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By:

Kaustubh Kale

10 September 2024 at 6:07:15 pm

Half Year Gone: Are You On Track?

As June draws to a close, it marks an important checkpoint in the financial calendar - the halfway mark of the year. The beginning of the year often brings fresh resolutions and ambitious financial goals. However, with six months already behind us, now is an appropriate time for a mid-year financial review. Are your investments on track? Beating Inflation Is Important Inflation remains a silent but persistent eroder of purchasing power. While market conditions, interest rates, and economic...

Half Year Gone: Are You On Track?

As June draws to a close, it marks an important checkpoint in the financial calendar - the halfway mark of the year. The beginning of the year often brings fresh resolutions and ambitious financial goals. However, with six months already behind us, now is an appropriate time for a mid-year financial review. Are your investments on track? Beating Inflation Is Important Inflation remains a silent but persistent eroder of purchasing power. While market conditions, interest rates, and economic headlines may fluctuate, one fact remains constant: your money needs to grow faster than inflation. Otherwise, your long-term financial goals may fall short, despite your best intentions. Define Financial Goals This is a good opportunity to reflect on key financial goals that require your attention. These may include purchasing a home, buying a new vehicle, planning vacations, funding your children’s education and wedding expenses, and preparing for your own retirement. Have you assessed how much you will need for each of these goals? More importantly, are your current investment plans adequately aligned to meet them? Review Asset Allocation The mid-year mark is also a suitable time to revisit your asset allocation. Are you holding an excessive portion of your portfolio in low returns products? Have you allocated enough to growth-oriented assets such as equity mutual funds, direct equities, and gold? These asset classes have historically outpaced inflation and created long-term wealth for disciplined investors. Necessary Insurances In Place Risk management also deserves attention during this review. Rising healthcare costs make it important that you have a personal, comprehensive, and sufficient health insurance cover, along with adequate term life insurance. Have you covered yourself on this front? Protect your savings and protect your family’s financial goals. Questions To Ask Yourself Financial planning is not a one-time activity. It is an ongoing process that requires regular monitoring and timely adjustments based on changes in income, expenses, market conditions, and life goals. Here are some key questions you may consider as part of this mid-year financial check: • Am I investing enough to beat inflation? Inflation may be gradual, but its impact is continuous. Are my investments growing at a rate that preserves and enhances my purchasing power? • Are equity and gold forming the core of my net worth? Historically, these assets have delivered inflation-beating returns. Am I still holding too much in low-interest fixed deposits or traditional insurance plans? • Am I protecting my savings and financial goals with sufficient health insurance and term life insurance? These questions are not intended to create alarm but to encourage awareness and timely action. Pause and Reflect A well-structured review at this stage of the year can help ensure that you remain on track to meet your financial objectives for 2026 and beyond. Pause. Reflect. Next Sunday, let’s talk action. (The author is a Chartered Accountant and CFA (USA). Financial Advisor. Views personal. He could be reached on 9833133605.)

Welfare marred by political slugfest

Mumbai: As the winter sun set over the Arabian Sea on Friday evening marking the first anniversary of the Mahayuti government’s current term, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis wore the look of a man who has weathered a storm to find a steady rhythm. Armed with a decisive mandate and a singular promise to hit the “reset” button on the state’s development engine, Fadnavis continued a quiet, relentless push towards “saturation governance” delivering welfare directly to the doorstep of the common man even though the headlines of 2025 were often dominated by coalition friction.


As the Mahayuti government turns one, the narrative is not merely about the miles of Metro rail added or the investment MoUs signed. It is equally about the bruising political reality of managing the Mahayuti – a three-legged coalition where the other two legs, Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar’s NCP, often seem to be marching to their own drumbeats. For Fadnavis, 2025 has been a high-wire walk between his trademark administrative velocity and the relentless gravity of coalition politics.


Explicit Goal

Fadnavis entered 2025 with the explicit goal of reviving the “CEO style” governance that defined his 2014-2019 tenure. His first move was the resurrection of the “CMO War Room,” a monitoring unit designed to bypass bureaucratic lethargy. The results on the infrastructure front have been visible. The long-delayed phases of the Mumbai Metro have seen accelerated trial runs, and the Vadhavan Port project has finally moved from paper to groundwork.


His push for transparency – launching the ‘Maha-Netra’ portal for real-time tracking of civic works – was aimed at cutting the ‘percentage culture’ that the opposition often highlights. To his credit, the administration looks sharper, faster, and more responsive than it has in half a decade.


Coalition Conundrum

However, politics has a way of muddying the clearest of administrative waters. While Fadnavis has the numbers, the internal dynamics of the Mahayuti have been far from smooth. The elephant in the room remains Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.


Having served as Chief Minister prior to this term, Shinde has reportedly found the transition to Number Two difficult.


Sources in Mantralaya whisper of a “cold war” over file clearances. The friction creeped from administration to party organizations and came to a head last month when Shiv Sena ministers took the extreme step to boycott the cabinet meeting to protest the political poaching of grass root workers by the BJP.


If Shinde provided the friction, the NCP provided the shock. Within a month of government coming to power, a senior NCP minister had to resign following allegations of links to an accused in a heinous organized crime syndicate. For Fadnavis, who also holds the Home portfolio, this was a double-edged sword. While his swift acceptance of the resignation was meant to signal “zero tolerance,” the opposition Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) seized the moment. “How can the Home Minister claim the state is safe when his own cabinet colleagues are dining with gangsters?” said Congress leader Vijay Wadettiwar.


The incident chipped away at the “Party with a Difference” image the BJP carefully cultivates. It forced Fadnavis into damage control mode, diverting energy from governance to political firefighting.

 
 
 

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