Life is Cheap!

Abundance of anything makes it cheap. One thing that is abundant in our country is life! Too many people! If I reflect back on some conversations that I overheard during my childhood, elder women would talk about having a house full of kids just in case some die. The logic being, a few are going to get bumped off anyways, because of what ever reason - disease, accident, natural calamity, social unrest etc. and hence it is advisable to have more. I guess it got burned into the collective psyche of the society that it is OK if a few die. Reaction of the society to people dying is like shrugging the shoulders and carrying on with the task at hand. We have become numb to such news/ incidents. Some societies try to take on the adversities head on and overcome them or build defenses against them, so that everyone has a higher probability of survival. We as a society seems to have taken the other route, which is of producing more and there by ensure that some survive, even if the average probability of survival of each individual is much lower than some other societies.

 

People die on poorly laid out roads and because of lax enforcement of traffic rules .Too bad, we are too many and not enough roads, so it is OK if a few die! Children die in overcrowded school buses. Well, it is OK, if that happens once in a while, by putting kids in a school bus like sardines in a can, we lower the transportation cost. Illicit liquor gets made, sold and consumed, people die, who cares. These poor folks who buy this cheap liquor are anyways too many and who cares if a few die! Khap Panchayats give diktats, run parallel courts, pass death sentence, execute those sentences. Hush, that is a taboo subject. How can we go against our superior social practices, which have been handed down to us thru' the ages and have come from God or one of his representatives. Girl child is killed in the womb, no one gives a shit. If it happens in the family then it was such a necessity, if it happens somewhere else, oh! such a social evil! How could they do it, animals! Women, an object to use and abuse, made for pleasure, it is the men who have higher calling in life. Women just happened to be there! It is a different matter that it is the men who line up by millions to seek blessings of goddesses, for good fortune and prosperity.

 

It is not just the police that is responsible for what happened to that beautiful, innocent girl in Delhi. We all are! Society is rotting, morality is at its lowest. Morality in a society just does not go down in an instance. It happens over a few decades. This incident is another in a series of such incidents, which tells the trend morality has taken in our society. Our education system, both formal and informal has failed us. Mothers, fathers don't teach their sons the limits. Schools don't talk about relationships, respect for other humans - men and women, humbleness. In fact, quite the opposite, schools and educational institutes teach about competition, about surviving in a dog eat dog situation, about the importance of each mark, as one mark less can leave you behind, far behind, about the fact that for you to succeed you have to defeat others. In our country it is either ultra competitive environment or there is no education at all.

 

Sare jahan se accha hindustan hamara....sounds like a joke!

Amazing journey of a Salmon - In life and death

It is not just the journey that Salmons undertake during their life time but the one that they undergo after their death that is amazing.

Salmons can live in both fresh water and salt water. They are born in freshwater, follow the stream or the river in which they are born all the way to the ocean and live most of their lives there. However during their lifetime they make one or more trips to their birth place to lay eggs. In their journey back to their birth place, they swim against the stream, cross many natural and man made obstacles to reach their spawning grounds. Some Salmons during their life time might travel hundreds or thousands of miles. Talk about swimming against the tide!

However it is Salmon's journey after its death that is not that well chronicled. A typical journey after death of an Atlantic Salmon starts on a trawler that catches it off the coast of Norway and takes it to a port in Norway. There Salmon is frozen and transferred to another vessel which takes them to a much larger port like Humburg or Rotterdam. There they are transferred to another ship and taken to China - mostly likely to Quingdo on Shandong Peninsula, China's fish processing capital. There Salmons are thawed, skinned, deboned and filleted. They are refrozen, packaged, put on another ship and sent to the supermarkets around the world mostly in Europe and North Americas. Two months and a trip around the world after they are caught, the "fresh" fish gets sold, displayed neatly on crushed ice.

Literary Sojourn: Beckoning Mount Everest

An interesting piece on the joy of mountaineering. Having done some trekking myself in the lower Himalayas during my college days, it brought back all those sweet sour memories......Follow the link for the full article.

Literary Sojourn: Beckoning Mount Everest

China's manufacturing Vs India's service jobs

Between 2004 and 2008 oil prices went up from $30 to $150 per barrel. Guess what it did to the price of all the merchandise that China exports and the price of the raw material that it imports. Transoceanic shipping cost tripled.

In 2000 when the oil was at $20 per barrel, the transportation cost across pacific  was equivalent to an average 3 percent US tariff. At $100 per barrel, the transportation cost worked out to an equivalent of 8% US tariff. At $150 per barrel, the tariff equivalent was 13%.

On the other hand the bandwidth prices have been declining 20 to 25% annually!

Trend is clear, oil is going through the roof, bandwidth prices are falling through the basement. What does that do to the economies of China and India. While over a period of time oil prices are going to put brakes on China's booming manufacturing economy, the ubiquitousness of cheap bandwidth will continue to fuel and grease India's service economy. Place your bets cautiously! 

The stats for this piece came from "Why Your World Is About To Get  A Whole Lot Smaller" written by Jeff Rubin

Only when the shit hits the fan

It took full blown balance of payment crisis in 1991 for the government to realize that the then prevalent model of economic development was no good.

This time, rating agencies were giving final touches to their communique, reducing India's credit rating to junk, which prompted some policy action.

Economic prosperity comes when we grow at a rate substantially higher than inflation. In our case, however, we have to work even harder, we have a huge backlog to clear. We have to lift existing people out of abject poverty, we have to account for new people we are adding to our population.

Our collective psyche has been shaped by our distrust of foreigners who ruled us, used us and left us in economic ruin. Earlier, we were fighting between ourselves and allowed outsiders in to come and take advantage of us. This time, we are fighting among ourselves and shutting them out and letting opportunity pass by.

It would be so nice if political parties who dispose of a specific policy action can come up with an alternative as well. It is so easy to destroy or reject something, it is extremely difficult to come up with an alternative. Let all political parties share their economic plan of getting India on a 9% +  GDP growth path. Let these plans be scrutinized by eminent economists. Let there be debate on the over all economic plans of these parties, vs street fights on a specific policy action.

Let us not wait for the shit to hit the fan every time, for us to take action!

Kingfisher - Lessons in Management - What not to do

Kingfisher is giving plenty of material to the management schools, for them to use as case studies in their class rooms. Unfortunately most of these lessons are of type "what not to do".

The latest being the email that the CEO of the company sent to its employees asking them to rejoin on 13th October, so that the lockout could be lifted.

What an impersonal way to get the airline of the ground! Especially after the tragic death of wife of an employee, directly as a result of airlines messed up situation.

Would it not have been better  for the CEO to organize a  town hall? He could have been physically present at the Headquaters, he could have addressed people directly, empathizing with them in this difficult time. Employees in other cities of the country could have been asked to come to the local offices, where video conferencing could have been arranged. Better still, the CEO could have flown to a few  large locations, where large portion of the employees are based and could have talked to them directly.

What Kingfisher demonstrated is how a manager operates, the need of the hour is to demonstrate how a leader operates. Kingfisher employees need to be given hope and confidence that there is someone out there looking after them.

Are we hurrying things up or are we massively delayed?

Mamta's yesterday statement - "I have just come to know through media that Central Government has notified FDI in retail today. Is it ethical, moral and democratic for a minority government to issue Government order forcefully and hurriedly, when massive protest against it is taking place across the country?"

Mamta says government is going about notifying FDI in retail in a hurry. Oh really! I thought we are already delayed by many decades. What other Asian countries achieved many decades earlier, we are still struggling to get to, and she says we are hurrying it.

We can't wait another 10 years for next set of economic reforms, we are already late. We will waste an entire generation, if we continue to deliberate and dither. Think of a young woman of 20 yrs, graduating from college this year, if new opportunities are delayed by 10 years or even 5 years, those opportunities are lost for her. 

I remember in early '90s, when we were still studying, computer adoption had just began. Anti computerization protests were regular, organized by public sector bank employees, unions, other government establishments, actively supported by the then political outfits in opposition.Imagine if we had succumbed to the pressure and software /IT had not taken its roots in India, where each one of us would have landed. That opportunity, even if it had come 5 years later, would have been a lost opportunity for my generation, because we would have gotten into different jobs, whatever other jobs were available at that time.

Life is constantly moving, we have to move faster than that to make some visible improvements to the present lives of the people vs being ok bringing the progress over many lifetimes. I don't think notifications are hurried, on the contrary, I think they are already way too late.

Cutting the nose to spite the face

If there is one word for the phrase "Cutting the nose to spite the face" it is "Bandh".  Who loses the most - the weakest in the society - daily wage earners. They just won't earn anything on this day. They have to depend on their savings, if any, to scrape through. Common man is the next, as the factories shutdown, they produce less and the produce gets costlier, we don't feel it immediately, but that is the net effect. However, Bandhs do not just mean stopping activity, it is in fact a license to destroy what we have. Bandhs are not considered successful until, a few buses and trains are burned, few shops are looted,  pitched battles are fought with the police, a few firing incidents happen. Band is historic when a few die! Netajis on their part court arrest. They are very respectfully taken in special police vehicles and put behind bars. They are fed and then given a drop to their residences before their favorite prime time serial starts in the evening.

Government registers a case of sedition against the cartoonists for disrespecting the national symbols. What about the netas and political establishment that disrespects the humans and takes away from them their lively hood.

Estimated loss to the economy because of today's Bandh - Rs2000 crore. If we add up all the losses that the country has suffered because of negative political activism till date, it will put to shame all the losses from all the scams put together. 

Mamta Vs Manmohan - economically speaking

When it comes to politics, Mamta wins hands down. 

I watched her press conference announcing withdrawal of support to UPA. Trigger for the decision, as she mentioned, were two issues - diesel price hike and FDI in multibrand retail. Both the issues economic in nature. 

Question -  does she know more about economics than Manmohan Singh? Should Mamta decide country's economic policies?

A quick comparison, (from wikipedia)-

Mamta's educational qualification - 

Banerjee graduated with an honours degree in History from the Jogamaya Devi College, an undergraduate women's college in southern Kolkata. Later she earned a master's degree in Islamic History from the University of Calcutta. This was followed by a degree in education from the Shri Shikshayatan College. She also earned a law degree from the Jogesh Chandra Chaudhuri Law College, Kolkata.

Manmohan's educational qualification -

He attended Panjab University, Chandigarh, then in Hoshiarpur, Punjab, studying Economics and got his bachelor's and master's degrees in 1952 and 1954, respectively, standing first throughout his academic career. He went on to read for the Economics Tripos at Cambridge as a member of St John's College. He won the Wright's Prize for distinguished performance in 1955 and 1957. He was also one of the few recipients of the Wrenbury scholarship. In 1962, Singh completed his studies from the University of Oxford where he was a member of Nuffield College. His doctoral thesis "India’s export performance, 1951–1960, export prospects and policy implications" was later the base for his book "India’s Export Trends and Prospects for Self-Sustained Growth"

Mamta's early career - 

Banerjee became involved with politics while still in school, joining the Congress (I) Party in West Bengal and serving in a variety of positions within the party and in other local political organizations. As a young woman in the 1970s, she quickly rose in the ranks to become the general secretary of the state Mahila Congress (1976–80).She was a college student in the mid-1970s.

Manmohan's early career - 

After completing his PhD, Singh worked for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) from 1966–1969. During the 1970s, he taught at the University of Delhi and worked for the Ministry of Foreign Trade with the former Cabinet Minister for Foreign Trade, Lalit Narayan Mishra. As the Minister of Foreign Trade, Lalit Narayan Mishra was one of the first to recognize Singh's talent as an economist and appointed him his advisor at the Ministry of Foreign Trade. Singh and Mishra first met, coincidentally, on a flight from India to Chile. Mishra was on his way to Santiago, Chile to attend an UNCTAD meeting.

In 1982, he was appointed the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India and held the post until 1985. He went on to become the deputy chairman of thePlanning Commission of India from 1985 to 1987. Following his tenure at the Planning Commission, he was Secretary General of the South Commission, an independent economic policy think tank headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland from 1987 to 1990.

Mamta's track record  -

In 2009, Mamata Banerjee became the railway minister for the second time. Her focus was again on West Bengal. She neglected her duties as a railway minister to concentrate on electioneering in West Bengal.

She led Indian Railways to introduce a number of non-stop Duronto Express trains connecting large cities besides a number of other passenger trains, including women-only trains. The Anantnag-Qadigund railway line of the Kashmir railway that has been in the making since 1994 was inaugurated during her tenure. She also declared the 25-km long line-1 of Kolkata Metro as an independent Zone of the Indian Railways for which she was criticized.

Reuters reported that "Her two-year record as railway minister has been heavily criticized for running the network into more debt to pay for populist measures such as more passenger trains."The Indian Railways became loss-making in her two-year tenure. Even before stepping down as railway minister to become the Chief Minister of West Bengal, she declared that she would be able to handle both the portfolios together. Her nominee Dinesh Trivedi from her party succeeded her as railway minister.

On 14 March 2012, Dinesh Trivedi announced the annual rail budget 2012 that included an all over hike in passenger fares, ranging from 2 paise to 30 paise per kilometre for reasons of safety, along with network expansion and associated modernisations. The rail fare had not been hiked for nearly a decade  putting Indian Railways in ICU as far as its financial viability was concerned. The proposed fare hike would have added 4200 crores to railways income, which while paltry compared to its expenses, would still have saved railways from becoming bankrupt. The budget received enthusiastic support from a wide cross section of society including the general public, industry groups and all five Rail Unions. However, the fare hike proposal in the budget was fiercely opposed by Mamata Banerjee. Although Trivedi initially tried to defend the budget by pointing out that it was necessary for making Indian Railways stronger, Mamata Banerjee forced him to resign as Railway Minister on 18 March 2012

Manmohan's track record -

Following the advice of International Monetary Fund in 1991, Singh as Finance Minister, freed India from the Licence Raj, source of slow economic growth and corruption in the Indian economy for decades. He liberalized the Indian economy, allowing it to speed up development dramatically. During his term as Prime Minister, Singh continued to encourage growth in the Indian market, enjoying widespread success in these matters. Singh, along with the former Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram, have presided over a period where the Indian economy has grown with an 8–9% economic growth rate. In 2007, India achieved its highest GDP growth rate of 9% and became the second fastest growing major economy in the world.

Singh is now a strong supporter of globalization, seeing India's immense labor capacity as a path to delivering Indian goods in a worldwide market and eventually relieving large-scale poverty.

Singh's government has continued the Golden Quadrilateral and the highway modernisation program that was initiated by Vajpayee's government. Singh has also been working on reforming the banking and financial sectors, as well as public sector companies. The Finance ministry has been working towards relieving farmers of their debt and has been working towards pro-industry policies. In 2005, Singh's government introduced the value added tax, replacing sales tax. In 2007 and early 2008, the global problem of inflation impacted India.

Now, I let the readers draw their own conclusion. A litmus test for each one of us though, if you were to send your kids for economics education, who would you send them to - Professor Mamta or Master Manmohan? 

Apple - Falling in love with itself - Recipe for disaster

Why do successful companies fail? Because they get into the mode of incremental growth and stop thinking about game changing scenarios. It may be beginning to happen at Apple. 

Apple has become so predictable that people knew all about iPhone5, much before it was officially launched.

Some time back I had written a piece on Innovation. http://manishvermabrainwaves.blogspot.in/2010/04/living-in-flat-world.html#.UFK7UcHiZcQ. For easy reference I am pasting some excerpts from it here. It is so relevant to Apple of today. 

"For survival depend on innovation. It is no longer sufficient to do, what you do, better and faster. Understand what you do! Question the very need of doing it. Ask what besides that. It is about breaking the mold, but not for the heck of it, or just to see how much noise it makes when it breaks!

From organization's perspective, there is one lesson as well - Doing it better and faster gets the incremental growth, the tectonic shifts can't be handled by this philoshopy. Killing of Walkman by iPod is a typical example. Why could Sony not see the digital revolution coming? Did it not have smart people? Well, I think it is not about people, it is about the way organizations are structured. The organizations puts blinders on the employees. The incentive structure gets setup such that everyone in the organization does well when incremental growth is achieved. No one is incentivised or disincentivised to handle the tectonic shifts. A large ecosystem gets created that lives and breathes the incremental targets. While, milking an established product for incremental revenue is essential, however, to secure the long term future, a separate ecosystem has to be created that thrives on innovation, experiments and crystal ball gazing!"

Apple will have to get out of its cozy position of coming up with a few tweaks every year to its product lineup and expect the whole army of people to upgrade to the new tweaked products. Competition is  breathing down its neck and is segmenting the market in all possible ways. After living with iPhone, in almost the same avatar for the last six years, it is high time that it does something drastically new/different. Apple says, design center for the phone is the hand and thumb is the most important tool. Well, that might be true, but the most dreaded finger on the hand is the one in the middle, especially if the customer shows it! 

President - A useless expense!

What good is a President for? President has zero power, but a whole retinue of staff and huge paraphernalia that goes with it, all paid for by tax money. When Pranab Mukerjee was eyeing the Presidential position he was looking at it as a retirement home, that has exclusive gardens and lawns! I for one do not want to pay for Mr Mukerjee's morning walks in perfectly manicured gardens.

President is a  rubber stamp, a constitutional necessity. It is a position that is given as a reward for loyalty and is a complete drain on the national exchequer.

Would it not be a good idea to merge the position with the position of the executive head of the government, that is the Prime Minister? We can call this position by what ever name, but there is no sense in having a constitutional head, with zero power, that is different from an executive head.

To make the entire government setup accountable and answerable to the people, the executive head of the government should be directly elected. So we, the people, know who is going to lead the country. Today the situation is such that if you want to know who would lead India after next general elections, you have to either read Madam Sonia's mind or get into the head of RSS Chief or wait for M3 (Mulayam, Mamta and Mayawati) to make their mind!

President for all practical purpose is useless, only time there is a real need for the President is when the government is transitioning. I am sure those functions can be performed by Chief Justice. Let us make the government leaner and efficient. Let's start from the top!

Teachers Day - What courses can our Parliament run?

The entire legislative machinery is stuck, parliament is not functioning, important state matters and legislation related to economy, which have real material impact on the well being of large population of the country are pending. However, even in this situation political parties are able to push  a bill reserving quota, based on caste and creed, in promotions. You may ask - How low can they fall? Well, the digging is on.

When you think you have seen the lowest, they surprise you with their ingenuity of going even lower. Politicians should patent this process of finding newer depths to which one can fall. They can sell this IP to the corporates who are also falling over each other to get part of the spoils. In fact Indian parliament, as a whole, can probably run some courses, with formal degree and all, to share their collective knowledge of defrauding a nation and make some more money. I am taking a stab at the courses that they may want to offer -

a) Maximizing ROI - How to make multiple times the money you spent on getting yourself elected
b) The art of disguise - How to be religious but completely immoral
c) Self development - How to kill your self conscious
d) Innovation - How to find ways to make money where none seems to exist
e) Team work - How to team up with rival political parties of diametrically opposite ideology and make money

The candidates who pay premium on top of the regular fee will get the best seats in the parliament's visitor gallery to see the practical on the floor of the house.

I invite the readers to add to the above list of courses that our parliament could run. You see, on Teacher's day we must contribute our bit so that the great leaders could share with the rest of the nation their hard acquired practical knowledge of bleeding the country dry.

True Federalism

Is India not too big, too complex, too diverse, too varied to be driven by one set of policies and one vision.

Different parts of India are at different development levels, they are grappling with different set of problems, priorities are different. Trying to impose same set of policies whether economic, or for social development,  from a central command and control structure is not working. It is slowing those parts of the country that can grow faster and is compromising those parts of the country where focus has to be on the basic social development.

There is too much control with the center, it is time to restrict that and give states the authority  and responsibility to chart out the course that suits them the best and hold them accountable.

Let the center only handle defense, foreign affairs and ministries related to strategic research and development, for the country as a whole, rest everything including the finance and economic policies should be with the states. There is perennial fight going on between the center and the states with respect to dividing the tax money. Let the center only levy the minimum that is required to maintain the  ministries under its control, rest of the taxes should accrue to the state that is generating the commensurate revenue.

Today, numerous policies and programs are stuck just because not all the states agree to them. Even if the programs and policies are good, they get stuck because they seems to be pushed from outside (center) and because of partisan politics.  We can change that. The states should be able to decide what they want implemented and what they want to block. FDI in retail, insurance, policy on natural resources, reforms in banking, in agriculture, list goes on, all of these should get decided at state level. A mechanism must be created where even if only one state wants to implement a policy it should be allowed/enabled to do so, without waiting for the rest of the union to agree to it. It should be possible to create companies / business entities /legal entities that operate in a state, as if they are operating in an independent country.

This will make state governments answerable to their electorate. Today, bucks gets passed around, state governments blames center and center blames states, development and hence the people suffer. No one knows if the poor development in the state is because of faulty union policies or faulty state policies.

State elections should become more important than the union government elections. The political parties should focus more on putting their best candidates at state levels, they should focus on governing the states better, making them competitive, and improving the lot of people in the states that they govern. This will only happen if the states become more powerful and manage more of their affairs themselves.

I know the present state of the state governments and their governance record is pathetic. In fact, that is precisely the reason why I am suggesting, that we change the structure such that we take away their ailbi of always blaming the center for all the ills. The first principal of good governance and good management is to hold someone unambiguously responsible and accountable for it

It is clear and has been clear for a long time that our current system - both political and administrative - is broken,  what is required is overhauling of the engine and not just change of oil.

Literary Sojourn: Interview with B.L.Gautam - Man Behind "Khosla ka Ghosla" and "A Wednesday"

Man behind "Khosla Ka Ghosla" and "A Wednesday"      Literary Sojourn: Interview with B.L.Gautam

Hard Rain

http://scentofabook.blogspot.in/2012/08/it-is-interesting-book.html

Are we really smart?

As a race we don't stop gloating about the fact that we have a rich culture, have a  long histroy, that we concern ourselves with bigger and better things namely, why we exist, why we are born, how to reach nirvana etc etc.

We may be good at pleasing the Gods but we have failed the humanity. Proof of pudding is in its eating, the proof of superior intellect is in first managing the mundane wordly affairs seamlessly, something that people can touch and feel. We have failed miserably there. Our superior intellect can not guarantee that we provide basic amenities to our people.

Major part of country plunged into darkness. The funny thing is, everybody who is a somebody in this area, knew that this is coming, but nobody did anything. It is a known fact that most of the utilities that buy electricity - State Electricity Boards - are broke. These utilities can't invest in basic distribution infrastructure. They can't pay the power generation utilities, which in turn can't setup more power generation capacity neither can they upgrade their power transmission infrastructure. The cycle is broken. It is a known fact that politicians use promises of free electricity to get votes. It is understood that it is populism at its worst, that hurts country's long term growth, but it is still done. It is a known fact that theft of electricity is widespread and is done with full connivance of the utility employees. But it still happens with impunity.

Can we call ourselves smart? I leave that question for the readers to answer. But smart or not, we definitely are a prime example of a dysfunctional state.

Literary Sojourn: Book Review : Andy Leelu

Literary Sojourn: Book Review : Andy Leelu

Irrespective whose gun booms, it is our blood that spills!

CRPF gunned down Maoist.  17 people were killed. Debate is ragging whether these were Maoist or simple villagers. Irrespective whether these were Maoist or villagers, it is a matter of grave concern that we in our own country kill so many of our own citizens.

Why do people in the Naxal belt take to guns? How are Maoist able to recruit so many in their ranks? The reason is not difficult to find. Oppression, casteism, feudalism is rampant in rural India. Governance and rule of law is confined to books only. Law is used, and abused by the powerful as and when it suits them.

All of us have had our brush with the government agencies - whether law enforcement or otherwise -  one time or the other. We  know how difficult is it to deal with them, so much so that an average person does everything possible to avoid them. Keep this in mind, that we are talking about educated people in large cities where media is active. If this is the state of affairs in cities, imagine what it must be for the uneducated, poor people living in rural India. What recourse is left for them? Any self righteous person would take to gun to protect the honor and dignity of his own, his family and his community.

It is critical to address the basic issues that make people leave their regular life and take to gun. It is difficult for me to believe that all these people, who join ranks with Maoist have a deviant mind. It is tragic that the only way we seem to be trying to solve the problem is by having a bigger gun then them!

‘Personal Cloud’ to Replace PC by 2014, Says Gartner »There's no doubting the cloud invasion. But the research firm Gartner believes the personal cloud will replace the PC as the center of our d...

‘Personal Cloud’ to Replace PC by 2014, Says Gartner »
There's no doubting the cloud invasion. But the research firm Gartner believes the personal cloud will replace the PC as the center of our d...

Social Networks - A Novelty

I remember, in early '90s when the first wave of techies went to the US, on H VISA, the first thing that most used to do was to start forwarding emails with jokes, to a long list of recipients. I guess, easy access to internet and email was something that led to people doing that. It probably was also a way to keep in touch. Over a period of time, novelty wore off and email chains, with jokes, stopped. I am wondering, if social media is also going thru' the same phase. People are experimenting with it. All sort of things get written, get shared, from trivia to very thoughtful. I reckon, over a period of time fatigue will set in, just like the joke emails, the usage of social networks for exchanging trivia will reduce. Anyone buying this line of reasoning? :)

Before Status Quo takes over

Manmohan Singh,
Finance Minister,
Government of India

Subject: 6 things to do before status quo takes over

Sir,

Congratulations on taking over the additional charge of Finance Ministry! (Thank God, Pranab Mukerjee is out and so, hopefully, the 1980's economic thinking).

People expect change. They have high hopes from you. Don't let this opportunity slip by. If you wait, status quo will take over. Here are some of the items that you may want to start with.

Get rid of the changes in tax laws with retrospective effect. Make a statement, or come up with a policy stating that changes with effect from back date won't happen going forward.  

Get rid of GAAR, it is arbitrary, ambiguous and open to interpretation. If you must tax transactions that happen abroad but involve assets in India, then make it mandatory for the asset to change hands in India as well, to a newly registered entity. Let that asset gets valued independently and then tax it as per exiting norms. What I am proposing may not be best possible solution, as I am not an expert, however the idea is to take out ambiguity, arbitrariness from proposed GAAR.

Untangle the wires in telecom sector. One of the showcase sectors of our economy, a sector that is an enabler for larger economy, is now bogged down in procedural and legal hassles. The guilty must be punished, but please don't look at maximizing the money thru' auction  and cripple the growth of this industry. Don't kill golden egg laying goose.

Announce a plan to completely get rid of diesel subsidy. Put a timetable in place, clearly showing, when the entire energy sector is going to get decontrolled and deregularized. The money thus saved, should help reduce fiscal deficit and some should get pumped into research for renewable energy.

Implement GST, all the work has already been done. Give it a final push and get it implemented. Roll out multibrand FDI initiative, at least let those states that want to implement it get started. But ensure that those states don't go back and force the businesses to shut down, when the government changes. That will be a kiss of death for the Indian economy.

Put better administrators in charge of government departments. Put some kind of status reporting mechanism in place for all government employees. Hold them accountable. Inefficiency is rampant. Meetings get pushed. Leaves are taken in good measure. Holidays are plenty. Now and then there is a strike.

You know more than anyone else, it is a lot about sentiments and feel good factor. Restore it.


Your Truly,

Dieselification of the economy and its Long term impact

With diesel heavily subsidized by the government, the impact is clearly visible -People are figuring out a way to replace other fuel with diesel, wherever possible. It is for everyone to see that the sale of diesel cars is growing much more than that of petrol.

It is so short term and so foolish! Two things - First, government cannot continue to subsidize it for ever, that is clear. 2nd, diesel (as a fossil fuel) is going to ultimately run out, that too is clear.

By subsidizing diesel, government is doing two things - a) Burning a hole in its pocket, running a fiscal deficit that is scaring the investors away and hence slowing down the economy. b) Channeling money, R&D, effort, time and energy of other enterprises (government owned or otherwise) in an area which anyways is not a long term bet.

We as a nation would be much better off if  we put in these kind of resource in researching alternate form of energy, something that is going to last long term - fusion reactors, bio fuel, efficient solar panels, safer fission reactors, efficient wind turbines, harnessing wave energy, tapping geothermal energy. So much can be done, only if we set our goals right.

Making a case for Rahul Gandhi to take over as Prime Minister

India's GDP numbers for the last quarter is a sad commentary on how our government is running our economy into the ground. Pranab Mukerjee talks about India's GDP growth better than that of Euro zone countries. He does not talk about the basic standard of life that those countries have already provided to their citizens. I really wonder what is the motivation for people like him, who are far beyond their retirement age, to stretch and aggressively work towards economic upliftment of the country or fix issues quickly. They are happy warming their cozy chairs, bending backwards to appease the people who keep them in power. While we are stuck with Congress for couple more years, here is the best possible scenario that I can think of, under current circumstance  - Rahul Ghandhi should take over as Prime Minister. He is young and has maximum at stake - his future. He has shown the inclination to go out and connect with people. He had the courage to speak in favor of FDI in retail, logically arguing that it will benefit a large population of farmers vs the short term impact that it will have on the trading community. There are still couple of years for him to turn things around. The going has been so bad for UPA II till now, that anything marginally better would reflect good on him. He has to just put some energy and focus on getting things done. If group of Ministers must meet to take a decision, then instead of that meeting taking place after couple months, have that meeting done now, push the envelop. Allow executives to take decisions rather than lining up all of them for legislative discussion and hence delays. Punish people for corruption and showing favoritism, however don't start second guessing executive decisions, there is no end to it. No one will take any decision. Hindsight is always 20-20. 


Manmohan Singh should take over Finance portfolio.(A good nurse may not necessarily be a good nurse supervisor, likewise, a good economist may not necessarily be a good administrator/politician). Why not use Manmohan Singh in a role that he is good at - Finance vs. in a role where he is ineffective. Pranab M should be booted up to Presidential Palace.

Mr Prime Minister please take over Finance Portfolio

World over, the economic environment  is getting tough and uncertain. The countries that show that they have their act together will have less pain and the countries that continue to dither will bring misery to their citizens.

In case of India, we have done enough in the recent past to scare away the investors - changed the tax laws retrospectively, cancelled the spectrum allocations in case of telecom, brought in General Anti Avoidance Rule (GAAR), announced opening up of retail and then put it on hold,  not implemented uniform Goods and Services Tax, did not do anything concrete to bring the runaway subsidy bill under control, created ambiguity around allocation of coal blocks, allowed general corruption and red tape to have a field day. The list goes on and on.

I am sure there are a lot of good things happening too. However, the perception and the sentiment is negative and before you know it becomes reality.

If there is one thing that this government could do, just one, to start hacking away at the negative sentiments, then that would be to move Finance Ministry under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Bump up the current finance minister - Pranab Mukherjee - to the President's office and make Prime Minister Manmohan Singh take additional charge of Finance.

Manmohan Singh is not known for his political astuteness, we have witnessed that, (or may be he is, that is why he became the Prime Minister, topic for another debate), however he is recognized for his hold on economics. He is respected for that. Why not send a signal to the world that we take our economy seriously and we show this concrete action to back our words!

Mr Prime Minister please do it!

Shape of Water

Went to Sikh National College, Qadian (near Batala) yesterday. (Very rich history, topic for another note, some other time). Drove thru' Punjab country side. I was amused to see the shape of overhead water tanks in private homes. They come in all shapes - Cocks, Pigeons, Hawks, Aeroplanes, Cars, Footballs etc. Do the other parts of the country have anything like this?

Making Past Perfect!

Our government follows it literally! It has chosen to revise the tax laws from back date. The law in question relates to capital gains on sale of India based assets, when the transaction happens between two foreign entities. We are not debating whether the change is right or not, I personally think it is right. However, the bigger question is whether the government should change this from past or not!

It is akin to government making changes to the motor vehicle act, mandating that all vehicles should be driven on the right side of the road instead of left . Imagine these changes are made with effect from 1960. As a followup, the government sends penalty notice to all the people, who owned any vehicle since 1960, since they have been driving on the wrong side of the road. To soften the blow, government says, the normal penalty is Rs500  but we will only charge Rs250 to the people who have been driving on the left prior to April of this year! What generosity!

It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that this is nonsensical? So do we assume that the top policy makers and bureaucrats are idiots? I am tempted to believe it, however, the situation is probably more complex than what seems on the ground. 

Here's what I think is the core issue. Government does want to tax sales of any India based asset, even if the ownership of the asset changing hand lies outside India. Fair so far. I think it also does not want to tax past transactions(I would like to give it a benefit of doubt). Here's the catch, there probably are cases, in the past, where such transactions were taxed. Supreme courts ruling in Vodafone's case would have allowed such companies, who paid taxes in the past, to come back and claim refund. Government, by bringing in this law, with retro effect, is covering its behind. 

Government is between a rock and a hard place! If it does not bring in the legislation from back date, it is vulnerable to refund claims by companies, who can cite Supreme Courts' ruling in Vodafone's case. If it does, it  vitiates the investment environment! What should it do? 

What is your vote?

Fiscal Deficit and The Diesel Price

Fiscal deficit and the diesel price. What is the connection? Simple - Both burn a hole in our pocket. What is the difference, one burns the hole visibly, and the other stealthy! The funny thing is, the stealth hole is much bigger and deeper, but most of us don't care about it! Why? Are we idiots? Don't we know what is right and what is wrong? No, none of that.

The diesel hole is direct, visible, pinches immediately and is understood by 99% of us. The fiscal deficit hole is much bigger, deeper, indirect, comes with a lag and is  understood by 1% of us. I love percentages, they change the game completely!

Our politicians, all seasoned politicians, have access to best of the economists, have been in public life for many decades, have interacted with best brains, clearly understand both the economics of diesel and fiscal deficit. But more than the economics they understand the percentages, the percentage of electorate who know or don't know the difference!

And that is where the character matters, character of these politicians, which determines how they use the information that they have.  They can be true leaders, go to the masses, teach them why letting diesel prices float and allowing it to burn small hole in our pocket, for now, will help us ward off fire to our trouser! or they can be, guess what, politicians(!) and tell people that they are the ones keeping the lid on the diesel prices, who cares about fiscal deficit!

Socially Yours

Love it or hate it,  but you can't ignore it. Social networking is here to stay. To some, social networking is antisocial, making people not mingle in person, to some, this is the best thing since sliced bread.

Most of the educated humanity, with means, seems to have congregated on it already. Whosoever has not, is increasingly feeling isolated and under tremendous social pressure to jump on the bandwagon.

Businesses can not afford to ignore this congregation. However, the rules of this congregation are very different from any that the business has ever dealt with in the past.

Traditional marketing techniques don't apply.  New rules have to be learned, new techniques have to be mastered. However interesting thing is the new rules and techniques are not clear either.

There are so many of these sites, what to do? Which circle to use what face to spite? On which site to put up the official business page? How much to tweet? How much to share?  How to track who is saying what about the business? How to respond to good or bad comments? How to know and track the influencers and influence them? How to know what your competition is doing? How to track and measure the effectiveness of your social media strategy?

There are answers to all the above questions, however, the interesting part is that the answers have a shelf life. Today's correct answers won't necessarily be correct tomorrow. The landscape is not just changing, it is getting created, at a rapid pace. Hence, the techniques used to address this congregation of people in the virtual world today, would not work tomorrow, that is almost a certainty.


As a first step, businesses would do themselves a favor if they recognize the importance of social networks and virtual communities.

Stay tuned for more....

Throwing out the baby with the bath water

Scene 1 -

Act 1 - India Shining
Government comes out with a policy to give 2G spectrum to telecom companies at a predefined rate. The spectrum is allocated to a number of companies so that it results in healthy competition and the cell phone call rates for the end users remain low. Right objectives, right policy!

Act 2 - Crony Capitalism
Enters A Raja, the telecom minister. Favors a few companies. Companies favored by Raja sell their stake to other entities(some of them foreign). Everyone pockets truck loads of money.

Scene 2 -

Act 1 - Hell breaks lose
Media and opposition, citing the money received from 3G auctions, call the policy of giving away 2G spectrum, at low rates, as faulty, resulting in loss to national exchequer.

Act 2 - As you sow so shall you reap
A Raja's role of favoring a select few companies comes to light. Raja in Jail.

Act 3 - Throw out the baby with the bath water
Judiciary steps in. Instead of booking the guilty and the corrupt, kills the 2G spectrum allocation policy. A policy which is bang on what we as a nation need - ubiquitous availability of communication devices that are inexpensive to use.

Repercussions -
a) No faith in govt policies and contracts (likely to impact future investments)
b) For some quick gains (money received by auctioning the 2g spectrum), jeopardize the long term objective of widening the use and availability of telecom services
c) Instead of making an effort to separate the bad from the good and punish the bad, judiciary seeks to kill the bad by killing everybody!

Scene 3 -

Act Final (Recommended) - Return of sanity -

Take licenses from those entities that were favored by Raja. Penalize them. Do not kill the policy which is absolutely sane. 

Stemming the Rot in Government

These days inefficiency of government officials is also being called out as scam.  That a government official did not negotiate well enough and hence caused loss to the nation exchequer, or some babu bought some substandard equipment when a better and cheaper alternative was available, may not necessarily have "lining of pockets" as the only motive, it could actually be the incompetency of the official. I am not defending babus, but it is important to understand the difference between corruption and incompetence. If we do not understand the true problem, we won't get to the right solution.

Today, everything gets bucketed under corruption. That is not the whole truth.

In lot of  cases, it is the incompetency of the officials that is the reasons for delays, wrong decisions, wasteful expenditure and in general government paralysis.

The reasons why the government is generally perceived to be / or it actually is incompetent are not difficult to find or comprehend. In fact three things that any organization needs to do to keep a vibrant and healthy culture are missing in government  - First  - Induction - The way people get hired in government is messed up.  Selection is based on quotas, cast and creed vs merit. Selections are heavily influenced, money changes hands. Selection techniques are outdated and out of sync with the reality. For example, induction process in police lays more emphasis on the physique of the candidate vs ways to figure out the psychological makeup of the candidate. Do we expect and want policemen to go and beat up mafia dons in their dens, a la "Zanjeer" or do we expect policemen to be able to resist temptation to take part of the loot and let the culprit go scot-free?
Second - The  rise in government is not linked to performance and good work. The process does not reward good performers. Worse still, there is no disincentive not to work. People have figured it out. Now it has degenerated to an extent where, forget about government folks going beyond the call of duty, to get something done, it is a pleasant surprise if they do what is their primary job! Even for doing that they want favors!
Weeding out - You get in you stay in. Incompetent people are happy to have more incompetent people around them. Makes it a very cozy bunch.
In short, government gets incompetent people in, it disincentivizes the competent, till they also become like majority, and it keeps the incompetent people for life!

To make the situation worse, as the government is expected to focus more on policies, procedures, governance and less on operations,  the incompetency of the government apparatus is becoming painfully visible and excruciatingly difficult to deal with.

To draw a parallel, imagine a corporate where top decision makers and executives are a bunch of incompetent people. Irrespective of how hardworking or capable the employees may be, the corporate is doomed.  No organization survives when the next person it higher is worse then the previous. It is a downward death spiral.

While we must work to stem the rot of corruption, we must not lose sight of the fact that we need to fix the basics, the basics of building an organization, in this case a very important organization - our government.

Thank You Raja for the 2G Scam!

Do I hear CBI knocking on my door to unearth the ill gotten benefits! Yes, I have benefited. I have benefited and so have many millions like me.  I pay a lower per minute rate for my phone usage.

As per CAG's estimates, if 2G spectrum were to be auctioned, the govt would have mopped up additional Rs1.76 trillion! There is no prize for guessing this right - From where would have the telecom companies recovered this amount -  from you and me of course, by pricing their services higher! or even charging for the incoming calls.

The sabzivalas, rikshavalas, carpenter, masons, would not have been able to afford the cells. New model for doing business would have not have emerged. It would have been akin to killing a golden egg laying goose.

Have we not seen what is happening with 3G. The spectrum was sold thru' auction, the companies went crazy with the amount that they paid. The price for the 3G service for the end users remains high. There are a few users on 3G, there is no compelling reason for anyone to create content that could be consumed on 3G networks. It remains a  high prized, no real value game!

I don't think the method of allocation of 2G spectrum was wrong. Government does offer land at subsidized rates or other incentives to the industry to setup manufacturing plants etc, however, that the minister used the spectrum as his personal property to get a cut for himself and his family is what messed it all up! Mr Raja you lost me there. I am glad you were caught and are cooling your heels behind bars for the wrong that you did. However, to get some comfort from all that has happened, Mr Raja you  want to look at this as having sacrificed yourself to make communication affordable for the teaming millions. Unfortunately you will be remembered for all the wrong reasons.

Folks, I had like to hear from you what you think. Do let me know. Hey, don't give me a missed call. Calling and staying on the phone is not that expensive either, thanks to Mr Raja!

Cheers!