Mr. Minister - I disagree with your decision

I was unhappy when the minister for education announced that class X students wont have to go through the ‘ordeal of Boards’. I always felt that Board exams were one great leveler for all kinds of students irrespective of your caste, region and extent to which you licked your teacher’s feet. Oh! And one more - irrespective of whether you were a teacher’s son/daughter.
In my 12 years of school life, I managed to study in 10 different schools – all in different parts of India. And I found that students who had been studying in the same school without having to undergo the torture of having to change schools, had significant advantage of having spent time in building a relationship with the teachers, of having convinced the teachers of a history of ‘good performance’ in their class.

One such incident happened when I shifted in between terms from one school in J&K to another in M.P. in class IX. My biology teacher decided to give us a surprise test in class. It so happened that a girl, who was sitting next to me, copied an entire diagram (which was the whole test) from my test answer sheet. In other words, she made the same mistakes that I had made in the diagram. But she was not caught. I, who was unaware of someone having copied my answer, was punished for copying. Not to be pushed back by such an incident, I told the teacher that she could re-take the test and check who was the culprit. By then the red-faced teacher realized it was a mistake but was unwilling to admit it. The incident created a rift forever between that teacher and I. I knew I would never get the best grades in Biology as long as that teacher marked my answers.

Another similar incident happened when I was in Class IV. My math teacher never thought much of my academic credentials and even gave me a '0' in the Math oral exam. Then, one day my dad got promoted. The teacher’s husband was working in the same organization as my dad. From the day the news of my dad’s promotion came, the teacher was suddenly very nice, polite and most understanding towards me. And I never got beaten by a cane stick for not being able to answer Math questions in class.

In the school in J&K, there were two teachers kids in my class – Jasmine and Sonika. Except for the first two ranks in class, the rest of the kids could choose any rank they desired. What shocked me when I first was admitted to this school was that Jasmine was considered the “English” topper. Ask her to construct a sentence in English and it would be the worst grammar you had ever heard. I am sure despite Jasmine and Sonika coming first/second in class throughout their school life, I am willing to bet that these girls have not done anything significant in their life with their education.

So Mr. Minister – scrapping board exams may make parents in Delhi happy (who crib the maximum), but it would make scores of students like me unhappy because now, for 11 whole years, the student will continue to be at the mercy of teachers and abide by their whims and fancy.

Political factors to continue to play role in market sentiment

We saw a very eventful week last week with markets and most stocks touching 52-week high for a change. The results of elections were unexpected, or so we were made to believe during elections by political pundits that there would be a fractured verdict. As a result the market saw for the first time in its history a day of upper circuit! Most retail traders I spoke to, seem to have sold off their entire portfolios on Tuesday at some profit in the belief that the opportunities may come in the future to buy on dips.

As things stand today, I dont believe that the market is going to go down significantly at least not till the budget is over. For one, there is no foreseeable bad news. Most data that was earlier a cause of concern is either a non-event for the market or has come down to manageable levels. FII purchases throughout March and April have been strong and continue to be in May. Rating agencies are waiting on the sidelines to get some clues on economic measures and reforms that the government is likely to implement. Right now a lot of action in the market will be based on political outlook e.g allocation of portfolio to various ministers. Does Mr. Montek become Finance minister (likely very positive for markets), what is the outcome from DMK? On the other hand, RBI's clarification that no more fiscal stimulus is required would also be treated as a positive (a policy action that is however, controlled by the govt. not RBI).

In technical terms, there is likely to be resistance at 4450 levels while one needs to rethink about taking long positions if Nifty breaches the psychological 4000 barrier. RSI does imply that we are in an overbot market. However, political factors are likely to play a significant role than technicals this week. Trading on the Nifty is likely to be tricky this week and I would recommend taking stock specific positions instead. Stocks that are likely to benefit from govt. budget are likely to be movers e.g. power sector, aviation, OMCs, autos. Many of these have already seen some up moves. Dollar-rupee exchange rate moments should be watched out for as further rupee appreciation without RBI intervention would be negative for IT sector. The IT sector has already lost some of the early gains made last week. RBI is likely to defend the rupee at current levels so that it benefits exporters. So remain neutral on IT sector.