The Hindu Business Line : Stop the superstition: BSE

Mumbai, Jan. 29 Bombay Stock Exchange has taken strong exception to reports suggesting that the newly installed sculpture of a bull in its premises has brought the exchange bad luck.

“A section of the media attributes the fall of the Sensex to the installation of the bull. We are indeed shocked and surprised that such a trivial issue that panders to superstitious belief has been blown out of proportion,” said a statement from BSE.

The bull was installed on January 11 this year. Ten days later, when the Sensex registered its biggest fall ever of 1,408 points, there were several disparaging references to the bull, some of them describing it as a ‘panvati’ (ill-omen).

“The current ups and down of the Sensex has nothing to do with the installation of the bull by BSE. As a matter of fact the index movements are an integral part of market characteristics,” said BSE.

‘Reinforces cliches’

Associating the market fall with the bull only reinforces the image of India as a backward country, it said.

“In the olden days, India was perceived as the land of ‘rope tricks’ and ‘snake charmers’. By indulging in such propagation of a non-scientific theory, we are only trying to reinforce the age-old cliché of India’s superstitions and backwardness and not the ‘modern’ country which we are today.”

It has taken years of concerted effort by the Government and the people of India to change this into an image of a nation having skills and expertise in the spheres of science and technology, IT, software, academics, business and entrepreneurial enterprise, and modern day finance.”

Using a pun to drive home its point, BSE exhorted the media not to indulge in such “cock and bull” stories.

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