Stories heal, enrich, make one stop for a moment and think. They help us come back to normalcy, from the brink of collapse to sanity, and aid the acceptance of what happens. Stories also have the innate capacity to make us remember. And then, most important, stories fuel the belief that we can script our own tales. Thus goes one story –
When a man whose marriage was in trouble sought the Master’s advice, the guru said, "You must learn to listen to your wife." The man took this advice to heart and returned after a month to say that he had learned to listen to every word his wife was saying.
Then the Master said with a smile, "Now go home and listen to every word she isn’t saying."
It’s as simple as that. At the core of the tale is a lesson on how to handle a crisis, how to weather the storm. Closer to our subject at hand, the crisis points are plenty: the demand-supply mismatch, the seemingly unending challenges thrown from the logistics front, the skewed taxation structure, and the not-so-fair import duties on cement that throws competitive market equations out, the unavailability and spiralling costs of input materials, the plummeting value of the currency. What we need to do is to tap into our own strengths, so we may row our boat to a safe shore, and script another enchanting story, a story of survival as well as leadership. It is as the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre writes: "We are never more than the co-authors of our own stories."
So, we at INDIAN CEMENT REVIEW (ICR) strongly believe that the cement industry has been slowly but steadily transforming its pangs and pains into a successful story that can be emulated elsewhere in the world; ICR, for its part, is doing its best to highlight this emerging growth story. Over the last year, ICR has initiated a dialogue process on some of the most important aspects of the cement industry, such as the impact of consolidation, energy efficiency and sustainable initiatives, environment protection, a skilled and efficient HRD, supply chain management, packaging industry, plant and machinery and auxiliary equipment, proper branding and dealer and distributorship networks.
Even though demand growth continues to remain sluggish impacted as it is by the continued weakness in housing and infrastructure verticals, and capacity utilisation is expected to remain soft, the post-monsoon prices are likely to firm up, led by improved demand, before the elections. Given the thrust on infrastructure development, the long-term growth story looks to be an encouraging one.
With this issue, we proudly deliver the 27th Anniversary Edition of ICR into your hands! We are really grateful to our readers, well-wishers, and our advertisers; without their invaluable contribution, the story we have scripted would not have been possible.
Happy Reading.
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