A post from Oct 2011: Wimbledon Ladies' Champion 2011

Petra Kvitova has a difficult name to pronounce and If you are a critic, your criticism of the new Wimbledon Ladies' Champion will struggle to go beyond that. The 21-year old athlete from Czech Republic has the most amazing tennis skills. Her unusually accurate forehands and the ability to hit the widest angels of the court remind another Great of the bygone era, John McEnroe. Her opponent of the day, Maria Sharapova was completely flummoxed by the long and accurate returns that the new winner inflicted on the Russian's usual long serves. Apart from a brief period at the early phase of the 2nd set, Sharapova had no answer to the relentless accuracy of the 21 year old. Such was her dominance and maturity of her tennis that it is safe to proclaim that the sporting world has found a new hero and she has more than enough talent to win a few grand slams in her career.

On the more personal side of things, the new Champion is tall, slender, good looking and she does not grunt (you have to go quite a few years in the past to find another one)! But, the most amazing trait of the new Wimbledon queen is, she is completely cool under all the attention and her calmness resembles someone who knew her destiny beforehand. The great Martina Navratilova, herself from Czechoslovakia, and also Jana Novotna were present in the royal stand to inspire Petra; so was Anna Hathaway, leading the glamour parade that a final in Wimbledon can expect. However, at the end, it was the cool and confident tennis of the newly crowned 'queen' and her modest demeanor that will dominate the tennis headlines until the next Grand slam!

More banks than you need?

Recently the Central Bank of Bangladesh has declared their intention to issue licenses for new banks that, once issued, will almost double the number of commercial banks in a single stroke. The expressed reason has always been the fact that the majority of the country's population are outside the reach of formal banking channels. So, new banks will increase coverage as well competition in the financial sector. However, the latent motive can be something else as most of the licensees are leaders of the ruling party or their cronies. And, every indication is there to suggest these banks will target an over crowded segment of the populace. Although these do not surprise many, the important discussion is what this influx of new banks in a saturated market-segment will mean in the long run.

At present, there are 44 commercial banks with thousands of branches but almost all of them are concentrated in the urban population centers targeting professionals and business people within a narrow segment of the population. There is every indication that the new banks will target the same customers and share into the same capital base rather than creating new pies as promised by the Central Bank. Once the new ones start operating, competition in retail banking will be fierce prompting the risk of increasing percentage of bad loans. On the other hand a increasing portion of the capital base will be disbursed as consumer loans putting inflationary pressure on prices of consumer goods. At the same time, available finance for capital goods will shrink, negatively impacting industrial growth.

But, the gravest evil apparently evident in the pattern of government policies is the fact that distribution of wealth is becoming far more skewed toward the well-off section of the society. Be it the tax structure of the country, or awarding of government contracts, allocation of budgetary incentives or without-retribution-hijacking of people's money from capital market, it is always the cronies and extreme high end of the pyramid who are the beneficiaries. The weak justice system and lack of democratic institutions help to perpetuate the trend. And, the end result is a humongous gap in the wealth of the rich and poor that will shame even most capitalist of thinkers!