Navin worked with major European Financial Services market participants like Euroclear, SIS, SWIFT, LCH etc in the enterprise software division since he graduated summa cum laude in Computer Science Engineering.
He soon got bored of life mainly due to the amount of rain & snow in London that made him stay put at home and away from Tennis. He shifted to US Financial services clients but that left him no better although he learnt a fair bit about "investing" during his time with these firms.
He returned to India and is a budding venture capitalist. He likes "Bottom of the Pyramid" ventures.
I would actually like the day when we have 450 million people in India owning automobiles. That’s probably more than a car per household all over India, and I would be happy for the millions that have never seen a decent road in their life (assuming their owning a car means a) income b) roads and c) other necessities taken care of) That opens up a market I cannot even begin to imagine.
I’m least worried about Mumbai’s streets, because we need to urbanise the countryside anyhow. Let a hundred Bombay’s happen. If this Mumbai or that Bangalore chokes, so be it. I am happier to see the per capita income and living standards go up in a much more broader manner than it has.
The oil price will actually not rise much – there is tremendous supply that has never been tapped because it’s always been non-profitable to do so, but as prices increase, that barrier goes away.
It might not happen just yet, this 400 million Indians owning cars. Just that I’d be very very happy if it did.
Navin: The last line should have been “But people do not cycle in Sweden so often as they walk…”
Hi Navin: Some comments based on my general knowledge of geography and public policy. Look fwd to the debate.
1. Correlate this with the area of the country and percentage of people in urban conglomerations. I say this because, US is a large country hence people will tend to use ‘non walk’ modes. But Canada is equally big but ‘walk’ mode almost twice as high.
2. Denmark and Netherlands, I imagine are pretty flat, so bicycle usage is higher (even policy supports an alternative which people will adopt). See how Switzerland, equally small country has low bicycle usage – because it is hilly?. Even govt does not push people to use bicycles in Switzerland. But public transport usage is highest there, so I guess govt supports this option.
3. Data will have to correlated with urbanisation levels to understand why people are walking so much Switzerland and Sweden. Swden is so cold that I wonder why anybody would walk. So what makes people walk there? Heated Secure walkways? But people do not walk in Sweden so often as they cycle…
89% ( US) using automobiles is 267 million people. If even half that percentage start using automobiles in India, it would mean 450 million people from India…and we have not even started talking of trends in China. Any guesses what the oil price will be then? And Bombays already gridlocked streets will then become 100% parking slots since there will be no road space left.
And why wouldn’t oil sell at $125 per barrel…?