions, respectively
The logistics performance of Indian states and Union territories is “sub-par” owing to a host of inefficiencies, according to a study which also suggests measures for improvement.

The Logistics Ease Across Different States (LEADS) index, a composite indicator to assess international trade logistics across states and Union territories, is based on a stakeholders’ survey conducted by Deloitte for the ministry of commerce and industry. While Gujarat topped the first-of-its-kind index, Punjab and Andhra Pradesh took the second and third positions, respectively.

Logistics, or the management of the flow of resources such as cargo, documents, information and funds through a range of activities and services between points of origin and destination, is a key parameter in deciding the trade competitiveness of a state or country.

In a major push to developing an integrated logistics framework in the country, including industrial parks, cold chains and warehousing facilities, the government in November granted infrastructure status to the logistics sector, enabling the industry to access cheaper finances. The government also created the position of a special secretary in the commerce ministry to exclusively handle logistics and appointed former director general of the Directorate General of Supplies and Disposals, Binoy Kumar, to the post.

LEADS is loosely based on the World Bank’s biannual Logistics Performance Index (LPI), on which India was ranked 35 among 160 countries in 2016, up from 54 in 2014. LEADS is based on eight parameters such as infrastructure, services, timeliness, track and trace, competitiveness of pricing, safety of cargo, operating environment and regulatory process. The study is based on a perception-based survey of 2,885 respondents across the country over a six-week period.

The study found that supply chain efficiencies and economies of scale are yet to be unlocked, mostly due to suboptimal investment in building scale in infrastructure, automation, human capital and technology. It highlighted problems such as inadequate terminal capacity, poor last-mile terminal connectivity and issues in regulatory services provided by government agencies, among others. It also underlined issues specific to certain states. For example, respondents reported that labour unions created impediments for trade efficiency in states like West Bengal, Kerala, Maharashtra and Himachal Pradesh.

The study identified indicative focus areas such as enhancing capacity, developing integrated and balanced multimodal logistics and transport infrastructure, focussing on standardization, developing regulatory infrastructure, modernizing logistics infrastructure and transport fleet,

Commerce and industry minister Suresh Prabhu said Indian logistics costs are said to be among the highest in the world—in the vicinity of 13% of gross domestic product (GDP). “Germany’s costs in comparison average just above 8% of its GDP, providing its industry a huge competitive edge in the global market,” he added.

After the third meeting of the Council for Trade Development and Promotion on Monday that includes state industry ministers, Prabhu said his ministry will develop a strategy with the policy think tank NITI Aayog for supporting states that encourage exports. India’s merchandise exports increased 13% to $271 billion during the January-November 2017 period while its services exports rose 4% to $135 billion during the same period.

The managing director of a logistics firm, who did not wish to be named, said the study should be used by states to put their house in order. The point-based index clearly shows the areas that states need to work upon, he said. Performance improvements by states on the logistics index would help them attract industries, the person said

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गूगल के डूडल में डॉ. हरगोविंद खुराना

गूगल के डूडल में डॉ. हरगोविंद खुराना
हमारे डीएनए के आवश्यक कार्य और प्रथम सिंथेटिक जीन के निर्माण में अहम भूमिका निभाने वाले भारतीय-अमेरिकी वैज्ञानिक डॉ. हरगोविंद खुराना को गूगल ने डूडल बनाकर सम्मान दिया है

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,डॉ. हरगोविंद खुराना को उनके शोध और कार्यों के लिए अनेकों पुरस्कार और सम्मान दिए गए। इन सब में नोबेल पुरस्कार सर्वोपरि है।

सन 1968 में चिकित्सा विज्ञान का नोबेल पुरस्कार मिला
सन 1958 में उन्हें कनाडा का मर्क मैडल प्रदान किया गया
सन 1960 में कैनेडियन पब्लिक सर्विस ने उन्हें स्‍वर्ण पदक दिया
सन 1967 में डैनी हैनमैन पुरस्‍कार मिला
सन 1968 में लॉस्‍कर फेडरेशन पुरस्‍कार और लूसिया ग्रास हारी विट्ज पुरस्‍कार से सम्मानित किये गए सन 1969 में भारत सरकार ने डॉ. खुराना को पद्म भूषण से अलंकृत किया
पंजाब यूनिवर्सिटी, चंडीगढ़ ने डी.एस-सी. की मानद उपाधि दी

डॉ. हरगोविंद जीवकोशिकाओं के नाभिकों की रासायनिक संरचना के बारे में अध्ययन कर रहे थे। नाभिकों के नाभिकीय अम्लों के संबंध में खोज काफी लंबे समय से चल रही है। डॉ. खुराना के अध्ययन का विषय न्यूक्लिऔटिड नामक उपसमुच्चयों की अत्यंत जटिल, मूल, रासायनिक संरचनाएं थीं। डॉ. खुराना इन समुच्चयों का योग करके महत्वपूर्ण दो वर्गों के न्यूक्लिप्रोटिड इन्जाइम नामक यौगिकों को बनाने में सफल हुए थे। डॉ. हरगोविंद खुराना ने साल 1970 में आनुवंशिकी के क्षेत्र में एक और योगदान दिया, जब वह और उनका अनुसंधान दल एक खमीर जीन की पहली कृत्रिम प्रतिलिपि संश्लेषित करने में सफल रहे। 09 नवंबर 2011 को इस महान वैज्ञानिक ने अमेरिका के मैसचूसट्स में अंतिम सांस ली। उनके पीछे परिवार में पुत्री जूलिया और पुत्र डेव हैं।
,,,,,,,,,,हरगोविंद खुराना का जन्म अविभाजित भारत के रायपुर (जिला मुल्तान, पंजाब) नामक स्थान पर 9 जनवरी 1922 में हुआ था। उनके पिता एक पटवारी थे। अपने माता-पिता के चार पुत्रों में हरगोविंद सबसे छोटे थे। गरीबी के बावजूद हरगोविंद के पिता ने अपने बच्चों की पढ़ाई पर ध्यान दिया जिसके कारण खुराना ने अपना पूरा ध्यान पढ़ाई पर लगा दिया। वह जब मात्र 12 साल के थे, तभी उनके पिता का निधन हो गया और ऐसी परिस्थिति में उनके बड़े भाई नंदलाल ने उनकी पढ़ाई-लिखाई का जिम्मा संभाला। उनकी प्रारंभिक शिक्षा स्थानिय स्कूल में ही हुई।

उन्होंने पंजाब विश्वविद्यालय से सन् 1943 में बी.एस-सी. (आनर्स) तथा सन् 1945 में एम.एस-सी. (ऑनर्स) की डिग्री प्राप्त की। पंजाब विश्वविद्यालय में महान सिंह उनके निरीक्षक थे। इसके पश्चात भारत सरकार की छात्रवृत्ति पाकर उच्च शिक्षा के लिए इंग्लैंड चले गए। इंग्लैंड में उन्होंने लिवरपूल विश्वविद्यालय में प्रफेसर रॉजर जे.एस. बियर के देख-रेख में अनुसंधान किया और डाक्टरेट की उपाधि अर्जित की। इसके उपरांत उन्हें एक बार फिर भारत सरकार से शोधवृत्ति मिलीं जिसके बाद वे जूरिख (स्विट्सरलैंड) के फेडरल इंस्टिटयूट ऑफ टेक्नॉलजी में प्रफेसर वी. प्रेलॉग के साथ शोध कार्य में लगे।
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,1952 में उन्हें वैंकोवर (कैनाडा) की कोलम्बिया विश्‍वविद्यालय से बुलावा आया जिसके बाद वह वहां चले गए और जैव रसायन विभाग के अध्‍यक्ष बना दिए गए। इस संस्थान में रहकर उन्‍होंने आनुवांशिकी के क्षेत्र में शोध कार्य प्रारंभ किया और धीरे-धीरे उनके शोधपत्र अंतरराष्‍ट्रीय पत्र-पत्रिकाओं और शोध जर्नलों में प्रकाशित होने लगे। इसके फलस्वरूप वे काफी चर्चित हो गए और उन्‍हें अनेक सम्मान और पुरस्‍कार भी प्राप्‍त हुए।

सन 1960 में उन्हें ‘प्रफेसर इंस्टीट्युट ऑफ पब्लिक सर्विस’ कनाडा में स्वर्ण पदक से सम्मानित किया गया और उन्हें ‘मर्क एवार्ड’ से भी सम्मानित किया गया। इसके पश्चात सन् 1960 में डॉ. खुराना अमेरिका के विस्कान्सिन विश्वविद्यालय के इंस्टिट्यूट ऑफ एन्ज़ाइम रिसर्च में प्रफेसर पद पर नियुक्त हुए। सन 1966 में उन्होंने अमेरिकी नागरिकता ग्रहण कर ली।

सन 1970 में डॉ. खुराना मैसचुसट्स इंस्टिट्यूट ऑफ टेक्नॉलजी (एम.आई.टी.) में रसायन और जीव विज्ञान के अल्फ्रेड स्लोअन प्रोफेसर नियुक्त हुए। तब से लेकर सन 2007 वे इस संस्थान से जुड़े रहे और बहुत ख्याति अर्जित की।
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,डॉ. खुराना ने जीन इंजिनियरिंग (बायॉ टेक्नॉलजी) विषय की बुनियाद रखने में महत्वपूर्ण भूमिका निभाई। जेनेटिक कोड की भाषा समझने और उसकी प्रोटीन संश्लेषण में भूमिका प्रतिपादित करने के लिए सन 1968 में डॉ. खुराना को चिकित्सा विज्ञान का नोबल पुरस्कार प्रदान किया गया। डॉ. हरगोविंद खुराना नोबेल पुरस्कार पाने वाले भारतीय मूल के तीसरे व्यक्ति थे। यह पुरस्कार उन्हें दो और अमेरिकी वैज्ञानिकों डॉ. राबर्ट होले और डॉ. मार्शल निरेनबर्ग के साथ सम्मिलित रूप से प्रदान किया गया था। इन तीनों ने डी.एन.ए. अणु की संरचना को स्पष्ट किया था और यह भी बताया था कि डी.एन.ए. प्रोटीन्स का संश्लेषण किस प्रकार करता है।

नोबेल पुरस्कार के बाद अमेरिका ने उन्हें ‘नैशनल अकेडमी ऑफ साइंस’ की सदस्यता प्रदान की (यह सम्मान केवल विशिष्ट अमेरिका वैज्ञानिकों को ही दिया जाता है)।

Electoral bonds are a half measure at best

Electoral bonds are a half measure at best
Without improving regulatory frameworks for greater transparency in the finances of political parties, changing the means of donations will have little impact
Bringing about effective electoral finance reform in India requires political acknowledgement of an obvious truth. Measures of the kind announced in the Union budget last year will have limited effectiveness, or worse, be counterproductive, if they are not accompanied by the will to police the political establishment. The electoral bonds initiative detailed—if sparsely—by finance minister Arun Jaitley last week, makes this mistake.

Last year, the Association of Democratic Reforms put hard numbers to the extent of electoral finance malfeasance. Between 2004-05 and 2014-15, 69% of the total income of political parties was from unknown sources. This is not a new problem. The Santhanam Committee on Prevention of Corruption had raised the issue of black money in politics as far back as in 1964. A number of committees and commissions have addressed the electoral finance issue since. Their recommendations have failed to find purchase.

Electoral finance reform around the world has attempted to balance two objectives: remove black money and under-the-table contributions from the system and increase transparency so that citizens can see where the money is coming from and where it’s going. In “Reforming India’s Party Financing And Election Expenditure Laws” (Election Law Journal, 2012), M.V. Rajeev Gowda and E. Sridharan have argued that these objectives are incompatible in India. Companies need to stay on good terms with parties in the government as well as those in the opposition. If funding regulations impose transparency—and with it, the risk of alienating a political faction if they give money to another—they will resort to underhanded means.

History seems to bear this out. In 1985, the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi rolled back Indira Gandhi’s 1968 ban on corporate donations which had entrenched black money networks in politics. But this did nothing to clean up electoral funding. Faced with the prospect of losing anonymity by having to account for the donations in their annual reports, companies elected to persist with the black money system.

Jaitley has echoed this argument in explaining why electoral bonds ensure anonymity for donors. It is an implicit indictment of the crony capitalism that is endemic in the Indian economy. It is also a misrepresentation which fails to address the other half of the equation. Anonymity for corporate donors is important because the accounts of political parties remain opaque. The latter prevents citizens from making an informed assessment of government policies and regulations—public oversight that could check vendettas against or rewards for particular companies.

The Union budget last year made no concrete moves on this front. Nor has any party shown serious intent in the past; quite the reverse. In 2013, the Central Information Commission had declared the six national parties to be within the ambit of the Right to Information Act. The parties have been united in disregarding this. Party accounts are audited by those appointed by the parties themselves, and regulations stipulating deadlines for submitting donation statements and income-tax returns to the Election Commission are flouted frequently and flagrantly with no consequence.

Another reform Prime Minister Narendra Modi had mooted in 2016, state funding of elections, underscores the importance of party transparency. State funding has a proven record in a number of countries that have made the transition over the decades from corporate donations—and it has been presented as a solution a number of times in the Indian. However, in countries where it has worked—Germany, Japan, Canada, Sweden, to name a few—it has been accompanied by strict, well-enforced regulatory frameworks regarding auditing and disclosure of party income and expenditure. In the absence of such frameworks, state funding in India is a non-starter, as the Law Commission Report (1999) and Venkatachaliah Committee Report (2002) have pointed out. It would do little save provide an additional source of party funding without denting black money revenue streams.

The Modi government has done well to take up the issue of electoral finance. But if it is serious about cleaning up the system, it must focus on increasing the accountability of political parties. It will not have a better opportunity to do so. It has staked its claim to rule on its will and ability to fight corruption. With eight state polls lined up this year and the general election next year, it—and other parties that support such a move—could reap the electoral benefits of the positive optics. If it remains business as usual, however, electoral bonds are likely to be little more than a sideshow in electoral finance reform.

What should the government do to increase transparency in political funding?

SpaceX successfully launches Zuma mission for US government

SpaceX successfully launches Zuma mission for US government
Elon Musk’s SpaceX launches its Zuma mission for US government from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on a Falcon 9 rocket
Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. successfully launched its first mission of the new year: a classified payload for the US government into low-earth orbit.

The mission—referred to as code name Zuma—took off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on a Falcon 9 rocket. SpaceX landed the rocket’s first stage for reuse in a future launch, a key step in its goal to drive down the cost of access to space.

Defense contractor Northrop Grumman Corp. was assigned to choose which company would launch the restricted payload, and it selected SpaceX’s Falcon 9, calling it a cost effective option, said Lon Rains, a Northrop Grumman spokesman, in an emailed statement before the launch.

“As a company, Northrop Grumman realizes this is a monumental responsibility and we have taken great care to ensure the most affordable and lowest risk scenario for Zuma,” Rains said, declining to comment on the nature of the payload.

Indian Railways has decided to deploy “Drone” cameras (UAV/NETRA) for various railway activities especially project monitoring and maintenance of tracks and other railway infrastructure. It has been given directions to Zonal Railways to procure such cameras. This is in-line with Railways’ desire to use technology to enhance safety and efficiency in train operations.

“Drone” cameras shall be deployed to undertake monitoring activities of relief and rescue operation, project monitoring, progress of important works, conditions of track and inspection related activities. It shall also be used to assess preparedness of Non-Interlocking (NI) works, crowd management during fairs and melas, to identify scrap and also for aerial survey of station yards. It is going to be instrumental in providing real time inputs related to safety and maintenance of tracks and other railway infrastructure.

Under this initiative, West Central Railways with headquarter at Jabalpur (M.P) has become the first Zonal Railway to procure “Drone” cameras in Indian Railways. West Central Railways has already done a trial-run of those cameras last week on its all the three divisions in the following locations.

Jabalpur Division – Narmada Bridge near Bhitoni
Bhopal Division – (i) Nishatpura Yard; (ii) Third Line work between HBJ – Misrod.
Kota Division – (i) Chambal Bridge near Kota; (ii) Dakania Talav Yard near Kota.

Zuma mission for US government

Central government is likely to declare Medaram’s Sammakka-Sarakka/Saralamma Jatara a national festival this year. Once declared a national festival, Jatara can be considered for ‘intangible cultural heritage of humanity’ tag of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).

Sammakka-Sarakka Jatara held by forest dwelling Koya tribe of Telangana and surrounding States, is the biggest Tribal festival in Asia which is attended by one crore people on an average.
Medaram is a remote place in the Eturnagaram Wildlife Sanctuary, a part of Dandakaranya, the largest surviving forest belt in the Deccan.

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India’s second FTII to be set up in Arunachal:

Arunachal Pradesh would get its first Film and Television Institute, being set up by the Union Government as part of tapping the potential of the Northeastern region. This would be the second such one in the country.

The first Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) was set up in Pune, an autonomous institute operating under the Information and Broadcasting Ministry.

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SpaceX successfully launches Zuma mission for US government

Elon Musk’s SpaceX launches its Zuma mission for US government from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on a Falcon 9 rocket
Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. successfully launched its first mission of the new year: a classified payload for the US government into low-earth orbit.

The mission—referred to as code name Zuma—took off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on a Falcon 9 rocket. SpaceX landed the rocket’s first stage for reuse in a future launch, a key step in its goal to drive down the cost of access to space.

Defense contractor Northrop Grumman Corp. was assigned to choose which company would launch the restricted payload, and it selected SpaceX’s Falcon 9, calling it a cost effective option, said Lon Rains, a Northrop Grumman spokesman, in an emailed statement before the launch.

“As a company, Northrop Grumman realizes this is a monumental responsibility and we have taken great care to ensure the most affordable and lowest risk scenario for Zuma,” Rains said, declining to comment on the nature of the payload.

uttarakhand special

गणतंत्र दिवस परेड, 2018 राजपथ #NewDelhi में #Uttarakhand राज्य की झांकी ‘ग्रामीण पर्यटन' (Village Tourism) को रक्षा मंत्रालय द्वारा नई दिल्ली में आयोजित बैठक में अंतिम रूप से चयनित कर लिया गया है। यह जानकारी देते हुए महानिदेशक सूचना डाॅ० पंकज कुमार पाण्डेय ने बताया है कि रक्षा मंत्रालय भारत सरकार के अधीन गठित विशेषज्ञ समिति के सम्मुख 29 राज्यों और 20 मंत्रालयों द्वारा अपने प्रस्ताव प्रेषित किये गये थे। जिसमें से अंतिम रूप से केवल 14 राज्य 07 मंत्रालयों की झांकियों का चयन किया गया है
..................डाॅ० पाण्डेय ने बताया कि राज्य गठन से लेेकर अभी तक उत्तराखण्ड द्वारा वर्ष 2003 में ‘फुलदेई‘, वर्ष 2005 में ‘नंदा राजजात', वर्ष 2006 में ‘फूलों की घाटी‘, वर्ष 2007 में ‘कार्बेट नेशनल पार्क', वर्ष 2009 में ‘साहसिक पर्यटन‘, वर्ष 2010 में ‘कुंभ मेला‘, वर्ष 2014 में ‘जड़ी-बूटी', वर्ष 2015 में ‘केदारनाथ‘ तथा वर्ष 2016 में ‘रम्माण‘ विषयों की झांकियों का प्रदर्शन राजपथ पर किया जा चुका है।

देवभूमि के नाम से विख्यात उत्तराखण्ड में प्रकृति और संस्कृति के मनमोहक नजारे बिखरे पड़े हैं। उत्तराखण्ड ग्रामीण पर्यटन के विकास की दृष्टि से अत्यंत संभावनाशील राज्य है। इस शांत व सुरम्य पर्वतीय अंचल के ग्रामीण क्षेत्रों में लोक-जीवन, कला-संस्कृति और विरासत के अद्भुत और अद्वितीय आयाम पर्यटकों को बरबस अपनी ओर आकर्षित करते हैं। शहरों की भीड़भाड़ से दूर उत्तराखण्ड की शांत वादियां, यहां साफ-सुथरी आबो-हवा, विविधतापूर्ण विरासत और अतिथि सत्कार की समृद्ध लोक परंपरा ग्रामीण पर्यटन के दृष्टिकोण से उत्तराखण्ड को आदर्श गंतव्य के रूप में स्थापित करती हैं। इससे जहाॅ स्थानीय समुदाय को आर्थिक व सामाजिक रूप से लाभ होता है, वहीं पर्यटकों को समृद्ध पर्यटन की अनूठी अनुभूति से साक्षात्कार का सुअवसर प्राप्त हो रहा है। पर्यावरण के प्रति संवेनदशील ग्रामीण पर्यटन के अंतर्गत सांस्कृतिक पर्यटन, प्राकृतिक पर्यटन और पारिस्थितकीय पर्यटन जैसे अनेकों आयामों को सम्मिलित करते हुए इसमें स्थानीय समुदाय की सक्रिय भागीदारी सुनिश्चित की जा रही है।

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,केंद्रीय मंत्री श्री गडकरी ने बताया कि #Auli को दावोस की भांति अंतर्राष्ट्रीय डेस्टिनेशन बनाने के लिए काम शुरु किया गया है। इसके लिए विश्व स्तरीय कंसल्टेंसी एजेंसी की सेवा भी ली गई है। कंसल्टेंसी एजेंसी द्वारा उत्तराखण्ड और हिमाचल में ऐसे 100 स्थल चिन्ह्ति किए गए हैं, जहां पर रोपवे ,केबल कार और फरनकुलर रेलवे जैसे वैकल्पिक परिवहन साधनों का उपयोग किया जा सकता है। उन्होंने कहा कि वह मुख्यमंत्री के साथ बैठक कर इन सभी स्थानों पर विस्तृत चर्चा करेंगे और शीघ्र ही एक ठोस कार्ययोजना बनाई जाएगी। श्री गडकरी ने यह भी कहा कि उत्तराखंड की बड़ी झीलों और नदियों के लिए सी-प्लेन पर भी विचार किया जा सकता है। यह परिवहन के एक वैकल्पिक साधन के साथ ही पर्यटकों के आकर्षण का एक प्रमुख जरिया भी बनेगा।

The age of crypto-economics

The age of crypto-economics
The fundamental value proposition of the blockchain is that it eliminates the need for trust
The Finance Ministry recently issued a statement warning against investing in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies (CCs). Likening CCs to ‘Ponzi schemes’, it linked them to terror-funding, smuggling, drug-trafficking, and money-laundering. The stern advisory came after three other warnings issued by the Reserve Bank of India.

Why the distrust?
Two aspects of the bitcoin phenomenon have attracted great interest: the challenge it poses to states and central banks; and the potential of its underlying technology to unleash a new wave of creative destruction.

It would be safe to say that the world’s top central bankers have finally realised the futility of trying to control CCs. They are preparing to join them — by issuing their own Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDCs).

A CBDC is a complex tool whose functionality is still being researched. But there is one flaw endemic to any CBDC: the contradiction between the centralising tendency of a CBDC and the decentralising technology that underpins cryptocurrencies. What economists conveniently forget when discussing CCs such as bitcoin is the trigger for it: distrust of bankers.

The global financial crisis of 2008-09 raised a simple question: what option do people have if banks are not to be trusted? A man (or a group of people) named Satoshi Nakamoto provided an answer: a peer-to-peer, ‘trustless’ electronic cash system based on a technology called blockchain.

Why is it attractive?
In order to be functional, a virtual currency must solve the problem of double spending. Given that anything digital can be copied, how do you prevent someone from spending the same unit of currency twice? Today’s cashless economy tackles this through a centralised ledger maintained by a ‘trusted’ intermediary — often a bank — on its own servers. But as per the definition of the problem, banks can’t be trusted, remember?

Nakamoto solved the double spending problem by designing a decentralised ledger that bundles data about transactions into blocks, timestamps them, and links each new block of transactions with the previous one in an immutable chain of blocks that are copied, authenticated, and updated continuously, and publicly, on thousands of computers — the blockchain.

The blockchain uses economic incentives (payment in the form of bitcoins or other CCs) to motivate members of the network to do the work of validating every transaction. It does away with the bank’s role as an intermediary, and this is what differentiates CCs from (the digital version of) fiat currencies.

Not surprisingly, central banks and states are not pleased to have the rug of the cashless economy — with which they’ve been smothering ordinary citizens — pulled from under their feet by a technology that regards them with disdain.

It has been pointed out that bitcoins, unlike a stock or a bond, are a purely speculative asset untethered to a material basis of value. While this is somewhat true, it doesn’t explain why bitcoins continue to remain attractive as a store of value. A major reason seasoned speculators find bitcoins irresistible is its deflationary nature, which makes it inflation-proof. Since there can only ever be 21 million bitcoins, unlike a fiat currency, it cannot suffer a loss in value due to inflation.

In this regard, cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin may herald the next stage of neo-liberal economics: the privatisation of currency and disciplining of the state (no more quantitative easing!) by reducing the fiat currency into one of many competing currencies.

In theory, the state still has a trump card: it decides the currency in which taxes are paid. But that may mean little in a scenario where the political apparatus has been captured by finance capital, which is increasingly the norm in democracies where unknown donors contribute astronomical sums to political parties.

Blockchain world
Amid all the frenzy over bitcoin’s rocketing values, it is easy to forget that it is just one version of one application (cryptocurrency) of a new technology (blockchain). In some ways, the present moment is analogous to the early days of the Internet, when Hotmail was an exciting new discovery and the Internet was synonymous with email.

Coinmarketcap.com, a website that tracks the market capitalisation of cryptocurrencies, lists 1,379 currencies. Away from the hysteria around bitcoin, lesser known cryptocurrencies such as Omisego, TRON, Golem, and Storj are attracting investments that are helping to set up an entire decentralised ecosystem and payments infrastructure on blockchain platforms that could radically transform the way businesses transact with each other.

The fundamental value proposition of the blockchain is that it eliminates the need for trust — a commodity without which exchanges of value (transactions) cannot happen. This means that individuals and businesses can do away with a whole bunch of intermediaries whom they pay for managing trust.

For instance, on Ethereum, a blockchain platform that calls itself “the android of the cryptocurrency world,” you can set up an application that enables people to rent out idle storage space on their laptop. Someone who needs cloud storage can pay you directly, instead of paying Amazon, a leading cloud storage intermediary. You could thus monetise a resource that you didn’t even know you had. Well, Storj is an application that does precisely that, and it already enjoys a market cap of $298 million. Ethereum, too, is listed on cryptocurrency exchanges, and it is worth $112 billion, not far behind bitcoin’s market capitalisation of $259 billion.

Programmable money is another example of a decentralised blockchain-based application. Since digital currencies are software programs, one can program a particular CC such that, say, it cannot be used to buy the product of a company that uses sweat shop labour.

Two domains that would gain immensely from blockchain applications and CCs are Artificial Intelligence and Internet of Things (IoT), since in an IoT world, thousands of devices would need to rapidly and seamlessly transact with each other in real time, without the devices’ owners having to dig into their wallets every time.

Given the enormous scope for increased efficiency and cost-saving, it is not inconceivable that in the medium term, the biggest threat to businesses in the finance and digital space will come from the blockchain versions of themselves.

Of course, as happened in the early days of the Internet, some of the claims being made about blockchain are plain silly. It is true that the technology’s peer-to-peer orientation renders it more democratic. But it is not about to usher in a socialist paradise. Even the World Wide Web was supposed to be a decentralised, democratic space where everyone was equal. We all know how that turned out.

Clearly, technological innovations cannot substitute for the hard job of reducing socio-economic disparities through political mobilisation. If blockchain is getting traction, it is because it works with, rather than against, market logic.

It so happens that right now any technology that drives decentralisation also carries some political promise by virtue of challenging the centralising tendency of power. But that is a byproduct, and not to be confused with its intent, which remains the same as with any other IT innovation of recent times: efficiency and profit.