The Crescendo March Edition

FROM THEEDITOR

YOUR MENTAL HEALTH IS IMPORANT TO US Team Crescendo gives equal value and attention to your mental health as much as we do to keep you apprised of the entrepreneurial world. Educating yourself is the least we can do to support others. Most people face mental health challenges at one point or another in their lifetime. Occasional stress, and sadness are natural but if things become too much for you to cope with alone, there is no shame in asking for help. Talk to family and friends or reach out to these places of support. KOLKATA SERVE -9830785060 DEFEAT DEPRESSION -9830027975 CLIPPINGS -9830027976 NEW DELHI SECUNDRABAD SANJIVINI - 011-40769002/ ROSHNI FOUNDATION - 040- 011-41092787 66202001/040-66202000 SUMAITRI - 011-23389090 HYDERABAD BANGALORE ONE LIFE -7893078930 ORG SAHAI - 08025497777 MUMBAI SAMARITANS - 8422984528/ 8422984529/ 8422984530 ICALL(Operated by TISS) - 022-25521111/9152987821







THE CRESCENDO Whitney Wolfe Herd 1

THE CRESCENDO 2

THE CRESCENDO AUTONOMOUS DRIVING - Aditya Singh 3

THE CRESCENDO 4

CastlesTHE CRESCENDO in the Air PREETI World War II was followed by the golden age of capitalism -The 1960s, Americans could hardly rent a car, play tennis, or party with rock music without their money ending up in James Ling’s pocket, who headed LTV, a conglomerate that owned more than 11 subsidiaries in unrelated fields like electronics, packaged meat, planes and missiles used in the Vietnam war. Low-interest rates let conglomerates obtain financing at a cheaper cost. As the interest rates began rising in the following decade numerous big conglomerates were forced to either spin-off or sell most of the companies that they had absorbed to raise more loans without any regard to the intrinsic value of the company. Believers of the firm-foundation theory would have laughed at the ‘conglomerate fools’. The firm-foundation theory argues that each investment has a firm hook of intrinsic value which is based on the growth rate, dividend payout, market interest rate, and the risk involved while the Greater-fool theory aka the Castle-in-the-air theory has no firm foundation and floats up there. Opposed to the postulates of the Firm-Foundation Theory which tries to understand the intrinsic value of any stock or other asset. The castle in the air theory probes deep into investor behavior and tries to understand the psychic values of investors. This theory was popularised in 1936 by John Maynard Keynes, a famous economist, and an investor. He postulated that investors do not need a firm foundation of intrinsic value to beat Wall Street. Rather they should estimate the probable price rise and build positions in the favored stocks before the crowd starts buying those stocks and the price surges. 5

THE CRESCENDO To predict the winner of a beauty pageant, analyzing facial features, hair or the way the participants carry themselves will unlikely lead you to the winner, there’s little room for your personal taste in beauty. You have to determine who the crowd will think is pretty and step beyond the confines of your mind and think like the crowd, figure out the beauty standards of the crowd. Cryptocurrencies are an example of the Greater-Fool theory. They have no intrinsic value, consume more electricity than the whole of Argentina, yet the price of bitcoin has skyrocketed over the years. Cryptocurrency continues to lure traders in who hope to resell at a higher price later. Although the castle in the air theory can explain speculative activities, outguessing the reaction of the crowd remains a dangerous sport. Unsustainable prices may endure for years but eventually, they reverse sharply when the cloud castle comes crumbling down. Few can anticipate and escape without losing a fortune when everything falls apart. Greed is a recurring motif in human history. One example of this is the Tulip Mania, one of the most dramatic get-rich-quick schemes in history. Dutch speculators invested in tulips, hoping to buy them at a higher price later, keeping in mind the tulip price appreciation. A tulip bulb in 1638 cost less than 2 guilders (the currency of the Netherlands from the 17th century until 2002, it was replaced by the euro). At 100 guilders, playing by the rules of castle-in-the- air theory I know that the tulips are overpriced, and nowhere close to their real value. I’ll consciously be a fool and buy tulip bulbs even at 100 guilders not because it’s a good deal but because I hope to find a greater fool who’ll pay an even higher price in the future. Like this, the mania drove the price to the extreme. At the height of the bubble, tulips sold for about 10,000 guilders, one could buy a mansion on the Amsterdam Grand Canal with tulips! People made money and kept buying more believing that the price would go to the moon, the passion for tulips would last forever. They even sold their personal belongings to put more money into what they thought was a smart investment and ended up buying more tulips than they could afford. The crowd began to awake, everybody panicked and tried to sell off their tulips, undoubtedly the price collapsed. Many holders were forced to liquidate and declare bankruptcy. By 1638, tulip prices had returned home. Buy and sell signals in the castle-in-the-air theory are counter-intuitive. The idea to maximize profit is to buy before you think everybody is going to buy and sell before everybody is going to sell. You have to anticipate the anticipation of others, admittedly it’s easier said than done. Accordingly, it’s okay to be a fool as long as you are not the greatest one. 6

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THE CRESCENDO I don’t think bell-bottom pants are coming back in fashion anytime soon(not in mainstream for sure, they may have few admirers helter-skelter, we all know one cricket personality ;) ). Similarly I don’t see Marxist communism taking deep roots in the political spectrum. European countries are not turning into staunchly socialist establishments anytime soon. Casteism, sexism, racism are concepts of… Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. “BACK TO THE FUTURE” -Adamya Kaushik The point being, society moves on, ideas change and apparently we progress. Ideas are supposed to be beaten to make way for more efficient ideas. Politics has been different. Politics is supposed to run on ideals. India’s glorious past has in fact been a mainstream political discourse for as long as our fathers can remember. Some people like to believe that the contemporary world is stuck in a cycle where the majority discourse shifts its preference after the current flag-bearer seems to be reaching a develop mental dead end. To that I always say, politics is for pessimists there’s always despair at the end of the tunnel. Eco- nomics usually follows politics and India is a relatively young nation when we talk about the modern political set up. India is currently a developing country and it is looking at a major debt conundrum. A situation where all the economic stake- holders involved (borrowers/lenders)(at all levels) are suffering, confused and hence hesitant. This is not good for the economy. 9

THE CRESCENDO India has faced a much worse crisis builders that India needed special-pur- once before. This was when India was pose institutes to handle the credit not yet a republic and the country was needs of Industry and other long term still searching for its identity, searching project stakeholders. Building a strong for a structure that would work effi- manufacturing-based spine was par- ciently for congeries of the broken sub- ticularly important for the recently continent. A robust credit system was independent nation-state which important. India was aiming towards a sought to create a libertarian, socialist socialist future. We needed industries. identity. An identity that was self-suffi- Industries needed money. Let us under- cient and avoided(rather detested) stand the factors that made a strong foreign intervention in its economy. point for DFIs as opposed to banks, for handling these upcoming medium and Early days large credit demands. How banks work and the It was in February of 1948 when RBI importance of DFIs ruled out the possibility of banks serv- (post-independence) ing as medium and long term financial institutes. The biggest question then Banks are just like any other corpora- was who would do it? The answer then tion trying to make a profit. They pay kind of came naturally as Developmen- you interest on the funds deposited in tal Financial Institutes(DFI). DFIs had customers’ bank accounts. In turn, they huge success, industrialising socialist provide credit and they charge interest Europe. Committees under TH Holland on payment of the debt. The interest and Sir BN Mitra had already advocat- that is charged on the credit is greater ed the establishment of Industrial than what is offered on the deposits financial institutes in India. These were which make for the bank’s profit. This before the establishment of RBI. system, especially in a vulnerable Industrial Finance Corporation of setup, seems unreliable. Small borrow- India(IFCI) was set up immediately ers prefer their deposits to be liquid after independence and started its and accessible. If banks start lending functioning from 1st July 1948. This insti- huge chunks of this money to a very tute was entirely under the control of limited industrial base, it becomes dif- the government. The then Finance Min- ficult for the common masses to place ister proposed such institutes be estab- their trust in these institutions. You can lished at state levels as well. Madras only imagine the distrust in authority Industrial Investment corporation ltd. soon after independence in India. It was one of the major institutes estab- was thus pretty clear to our nation lished at the state level(for Madras province). The State Financial Corpo 10

THE CRESCENDO rations Act from 1952 legitimised India thus, in her initial days had three state-based industrial finance insti- DFIs running parallelly. tutes. But these government institutes were heavily cautious and slow on Stakeholders in the lending because the Indian economy ever-present crisis was already in tranches thus investing in risky projects was not a bet which TT Krishnamachari became the Finance the government was ready to take. Two Minister in 1964. India already had more concepts for DFIs were already three major DFIs working throughout picking up traction in India. One was the country but the massive political proposed by the then Minister of Com- involvement was still a roadblock. DFIs merce and Industry, TT Krishnamachari were proving to be just another inac- and another by the World Bank’s Presi- tive participant in the crisis. dent, Eugene Black. Krishnamachari proposed a develop- Krishnamachari opened another DFI, mental institute that not only provided one which was owned by RBI thus set- necessary credit but focused on en- ting it free from the political and bu- couraging entrepreneurs. He wanted reaucratic clutches. Industrial Devel- to gather the best minds in various opment Bank of India(IDBI) soon fields to come up with the necessary became the major DFI in India. In strategies to recognise great ideas 1966-67, Rs 134 crore was distributed as and help them succeed. This idea was industrial credit, out of which a sum of definitely ahead of its time, consider- Rs 62 crores was distributed by IDBI. By ing the current political and economic 1976, IDBI was the principal finance environment of India. National Industri- institute in India and its control was al Development Corporation(NIDC) transferred to the Government of India. thus came into being. Its stakes were eventually to be sold to the private The issue sector. Eugene Black proposed a privately India had a lot of DFIs by the mid-’70s. owned DFI on the lines of Common- Yet, the share of industry in the Indian wealth Development Finance Compa- economy was at 25% which was an ny. This idea eventually gave birth to 8.8% hike over the 16.2% figure from the Industrial Credit and Investment 1950-51. The biggest challenge to the Corporation of India(ICICI). It was ma- jorly owned by subscribers in the UK, USA. CDFC also helped to find stake- holders. The rest was open to the public. The company ended up over- subscribed. 11

development of the industrial sector in THE CRESCENDO India was the government’s two-faced policies. The clash between the coun- The ‘90s try’s economic needs and the govern- ment’s political intention was pretty ev- By the mid-’90s, it seemed like the DFIs ident. On the other hand of the DFIs, were converging with banks in terms of we had the Indian government stacking their functioning, only in a more limited legislations against the industrial de- sense. This because the Indian econo- velopmental spirit. Regulations were my opened after 1991. Until then, DFIs turning staunch against ease of doing enjoyed special privileges from the business with every passing order. Each government which covered their need stage of setting up business suffered for funds. After stopping this special from heavy red taping through licens- treatment, DFIs and banks were on a ing, permits, very strict labour laws. level playing field. These financial insti- The entrepreneurial players weren’t tutes, regardless of their categorical spotless either. Private businessmen nomenclature, were now all liable on were involved in unhealthy practices the open market to manage funds. which(to some extent) was the reason Banks were way more superior in this for the government’s distrust. This was aspect and DFIs on the other hand the ‘pre-liberalisation India’ which was were rather lethargic. And the sudden still living in the hopes of a socialist competition with banks was a chal- utopia. This very naturally ended up as lenge too big for any of these special- an agriculture-based society that ised industrial financial institutions. lacked heavily in industrial invest- Banks were already handling industrial ment(external or internal). This age is finance. They had other asset manage- today (rather precisely) dubbed as the ment options like mutual funds and se- “permit raj”. A market with great po- curities trading as well. It was all very tential suffered because the rich and evident that it was about time that powerful were rather too busy fulfilling “universal banking” became official. A their personalagendas, attributed to a major step in this regard was the 1997 myopic view of the future. committee on banking sector reforms This is how I would sum up my impres- which was set by the then Finance Min- sion of the Indian socio-economic age ister P. Chidambaram and led by of ‘70s-‘80s. former governor of RBI, M Narasimham. The committee recommended a univer- sal banking system for India. DFIs now started converting into banking institu- tions, which is rather ironic considering the fact that they were established be- cause of the apparent inferiority of the banking system. Financial institutes 12

THE CRESCENDO It is not very difficult to understand the motivation behind the move. Even were now divided into two major cate- though it's not unidimensional, it is easy gories to comprehend. The government is aiming to solve more than one issue • Banking companies-> Banks and DFIs with this announcement. Firstly, India’s NPA crisis is at its worst. which were successfully converted into The economy faced an issue similar to banks this in the ‘90s. It was then triggered by the over-enthusiastic democratisation • Non-banking financial companies-> of credit distribution (for political rea- sons). Loan Melas were organised, just this category majorly consisted of the about anyone was able to come and DFIs which were in the process of con- get a loan. That meant a lot of bad version. loans. DFIs were not economically viable by After 1991 though, the government I the end of the 20th century and it was opted for a unique re-liquidating only about time that all these major scheme. The same policy was used by industrial institutes (like IDBI, ICICI) the current government to cash banks became banking companies. DFIs after demonetisation. It worked then became visibly non-existent by the but proved insufficient this time early 2000s. around. 2000-2010 was great for the Indian economy. We were one of the Why are we talking fastest-growing nations among the about DFIs? major developing competitors. This induced confidence in the company. India’s FY2021’s financial budget was And when that happens we need to recently announced. As an interested remember Minsky which Indian banks observer of India’s banking crisis, the didn't. And went on a loan distributing announcement which grabbed my im- spree which made the system run Pon- mediate announcement was that of zand results are in front of us now. The allotment of Rs 20000 crore for the es- major winners in this decade became tablishment of a DFI in India. The major the biggest losers of the next one. role of this DFI will be to finance new Which majorly happened to be infra- endeavours in infrastructure. structure supporting industries(cement and steel etc.). This devastation was 13 brought about with the entry of cheap- er Chinese competitors. This DFI is an attempt to revive this sector. Second, another major problem with

the Indian economy is that it has THE CRESCENDO slowed down. Liquidity has frozen. Confidence has plummeted. Demone- Authors take tisation along with the banking crisis and unemployment has a major role to This article is my understanding of the play. Inflation is high, money is scarce. government’s move but backed with Our economy is flooded with such facts. This is just scratching the sur- instances of contradicting conun- face. I am in no way implying that this drums. This all works in a cycle. The move is a masterstroke that will change cycle is a bigger issue altogether. At it all. Neither am I saying this is a waste. the heart of the issue is the need for We just cannot know. What we can do money. Investment. India needs invest- is try to understand the government’s ment and to attain reasonable invest- actions at various stages and form an ment targets, we need infrastructure unbiased outlook towards the result. which is attractive enough for the What the current Indian mandate tends investors. To generate that, India needs to hover between are binary outlooks the current players in the infrastructural on the state of the Indian government. category to be well equipped. This DFI It varies from denial to despair de- can be a way to ensure just that. pending on whether you support the current establishment or not. Let’s try to break these polarised echo chambers. Let us take our own steps towards soci- etal rationality, let’s be aware. 14

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WOMEN ENT REPRENEURS

FEimnpoawn(hc)eiramlent - Kanika Mittal

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THE CRESCENDO “Equipped with the right attitude and education, women can feel empowered and confident about their financial future.\" 19

THE CRESCENDO THE \"CRÈCHE\"ENDO: Maternity Benefits in India 20

THE CRESCENDO 21

THE CRESCENDO 22

RITU KUMAR

FASHION DESIGNER

THE CRESCENDO B-School Assay - Sanatan Shrivastava 25

THE CRESCENDO History Secret behind the quick growth and Legacy. 26

THE CRESCENDO Courses offered by ISB 27

THE CRESCENDO Admission Process Fee Structure source: College Dunia 28

THE CRESCENDO source: College Dunia Salaries and Placements/Alumni: 29

THE CRESCENDO Conclusion: 30

WOJCICKI Female POWERHOUSE C E O

S the most important person in advertising

A New Art Form: The NFTs By Shreeansh Beeple's 'The Non-Fungible Tokens or NFTs have been the talk of the First 5,000 town lately. They have been around since 2017, and in Days' sold for a record 2020 they became a $250 million market. Musician $69,346,250 on Grimes recently sold her crypto art through NFTs for March 11, 2021. $5.8 million, while Chris Torres, creator of Nyan Cat, a It was the first famous internet meme, sold a one-of-a-kind version of piece of purely his viral GIF for 300 ethereum which currently is equal NFT artwork to be offered by a to around $600,000. Artist Mike Winkelmann, also major auction referred to as Beeple, sold one among his works for house $6.6 million. Twitter CEO and founder Jack Dorsey fuelled up the buzz around NFT by auctioning off his first ever tweet on twitter: “Just setting up twttr” as an NFT, which currently holds the highest bid of 2.5 million USD. Jack has stated that the auctioned proceeds will be converted to Bitcoin which will be donated to GiveDirectly Africa Response. So now you all must be having a lot of questions in your mind like what non-fungible tokens actually are, why they are so costly and what’s in it for you, etc. Let’s get these covered one by one.

THE CRESCENDO WHAT ARE NFTS? WHY ARE NFTS IMPORTANT? 34

THE CRESCENDO OUTLOOK OF NFTS IN THE INDIAN CONTEXT CryptoPunk #3100 was This CryptoPunk #6965 This CryptoPunk sold for purchased on March 11, sold on the 19th of 4,200 ETH, the ETH was valued at approximately 2021 for 4,200 ETH, February 2021 for 800 approximately ETH currently worth $7,566,173.88 USD $7,584,485.82 USD about $1,608,032 IN SHORT TO SUMMARIZE THE IMPORTANCE AND APPLICATION OF NON-FUNGIBLE TOKENS WE CAN SAY THAT IN A WORLD OF CUT, COPY, AND PASTE, NON- FUNGIBLE TOKENS ARE BRINGING IN A REVOLUTIONARY CHANGE WITHIN THE WORLD OF DIGITAL ART BY TACKLING THE DEEP-ROOTED PROBLEMS WITH OWNERSHIP AND COMPENSATION. 35

Creative Team Shruti Gupta Rudraksh Gupta Neelmani Sadhya Singh Aditya Singh Shreeansh Agarwal a ED Cell Team