Corona Diary - A photo journal during the time of pandemic

A bright day, lonely walk, 

alone by the bank of a noisy river

stood the building lonely too, 

with a hope to home many as it used to.

Blowing the dandylion

Fun in the backyard

Life continues to grow, does not care pandemic or shelter in place

Look at us

A Family Jam

Donate for Shortrik - Save a life

Update as of 01/27/2013 - Shrotrik is no more with us. After a brave fight for few months he passed away on 01/27/2013. Heartiest condolences to his family.

Thank you is not enough to all who generously contributed to his treatment and help the family to fight this unequal war.

Update:
Shrotik has gone through his bone marrow transplant few months back. A big thanks to all of you who has contributed towards his treatment. Shrotrik and his mother are still in Chennai - city where the hospital is located - and Shrotrik has to go to outpatient and sometime get admitted for post bone marrow complications. Treatment is very expensive. Please find below the link with estimate of his treatment cost.

Estimate of Shrotrik's treatment after bone marrow transplant

Please contribute as much as you can, no amount is small even a $5 makes a difference. We together fought this battle, can we not run together last few yards! Again thank you in advance.

History:
Shortrik Dasgupta a nine year old boy who has been suffering from Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia since 2008. Now he needs bone marrow transplantation. Family has borne all the expenses until now, for this treatment they have to accumulate 50 lacs Indian Rs (approximately $100,000). If you trust me and my wife Lydia Ray please donate whatever amount is possible for you to try saving the life of a bright young boy. Thank you in advance.

Fundraising Update: $1,102.61 USD by April, 09, 2012

Please do not use these site to post any payments anymore (01/27/2013)

Donate Money in USA(USD) (Pay Pal):

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Donate Money in India:











Name: Shrotrik Dasgupta Age: 9 years sex: male
Address: 95, Jugipara Road, West Bengal, Kolkata-700074


Case History:
First detection of ALL (Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia) by Dr. Amitabha Pahari on 15th Nov, 2008 at Apollo Gleneagles Hospitals, Kolkata. Patient brought to Chennai and admitted at Apollo Specialty Hospital under Dr. Revathi Raj: DCH, MRCP (Paediatrics) UK MRCP Path (Heamatology) UK Bone Marrow Aspiration Cytology(BMA) done on 22nd Nov, 2008 showed 70% blast and when correlated with flow cytometry the final diagnosis made was CALLA positive ALL. Treatment started was based on UK protocol of ALL Regimen A.

By 2nd December 2008, the MRD in the marrow had gone down to 1.2%. As a result of the good response to chemotherapy Shrotrik was admitted on 11th January, 2009 for Chemo port insertion and after its successful implantation, was discharged on 13th January, 2009. From then on till the end of treatment the port was used for chemotherapy. The entire period of three years of treatment Shrotrik responded well to the treatment. The port was removed on 14th December, 2011 and the treatment ended with the final dose of vincristine on 6th January, 2012.
On 27th February, 2012 Shrotrik had to be admitted at Tata Medical Centre, Kolkata with inflamed scrotal wall and bilateral exploration for suspected testicular torsion. No torsion was found.
Since 5th March, 2012 he started getting fever and painful swellings appeared on the legs. He was brought back to Apollo Chennai on 13th March, 2012 and a CBC and Bone Marrow Aspiration revealed a relapse of ALL with 22% blasts in the blood and 66.4% blasts in the bone marrow. Fortunately enough number of MRD was detected in the Cerebro-Spinal Fluid.

Treatment has started according to ALL 3 protocol, after being readmitted at Apollo Specialty, Chennai. Based on the MRD found at the end of a month long treatment, the bone marrow transplant will occur.
Appeal from the Family:
From Nov, 2008 till January, 2012 approximately 16 lakhs of rupees have been spent on his treatment which has mostly been borne by his grandfather and partly by his parents. But now, an estimated 50 lakhs will be needed for the next treatment of which 25 lakhs approximately will be for the stem cell transplant alone.
We shall be much obliged if you can extend whatever help possible. Help us in saving Shrotrik’s life.
Thanking everyone for the solidarity.

Ford : Rests - 1:0 : One of the brightest pick of 2009 according to WSJ

Neither I nor my group members were auto analysts. But we were bold enough to choose an auto company when we did a project on management decision in last spring as part of managerial economics. The company was saved from a macro economic disaster due to some crucial decisions of the management. . We picked Ford and concluded that management took some dramatic decisions in past years that were paying them off during the greatest depression (2007-2010) since the great depression. Last week we exchanged emails among the group members who were part of the project and were of the opinion that we should have invested on Ford last year. Ford’s share was $1.5 in February, 2009, this week they are above $10 first time since August 2005. Last week James Stewart in Wall Street Journal picked Ford and Amazon as the bright picks for 2009.

Let me share some of our findings that we believed to have contributed towards Ford’s dramatically different position than its domestic counterparts.

Capital Raising
In 2006, Allen Mulally, Ford’s newly appointed CEO had been in office for less than 90 days and surprised the industry by seeking a $23.6 billion loan by mortgaging the company’s assets. Mr. Mulally stated that the money would give Ford “a cushion to protect for a recession or other unexpected event”
At a time when the economy looked recession proof and credit was available at very low interest rates, this sounded very strange to many. However, in part by this loan purchased three years ago, Ford was in better shape than its domestic competitors. The loans have kept Ford independent and floating during the severe credit problem during early 2008.

Asset Monetizing
In 2005, corporate bond rating agencies downgraded the bonds of both Ford and GM to junk status. One of the main reasons behind that was a heavy dependence on declining SUV sales for revenue. In light of this, Ford management decided to sell all its non-core brands. In June 2008, Ford sold Jaguar and Land Rover operations to Tata Motors for $2.3 billion. Both of these brands had been losing money for quite some time. In November 2008, Ford sold most of its shares in Mazda for about $440 million. Ford also intends to sell Volvo, which could raise another $2 billion. By selling their non core brands, Ford has not only obtained liquidity, but has also designed a pathway which concentrates more on their core brands.

Operational Efficiency
On the other hand, unlike their competitors, Ford has managed to avoid separating their car companies from their finance company. The owners are tied through family relationships and this has helped them utilize their resources efficiently. The resources are optimized by the owners to help sale curs or help setting floor level plans for the car dealers.

All these management decisions are dramatically different from GM and Chrysler. Our team believed that as a result of these decisions Ford was the only US auto maker not to take any Federal bail out money and was well positioned to thrive in this situation. Ford is proving us right and may beat Toyota as the second largest selling car in USA. Definitely Ford is way above their domestic counterparts.

I am proud of our findings. I would like to share it with other group members Arendt Kevin, Shane Alex and Joshua Suess. Unfortunately, while we were theoretically correct, we were not practical. We should have invested on Ford.

The Myth of the Rational Market - A Review

Justin Fox, "The Myth of the Rational Market - A history of Risk, Reward, and Delusion on Wall Street" (HarperCollins Publishers, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022, First Edition, 2009). pp.400, References and Further Readings, $15, ISBN - 978-0060598990

Stigler once was walking with one of his friends on a lonely road of Chicago. His friend tried to draw his attention to a $20 bill which was on the road. In reply what Stigler said became the famous or infamous – however you may want to interpret – definition of efficient market hypothesis, “It cannot be; had it been there someone would have already been taken it”. The proponents of Efficient Market Hypothesis always emphasized that the market is efficient to fix the price at any point of time. In this book, Justin Fox used the same story to elaborate the idea of efficient market hypothesis, though in a critical way. One might very well argue about the difference between strong and weak form of efficient market, but still this definition of efficient market has become a popular joke, particularly after the horrific economic downturn resulted from the failure of financial institutions last year.

As the name might suggest this book is not yet another cliché analysis of the last year’s economic depression. According to the writer Justin Fox – Editor and writer of the Fortune magazine and a long time columnist of the Times magazine – this is nothing but a journalistic effort. I leave the interpretation on the readers, but definitely can assure one thing that you could read it as if you are reading a thriller. No, don’t take me wrong; this is not a thriller, a mere history of rising of finance as a branch of Economics and stories about some famous economists who contributed to the field of mathematical economics. The book does a very good job not only telling the stories but also explaining how that edifice was built – bringing the real understanding of the sociology of the academic world.

The book starts with Erwin Fisher. On 15th October, 1929 Fisher declared that stock price has reached a permanent plateau. The great depression started after two weeks of this infamous prediction. Paul Samuelson once classified Fisher’s Ph.D. thesis as one of the most important works, if not the best. Unfortunately Fisher is known for his infamous prediction about the stock market. The book also tells the story of how Fisher lost his thesis in a telephone booth in New York and how he re-wrote it again.

During Second World War, American soldiers were having hard time in deciding the size of their anti aircraft cells. Using large 20 cells would increase the potential to destroy more; on the other hand 600 small cells would increase the probability of hitting the right target with perfection. Few high ranked soldiers flew to take a class from one of the famous statistician Milton Friedman. The resulting theory is the basis of “Operations Research” and the Portfolio Theory. The book is full of several such stories.

The book describes complex theories like “M&M Propositions” in a way so that anybody even without any background in Finance can understand the theory well. Fox used famous “Yogi Bera” to describe the theory. One day the Pizza delivery man asked Yogi whether to cut the Pizza in 8 pieces or in 16 pieces. Yogi answered that he was very hungry that day and wanted it to be cut in 16 pieces. According to “M&M Proposition” it does not matter whether you cut it in 16 pieces or in 8 pieces, the amount of pizza remain same, either way. This is a very seductive theory which helped developing the theory of finance the way it is now. Both Modigliani and Miller won the Nobel Prize for this.

These are some of the glimpses of many such stories and the journey along the incidents which framed the theory of finance. The book ends with Alan Greenspan. The main question Fox raised is why the theory of bubble is yet to be developed. This is not a new quest; people in B-School and in many other academic institutions are trying to find the answer. But yet to find a concrete answer how to differentiate a bubble from actual growth.

The book also contains a brief description of all the associated academicians and a meticulous list of all the referred books and publications. It is written in a very lucid way so that anybody can read the book. As a book it seemed a good collection to me. Fox and the publishers could have done better job in selecting the name of the book. The name suggests a concrete conclusion on the market but the purpose of the book is not to draw any final conclusion.