Recently, I was seeing a program on a reputed English news channel, having a reputation in my mind one that subscribes to a particular ideology. As usual they had two imminent lawyers from the two leading parties, connected over the satellite. The moment the program started, I knew that they will try and come to a desired result which suits their ideology. This made the watch much more interesting. I could see the host tried to sound neutral occasionally giving advantage to one of the lawyers on the panel, with questions which were more of a hint to answer then a question itself. The other poor chap, I could just pity him was almost silenced once he had a valid point to make. Once in this kind of discussions, panellist any way are at mercy of the studio that can enable or disable there audio at their will. Finally the time was up and the host struck the final nail by giving the final comment at the end, giving no chance to anyone to contest. I had my wife beside me, and I thought to do my little survey there and then, I asked about her final view on the issue and she just sang the way host of the news channel made it so.
This was one of the recent ones in my mind and hence it found it place as an example here. We tend to follow these news on TV like never before and we tend to believe and have confidence on them also like never before. Today we need to introspect how much reliable this form of media is to us. Media has gone overboard to make the point that there cannot be a Taliban way to enforce thinking amongst people. They have stood strongly by that all in unison. If someone is the biggest culprit of “talibanisation” of thought it is media itself. Today’s media forces its views to the people. To me “talibanisation” is forcing ones views on others and any body does that is a Taliban. I agree there can be various ways of doing it some are more violent, like what media would like us to believe about the real Taliban ways, but the other softer way to forcing views that being practised by media are no different at the end of the day.
The news channels are agog with a new story. Some group feels that the “pub culture” can be abolished if they start attacking them violently. Even worst they have a new fad that if they find a couple on Valentine’s Day they will forcefully get them married in the registrar office. I agree this couldn’t get more bizarre then this. Imagine it is the right time to get married at zero cost and probably get a marriage video made free of cost. Even worst people (irrespective of gender) can now have a forceful marriage by just holding the hand of the partner in the group’s glare.
Media has a big contribution on this issue in two accounts. One being they are responsible to make this group popular from nowhere. They did not heed the advice of the state politicians saying that this is a small issue do not blow this out of proportion. Everybody then wanted the slice of this spicy lip smacking pizza as if there will not be a second chance to eat it out. I was amazed at the magnitude of coverage in all the TV channel and Newspapers that all the other important but not so glamorous news were almost lost. They succeeded in the “masala” ingredient they required to make their otherwise flat tasting news for now so many days. Secondly in this process they also pushed the group to the wall on its Ideology. The group had no other option but to enhance their stand from there. When the group offered apology the matter should have come to rest but then the spice would have been over too.
This is no secret that when the drastic act went under full media glare. In fact TV channels are taking pride in identifying the miscreants now. But this also means they had advance knowledge of this incident and they knowingly did not inform the police. I think this should be a criminal offence under the law and fail to understand why action is not being taken against them. Secondly if media is so morally shaken by this incident why didn’t they stopped taking photographs and stopped people from doing such things. I believe media needs to answer these questions both morally and legally.
I do not know how anyone can think of changing people’s mind forcefully in this democracy. If the group believes that the culture has to be restored to the people I guess that they should have taken the other way around, spoken to people reasoned them out etc. I would definitely like to examine and understand what they are trying to tell thou there way of saying things are simply not agreeable.
Other day the Union health minister said that more and more of youth are becoming alcoholic. Media thought that they have got another thread to ridicule the entire fact and they just went ahead ridiculing the health minister. I am not a great fan of politicians in general, and health minister in particular, but I would stand by and hear carefully what he is saying. He is a medical doctor himself, he is the health minister of the country, having all the facts and feature, and most certainly more then I have, and I guess what most of others would have. Above all he can not be ridiculed the way he was done. Media found humour and merit in another union minister who has declared “Pub Bharo” as an “andolan”. The person required to be less obsessed with the issue and also see the issue from all angles. It all required from the media was to give the other side of the story too.
Today Media is a big business, they are listed in stock exchanges, they have something called TRP to fight for, they have their ideological preferences, they do have their business and political compulsions and they have a product called “News”. We need to understand that media is made up of people like you and me. There is no one who could dare to do scrutiny on them, and they have the most powerful weapon of the modern times. The time has changed so much that I cannot even quote “pen is mightier than the sword”, both have become more of ornamental stuff now hence could be replaced with the word of your choice. Hence it is prudent to look every bit of information they provide under those lenses.
“Dogs do not eat Dogs” is a saying. I just read this phrase used in one of the biggest movie legend’s blog in context of media. This can be replaced to more palatable “Humans do not eat Humans” and the meaning won’t change a bit if you are not considering cannibals. Media as an industry they work on this principle for sure. They all do wrong, See others wrong but while reporting they never do, for or against their rivals. Still I could remember “vote for cash” issue in the Indian parliament. One of the TV channel did complete sting operation on the camera, but later on to the surprise of all including the opposing party in the parliament they never went ahead of the telecast. Media was suspiciously quieter on this issue. This casts a big question on the genuinely of the particular channel and media in general. I cannot even say that take all the news with a pinch of salt or spice it is much more then all of those.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Inflation, Recession and depression
I wanted to write on recession for long but also waiting to arm myself with some more information before actually going ahead to commit this act. The heading is from what I did hear this morning in the gym over a FM station they were playing in the club house. I thought to take this as a title for this blog.
As for others it really has stuck me out of the blue too. First I was gasping so as what went wrong in such a short time. The other day I thought to interview my CFO friend while we did a car pool to the office neither to beat recession nor to save fuel not even the green concept was there remotely in the mind. We do this sometime just to share information amongst our self; honestly I am no match in providing information but surely a beneficiary in getting a lot. Once we got settled I started with my questions. I probed “Have we reached the bottom? The economists say that we are yet to reach it and the bottom might be deeper. We are yet to see the worst and even if we have to take it with a pinch of salt we are sure to be in more trouble”. His reply was almost spontaneous “Everything was wiped off hence already reached the bottom, what economist are essentially telling is that we will be realising this fact slowly, we were sitting on a bubble and the bubble did what it is supposed to do”. It surely did leave me wanting for more “Do you mean to say that the bubble was many times larger than the base? If it was why people couldn’t recognise it early”. He replied “Yes it was many a time one could have imagined, it was looking so beautiful from the hilltop nobody wanted to believe that it was all a mirage. What can you expect from people who actually created it?”
Even now I am struggling with that question but some thought are getting crystallised and hence putting them down. We had seen the fall of extreme socialistic economy quite earlier in the decade. Probably we thought that capitalistic economy is the best and just relentlessly followed it to the other extreme. USA being the Mecca of capitalistic economy took this form of economy to the top most level. We just created the bubble and as my friend said that the bubble did meet its ultimate fate. See the irony we again trust those very high priests of capitalism the so called economist to bring us out of the mess created by them. I am convinced that neither Left nor Right but it is the centre form of thought is required, I am sure as leftist and rightist there must be centrist word too, which would have been coined by now somewhere as a solution to go forward.
Coming to India, we see news mentioning that we will continue to have GDP growth of 7% as opposed to 9% predicted earlier. We as Indians take a lot of pride, satisfaction and relief that probably we are not that worst hit. Somehow I am too uncomfortable with this GDP figures. I would like to go little deep inside it to know what are the major components of this GDP figures. I did read an analyst saying “Not every bit of GDP is necessarily ‘good’ GDP. Take the case of gambling. It is an industry and is counted in GDP. Someone needs to build the casinos, manufacture the cards, manufacture the tokens, manufacture the liquor that is consumed (another not so ‘good’ GDP), manufacture the cigarettes (yet another not so ‘good’ GDP), and then all the linkages that come from there - the cement to build everything and the trucks to transport everything. So a country that builds many casinos may be adding to GDP but, chances are, its society will not be that ‘happy’. If parents are busy gambling all day long, then who is with their children? Or if people smoke and drink a lot (which could happen in a casino environment) what happens to the health of the ‘healthy’ people and the cost inflicted to society over time? Looking after sick people in hospitals is not ‘good’ GDP - there is an economic activity that adds up to GDP but no one is really ‘happy’.” He adds “’useless’ GDP comes from the statistics of foreign buying in India. Over Rs 4,000 crores of buying and selling by foreign ‘investors’ occurs every day in the Indian stock markets. At the end of the day, they have actually bought or sold only Rs 150 crores of stocks “.So we this might be our own bubble. RBI has for sure deflated the bubble a bit so as to set some realistic expectations. I have no other way but to rely on them and pray that they are correct. If I see as a lay person, I am able to see it traces of recession everywhere in our economy.
From the day Goldman Sachs coined the word “BRIC” it has been chasing me everywhere. Whenever I meet a foreign company for selling their products in India, once they start with the word “BRIC” I know that I will have a tough time. I have not read the “BRIC” report but what they have done by including the letter “I” and country “India” is they have set the high expectations and also paired it with the other three. I sincerely feel that this misconception should have been cleared from peoples mind. I do agree that the great India story is there in terms of exception but I have serious objection to the pairing part. India could not be compared to China, Russia or Brazil for that matter. All these economies are having different characteristic. Indian story is just like “making an elephant dance”, it’s difficult to do so, and it is slow but once it dances there is going to be a great momentum. All this is quite reverse to the fastest developing economy in “BRIC” that is China. Worst to come is when they do paring they tend to compare with the best only. In China development means that the infrastructure will come first, the roads, airports etc will all come first and then people will move in followed by businesses. In India all the Industries will come in, people will move in and then they will start thinking about the requirement for the road to connect the place. I am actually OK with the Indian model, this actually means that we are utilising our resources quite efficiently but it is just opposite to what they do in China. Our Government does not do this as a strategy but this is how it only works here. Probably this is the way we Indians think. Hence reaching the expectations will take time but it will surely meet the expectations, more robustly then what could happen in China.
Inflation might be coming under control, today as soon as I came back from the GYM my mother announced me that there is drop in fuel prices again, twice in recent times. Probably we will be ok with the Inflation thing. Recession is surely catching up with us now and it can bring in the must unwanted depression. Being in IT field I just started to wonder what it has in store for us.
I think that we have to look in two ways one is short term and the other being a long term. For sure the short term is gloomy as most of the companies and people are still accessing the impact on their businesses, hence they have decided to cut their costs and remain passive for some time. Some of them are moving in for more harsh measures and some moderately, others are slow. So short term we need to just survive and prepare our self for the long haul. I am quite optimistic about the long term prospects provided we are ready to cash that opportunity. Once the dust get settled most of the people will find out that it is much more cheaper to get the goods and services from countries like India, but here we might need to prove them that we are ready to take that extra responsibility, we have to show our skills to take that work, once we are able to do so probably this could be a new IT wave which will sweep India. There is silver lining in even the darkest of cloud; probably this is our silver lining. My CFO friend had his own silver lining he said “CFO’s will be in great demand”, I quietly said “Amen”.
As for others it really has stuck me out of the blue too. First I was gasping so as what went wrong in such a short time. The other day I thought to interview my CFO friend while we did a car pool to the office neither to beat recession nor to save fuel not even the green concept was there remotely in the mind. We do this sometime just to share information amongst our self; honestly I am no match in providing information but surely a beneficiary in getting a lot. Once we got settled I started with my questions. I probed “Have we reached the bottom? The economists say that we are yet to reach it and the bottom might be deeper. We are yet to see the worst and even if we have to take it with a pinch of salt we are sure to be in more trouble”. His reply was almost spontaneous “Everything was wiped off hence already reached the bottom, what economist are essentially telling is that we will be realising this fact slowly, we were sitting on a bubble and the bubble did what it is supposed to do”. It surely did leave me wanting for more “Do you mean to say that the bubble was many times larger than the base? If it was why people couldn’t recognise it early”. He replied “Yes it was many a time one could have imagined, it was looking so beautiful from the hilltop nobody wanted to believe that it was all a mirage. What can you expect from people who actually created it?”
Even now I am struggling with that question but some thought are getting crystallised and hence putting them down. We had seen the fall of extreme socialistic economy quite earlier in the decade. Probably we thought that capitalistic economy is the best and just relentlessly followed it to the other extreme. USA being the Mecca of capitalistic economy took this form of economy to the top most level. We just created the bubble and as my friend said that the bubble did meet its ultimate fate. See the irony we again trust those very high priests of capitalism the so called economist to bring us out of the mess created by them. I am convinced that neither Left nor Right but it is the centre form of thought is required, I am sure as leftist and rightist there must be centrist word too, which would have been coined by now somewhere as a solution to go forward.
Coming to India, we see news mentioning that we will continue to have GDP growth of 7% as opposed to 9% predicted earlier. We as Indians take a lot of pride, satisfaction and relief that probably we are not that worst hit. Somehow I am too uncomfortable with this GDP figures. I would like to go little deep inside it to know what are the major components of this GDP figures. I did read an analyst saying “Not every bit of GDP is necessarily ‘good’ GDP. Take the case of gambling. It is an industry and is counted in GDP. Someone needs to build the casinos, manufacture the cards, manufacture the tokens, manufacture the liquor that is consumed (another not so ‘good’ GDP), manufacture the cigarettes (yet another not so ‘good’ GDP), and then all the linkages that come from there - the cement to build everything and the trucks to transport everything. So a country that builds many casinos may be adding to GDP but, chances are, its society will not be that ‘happy’. If parents are busy gambling all day long, then who is with their children? Or if people smoke and drink a lot (which could happen in a casino environment) what happens to the health of the ‘healthy’ people and the cost inflicted to society over time? Looking after sick people in hospitals is not ‘good’ GDP - there is an economic activity that adds up to GDP but no one is really ‘happy’.” He adds “’useless’ GDP comes from the statistics of foreign buying in India. Over Rs 4,000 crores of buying and selling by foreign ‘investors’ occurs every day in the Indian stock markets. At the end of the day, they have actually bought or sold only Rs 150 crores of stocks “.So we this might be our own bubble. RBI has for sure deflated the bubble a bit so as to set some realistic expectations. I have no other way but to rely on them and pray that they are correct. If I see as a lay person, I am able to see it traces of recession everywhere in our economy.
From the day Goldman Sachs coined the word “BRIC” it has been chasing me everywhere. Whenever I meet a foreign company for selling their products in India, once they start with the word “BRIC” I know that I will have a tough time. I have not read the “BRIC” report but what they have done by including the letter “I” and country “India” is they have set the high expectations and also paired it with the other three. I sincerely feel that this misconception should have been cleared from peoples mind. I do agree that the great India story is there in terms of exception but I have serious objection to the pairing part. India could not be compared to China, Russia or Brazil for that matter. All these economies are having different characteristic. Indian story is just like “making an elephant dance”, it’s difficult to do so, and it is slow but once it dances there is going to be a great momentum. All this is quite reverse to the fastest developing economy in “BRIC” that is China. Worst to come is when they do paring they tend to compare with the best only. In China development means that the infrastructure will come first, the roads, airports etc will all come first and then people will move in followed by businesses. In India all the Industries will come in, people will move in and then they will start thinking about the requirement for the road to connect the place. I am actually OK with the Indian model, this actually means that we are utilising our resources quite efficiently but it is just opposite to what they do in China. Our Government does not do this as a strategy but this is how it only works here. Probably this is the way we Indians think. Hence reaching the expectations will take time but it will surely meet the expectations, more robustly then what could happen in China.
Inflation might be coming under control, today as soon as I came back from the GYM my mother announced me that there is drop in fuel prices again, twice in recent times. Probably we will be ok with the Inflation thing. Recession is surely catching up with us now and it can bring in the must unwanted depression. Being in IT field I just started to wonder what it has in store for us.
I think that we have to look in two ways one is short term and the other being a long term. For sure the short term is gloomy as most of the companies and people are still accessing the impact on their businesses, hence they have decided to cut their costs and remain passive for some time. Some of them are moving in for more harsh measures and some moderately, others are slow. So short term we need to just survive and prepare our self for the long haul. I am quite optimistic about the long term prospects provided we are ready to cash that opportunity. Once the dust get settled most of the people will find out that it is much more cheaper to get the goods and services from countries like India, but here we might need to prove them that we are ready to take that extra responsibility, we have to show our skills to take that work, once we are able to do so probably this could be a new IT wave which will sweep India. There is silver lining in even the darkest of cloud; probably this is our silver lining. My CFO friend had his own silver lining he said “CFO’s will be in great demand”, I quietly said “Amen”.
Friday, January 23, 2009
“Open Source” will be the only way forward?
As you read this blog on the web browser there is quite a possibility that this is being served by free software developed by people who might not have any links between them, except that of their contribution to this said software. Why they did it? There is no answer as a right answer to this. But what is perceived to be the best answer is only for a reward of honour. They do it as there are computer geeks and they love to show, enhance their knowledge. What I believe they have got the urge to see that there piece of code is being used and appreciated by people; probably it gives them the kick.
This initiative surely gives a big kick to the computer software world. Today most of the back ground jobs that software performs are quite stable and are almost a standard in IT world. Now this interestingly moves to the business applications side too. There are fairly stable CRM and ERP available in the open source world. There are questions being asked that this has got into a serious phase of computing now and without support and ownership this is not reliable to get into.
I being an open source enthusiast myself thought to test the water myself. So I got stated with a popular open source CRM. It was a breeze to do the installation, to understand the running of the software it took some amount of reading on the net and cool two days of mine to get going. During this phase I could test and find out how to get the support and to my astonishment all the questions I had some had almost read my mind and answers were available. I could also find freelancers offering support for a small price, to do the installation, train and customise the solution for me. What more support could I have asked for? I understand being in SMB segment myself all this is viable but for large enterprises it is going to be a bit difficult. I am convinced once these freelancers turn into companies providing expertise in these solutions these gaps would be bridged.
Few days ago a friend of mine who works in one of the MNC IT Company which has made the colour blue related to it in some way introduced one of his friend to me. This person’s company is just providing services for open source hospital management. A leading political party in India, which I could say is more IT savvy then any of its oppositions is all on open source software. They realise that today winning elections in India is all about data analysis and to act on the same, the system can be called PIS (Political Intelligence system) contrary to MIS what is being used by the businesses around the globe.
I hope people from the biggest software companies are not reading my blog, any ways I need not bother as even my wife is not reading this either. I was browsing thru the open source projects and I came to a project called Exact OS. It really excited me to note the contents of this project; these guys are now re building windows OS from scratch for the open source world. Going by my experience, work progresses at a lightning speed in open source world. What I am seeing in few years we might not pay any of these softwares. I am sure the software companies of today will find some other way to make their buck in coming flatter world.
This has been one of my most favourite topics and I would have gone on and on but for the time I have in my hand I need to truncate it. May be I will revisit this in some other fashion. I also wanted to drift a bit from the political blogs which I was getting into. If someone is reading this blog and wants to shed some view on this, or has completely contrary view is welcome, precisely for that reason I have put the question mark at the end of the heading.
This initiative surely gives a big kick to the computer software world. Today most of the back ground jobs that software performs are quite stable and are almost a standard in IT world. Now this interestingly moves to the business applications side too. There are fairly stable CRM and ERP available in the open source world. There are questions being asked that this has got into a serious phase of computing now and without support and ownership this is not reliable to get into.
I being an open source enthusiast myself thought to test the water myself. So I got stated with a popular open source CRM. It was a breeze to do the installation, to understand the running of the software it took some amount of reading on the net and cool two days of mine to get going. During this phase I could test and find out how to get the support and to my astonishment all the questions I had some had almost read my mind and answers were available. I could also find freelancers offering support for a small price, to do the installation, train and customise the solution for me. What more support could I have asked for? I understand being in SMB segment myself all this is viable but for large enterprises it is going to be a bit difficult. I am convinced once these freelancers turn into companies providing expertise in these solutions these gaps would be bridged.
Few days ago a friend of mine who works in one of the MNC IT Company which has made the colour blue related to it in some way introduced one of his friend to me. This person’s company is just providing services for open source hospital management. A leading political party in India, which I could say is more IT savvy then any of its oppositions is all on open source software. They realise that today winning elections in India is all about data analysis and to act on the same, the system can be called PIS (Political Intelligence system) contrary to MIS what is being used by the businesses around the globe.
I hope people from the biggest software companies are not reading my blog, any ways I need not bother as even my wife is not reading this either. I was browsing thru the open source projects and I came to a project called Exact OS. It really excited me to note the contents of this project; these guys are now re building windows OS from scratch for the open source world. Going by my experience, work progresses at a lightning speed in open source world. What I am seeing in few years we might not pay any of these softwares. I am sure the software companies of today will find some other way to make their buck in coming flatter world.
This has been one of my most favourite topics and I would have gone on and on but for the time I have in my hand I need to truncate it. May be I will revisit this in some other fashion. I also wanted to drift a bit from the political blogs which I was getting into. If someone is reading this blog and wants to shed some view on this, or has completely contrary view is welcome, precisely for that reason I have put the question mark at the end of the heading.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Britisher Raj
Well some of our politicians will never improve. They will keep on playing the way Britishers tried and tested a policy long time ago that of “Divide and Rule”. Why to blame politicians, even we the people of this country do relate fast to these proven concepts of colonial times. Still thou little diluted anything made in a far flung foreign land seems attractive, we still speak to a westerner as if he or she is a “Gora Sahib” or “Gori Memsahib”, there could be many such examples. Fair enough, attributes like considering English as far superior to any of our own language has worked commercially in favour of us.
My anger is directed to a petty politician who has mastered the art of “divide and rule”, I would say better than the original Raj period. When the Mumbai fiasco happened this guy hid in the comforts of his home probably watching TV and having some popcorns in a comfortable couch. If he is so worried for his so called group and community that he represents and believes that it has got a raw deal, what made him not come out and go straight into Taj or Oberoi for that matter with some of his “nirman sena”. I am sure if he would have done that I would have respected him, for a man who stands by for what he believes. I am sure he stands exposed today and I just hope the people who supported him including the Sena would realise that he is just one of those power greedy politician. Somebody rightly said the NSG and Marine commandos who stormed out terrorist were not from any region , they were Indians, nor were all the people rescued or killed were from any region, they where all citizens of world.
As I mentioned he is the master of this art, and also as I said the way our DNA has imbibed some of the colonial thoughts, this person is again making attempts to do the same. Recently I did read a news paper saying “ I will not allow Maharashtra for the UP day , the soil of Maharastra can be used only for Maharastra Din”. Now since the issue died this guy still has the audacity to raise it in this way, I have not come across any news mentioning somebody has dared him to do UP day in Maharashtra. So this guy has found his own way to rake up this issue again.
It saddens me the most when I see this kind of ploy getting successful. To me they are bigger threat to India then the terrorist sitting down somewhere in Muridke, Pakistan. I hope we the people of India defeat any of this forces which can disintegrate us. The local issues of the people in any part should be heard and sorted out with priority. I can just pray and write this blog to see if people see any point in what I say. God Bless India.
My anger is directed to a petty politician who has mastered the art of “divide and rule”, I would say better than the original Raj period. When the Mumbai fiasco happened this guy hid in the comforts of his home probably watching TV and having some popcorns in a comfortable couch. If he is so worried for his so called group and community that he represents and believes that it has got a raw deal, what made him not come out and go straight into Taj or Oberoi for that matter with some of his “nirman sena”. I am sure if he would have done that I would have respected him, for a man who stands by for what he believes. I am sure he stands exposed today and I just hope the people who supported him including the Sena would realise that he is just one of those power greedy politician. Somebody rightly said the NSG and Marine commandos who stormed out terrorist were not from any region , they were Indians, nor were all the people rescued or killed were from any region, they where all citizens of world.
As I mentioned he is the master of this art, and also as I said the way our DNA has imbibed some of the colonial thoughts, this person is again making attempts to do the same. Recently I did read a news paper saying “ I will not allow Maharashtra for the UP day , the soil of Maharastra can be used only for Maharastra Din”. Now since the issue died this guy still has the audacity to raise it in this way, I have not come across any news mentioning somebody has dared him to do UP day in Maharashtra. So this guy has found his own way to rake up this issue again.
It saddens me the most when I see this kind of ploy getting successful. To me they are bigger threat to India then the terrorist sitting down somewhere in Muridke, Pakistan. I hope we the people of India defeat any of this forces which can disintegrate us. The local issues of the people in any part should be heard and sorted out with priority. I can just pray and write this blog to see if people see any point in what I say. God Bless India.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Obama’s woes
There is an information overdrive on Obama, be it on the net, newspapers and magazines whatever. I too had my share of these informations. There was a “Qawalli” for Barack Hussein Obama II in New Delhi connecting him with his otherwise hidden middle name. A town “Obama” in Japan was celebrating the event as it shared the name with him. Hawaii Island is surely connected with him as he was born there. Indonesia was not too far in celebration. Kenya also has a reason to celebrate. African Americans in America have an emotional reason without taking out the fact that his mother was a White. The list goes on. Everybody today wants to get connected to Obama today.
I decide to put my bit of extra burden on this man. Recently when I was in US for a short visit could speak to some of the avid thinkers there. They said the major change he should and will bring is in energy security. He did mention this in his speech empathetically enough but could be easily missed by people at large. He Said “each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.” He added “We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories”. This is what I believe Obama is going to change, and this one change is what will make him one of the greatest presidents of United States. This one change is not limited to any particular geography or community; this change will be for the entire mankind. This will result in energy security which in turn is related to lot of social and political woes of the world. Renewable energy is at a stage what the IT industry was four decades ago or can be said as still at its nascent stage.
For now I surely pity the person who has been loaded with tons of expectations my best wishes are there with him.
Yesterday I could reach home early to watch the proceedings of the inauguration of his Presidency. The first clip I got was him going to White House to meet then President Bush wearing a red tie and President Bush welcoming him wearing a Blue tie, what made me wonder was the significance of these colours. I found out that I was not the one who have discovered this , almost reading my mind the media commentator standing in chilling Washington winter announced that it represented there respective party colours. Later when I saw Biden the vice president elect wearing a distinctive blue colour ties which missed the media scrutiny. Even my wife joined in today in my ritual to watch TV without complaining. I had to hide my hunger prangs to have it quenched after the president made his now can be called a famous speech.
He is called a very calm person but before he made his appearance in Capitol Hill I could sense the tension this person might be going thru. At least I was tensed trying to put myself in his shoes. All the events have made him today not only the statesman of America but that of entire World. All the countries, races and people look to him as a leader to end all their woes. I am sure he must be aware of these expectations. This could be very well confirmed from his speech. He spoke like a world leader, quite balanced, neither a word less nor more. I am sure everybody waits to see his solutions on political and economic turmoil in USA and rest of the world. These are surely the paradigm and normal thoughts. This could not make him one the greatest US president as expected.
I decide to put my bit of extra burden on this man. Recently when I was in US for a short visit could speak to some of the avid thinkers there. They said the major change he should and will bring is in energy security. He did mention this in his speech empathetically enough but could be easily missed by people at large. He Said “each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.” He added “We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories”. This is what I believe Obama is going to change, and this one change is what will make him one of the greatest presidents of United States. This one change is not limited to any particular geography or community; this change will be for the entire mankind. This will result in energy security which in turn is related to lot of social and political woes of the world. Renewable energy is at a stage what the IT industry was four decades ago or can be said as still at its nascent stage.
For now I surely pity the person who has been loaded with tons of expectations my best wishes are there with him.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Satyam or Mythyam
There is a new development in this story every day and hence I thought it’s time to write a little more on the issue. I got an email joke on the subject and thought to put the contents here.
Three world famous magicians were in the bar drinking and boasting about their achievements. The first one said," During my latest show, I made three women from the audience disappear, it was so convincing that their relatives started panicking, no one could find the trick." The second one said, " Hey, that is nothing, during one of my open air shows I made the Municipality building disappear and the entire town was searching for it." The third one sighed and said," Both of you are so local, I went to Paris and made the Eiffel Tower disappear for a full one hour, it was live on the TV, entire France was searching for the building & no one had a clue." Just then an Indian walked into the bar and the three magicians suddenly turned quiet, gave each other fugitive glances and started to slip towards the door. A Bartender watching this got curious and asked one of the magicians, "Hey what happened? Who is that guy?" One of the magicians whispered, " He is the World's greatest magician, he has done the biggest disappearing trick of all times, we are all mere amateurs compared to what he has done. His name is Ramalinga Raju. He has made USD 1.5 billion disappear from his company's balance sheet in front of everyone's eyes, and the entire world is still looking for it."
Well I seriously thing this is no more a joke. There are lot of serious thinking us as a general public need to do. If we go by the face value of Raju’s confession then of 3% margin is also a reality. Someone might argue that Satyam used to quote quite lower in the market to get the orders hence this could be the truth. If I go further with this logic what I believe all the top fortune 500 companies have been splitting there work between two or three top Indian companies. In this case there can be few outcomes a. All the top companies made the same kind of profits. This thought sends the shiver down my spine as that also means that all the other companies are in same position as Satyam. 2. The fortune 500 companies were bad negotiator to get a best deal out of Satyam. 3. Satyam had more costs to execute those orders. In this case again the doubt could be cast on other software companies too.
Now I am able to understand the reason for a strong statement made by other IT company’s captains about Satyam and Mr. Raju. The other day I was seeing a TV program discussing on the Satyam issue and one of the panellists said that till September Satyam had the money in the banks and for so the TDS certificates have been issued to them. For sure there is much more then what Raju mentions in his confession. The issue gets murkier day by day. See the irony Maytas is just the opposite of s-a-t-y-a-m and the opposite of Satyam in real term is "Mythyam" , what else. This morning my mother read out a local newspaper giving details of plates of rice, No. of idly and chapatti Raju has in a day, for sure this is to serve the appetite for the target audience of that publication but I am sure Raju had a great appetite for greed , that he did dig his own grave eventually. Raju would have got away with all this, if the real estate prices would have not fallen. The last trick is he is just trying to take all the blame to himself and safe guard everybody and everything that he horded. To my relief today’s newspapers announced that there has been transfer of funds from Satyam accounts by Raju. I also do pray that this remains as a big black aberration for Indian It story.
By the time I finished writing this I got another mail from one of my friends, this email story making rounds among Satyam employees. I did choose to publish it here as it’s truly inspiring for an employee or member of a company/community in adverse time. Please read it below.
I am deputed at a client location and came across a very interesting conversation in cafeteria yesterday. One of my co-worker, also deputed with the same client through some lesser known two room company, mustered guts to ask me sarcastically in front of entire team, So, Satyam is gone! What are you guys planning to do now? In normal circumstances, I have a habit to not to reply to lose talks, but in front of entire team.... I thought I need to fix this guy's thought process. I asked him, as my military training has imbibed in me the habit to fight till last breadth, Who says Satyam is gone when I am very much alive here and committed to create value on behalf of my company?. He shot back, Hello Mr., your chairman has resigned, you guys are facing financial turbulence and you still have a face to say that Satyam is not gone! At this juncture, I thought of replying to this guy in his own language. I asked him, Tell me, what will you do and where will you go if our country India was not there? He was not prepared for this level of thought and asked back, What a stupid question, How can India be gone, it is a country? I asked him back., Country! What makes a country? Land? Economy? Our Prime Minister? Our President? Our Geography? Or the PEOPLE? If our PM resigns, will you say India is gone? If our economy faces a slowdown, will you say India is gone?
But yes, if the people of a country are lost for any reason, we will say that country has no meaning. Who cares of vast land of Antarctica today which has just one permanent resident, Father Georgy? Which country does it belongs to? Why does not it has any government? Why does not it has any economy? Or, how many countries were there when humans used to hunt for food in pre-historic times? Countries, Wealth, Infrastructures and booming economies are nothing but creations of efforts of PEOPLE, and they do not have any existence on their own. And the final blow was, When one man can create Satyam as an organization of 53,000 people, why not 53,000 committed people can rebuild one SATYAM? By now, I saw my point was well placed and he stood up and shook hands with me and murmured, Yaar, when I used to hear from my roommate who work in Satyam that EVERY SATYAMITE IS A LEADER, I used to laugh it off. Now, I know why! "
Three world famous magicians were in the bar drinking and boasting about their achievements. The first one said," During my latest show, I made three women from the audience disappear, it was so convincing that their relatives started panicking, no one could find the trick." The second one said, " Hey, that is nothing, during one of my open air shows I made the Municipality building disappear and the entire town was searching for it." The third one sighed and said," Both of you are so local, I went to Paris and made the Eiffel Tower disappear for a full one hour, it was live on the TV, entire France was searching for the building & no one had a clue." Just then an Indian walked into the bar and the three magicians suddenly turned quiet, gave each other fugitive glances and started to slip towards the door. A Bartender watching this got curious and asked one of the magicians, "Hey what happened? Who is that guy?" One of the magicians whispered, " He is the World's greatest magician, he has done the biggest disappearing trick of all times, we are all mere amateurs compared to what he has done. His name is Ramalinga Raju. He has made USD 1.5 billion disappear from his company's balance sheet in front of everyone's eyes, and the entire world is still looking for it."
Well I seriously thing this is no more a joke. There are lot of serious thinking us as a general public need to do. If we go by the face value of Raju’s confession then of 3% margin is also a reality. Someone might argue that Satyam used to quote quite lower in the market to get the orders hence this could be the truth. If I go further with this logic what I believe all the top fortune 500 companies have been splitting there work between two or three top Indian companies. In this case there can be few outcomes a. All the top companies made the same kind of profits. This thought sends the shiver down my spine as that also means that all the other companies are in same position as Satyam. 2. The fortune 500 companies were bad negotiator to get a best deal out of Satyam. 3. Satyam had more costs to execute those orders. In this case again the doubt could be cast on other software companies too.
Now I am able to understand the reason for a strong statement made by other IT company’s captains about Satyam and Mr. Raju. The other day I was seeing a TV program discussing on the Satyam issue and one of the panellists said that till September Satyam had the money in the banks and for so the TDS certificates have been issued to them. For sure there is much more then what Raju mentions in his confession. The issue gets murkier day by day. See the irony Maytas is just the opposite of s-a-t-y-a-m and the opposite of Satyam in real term is "Mythyam" , what else. This morning my mother read out a local newspaper giving details of plates of rice, No. of idly and chapatti Raju has in a day, for sure this is to serve the appetite for the target audience of that publication but I am sure Raju had a great appetite for greed , that he did dig his own grave eventually. Raju would have got away with all this, if the real estate prices would have not fallen. The last trick is he is just trying to take all the blame to himself and safe guard everybody and everything that he horded. To my relief today’s newspapers announced that there has been transfer of funds from Satyam accounts by Raju. I also do pray that this remains as a big black aberration for Indian It story.
By the time I finished writing this I got another mail from one of my friends, this email story making rounds among Satyam employees. I did choose to publish it here as it’s truly inspiring for an employee or member of a company/community in adverse time. Please read it below.
I am deputed at a client location and came across a very interesting conversation in cafeteria yesterday. One of my co-worker, also deputed with the same client through some lesser known two room company, mustered guts to ask me sarcastically in front of entire team, So, Satyam is gone! What are you guys planning to do now? In normal circumstances, I have a habit to not to reply to lose talks, but in front of entire team.... I thought I need to fix this guy's thought process. I asked him, as my military training has imbibed in me the habit to fight till last breadth, Who says Satyam is gone when I am very much alive here and committed to create value on behalf of my company?. He shot back, Hello Mr., your chairman has resigned, you guys are facing financial turbulence and you still have a face to say that Satyam is not gone! At this juncture, I thought of replying to this guy in his own language. I asked him, Tell me, what will you do and where will you go if our country India was not there? He was not prepared for this level of thought and asked back, What a stupid question, How can India be gone, it is a country? I asked him back., Country! What makes a country? Land? Economy? Our Prime Minister? Our President? Our Geography? Or the PEOPLE? If our PM resigns, will you say India is gone? If our economy faces a slowdown, will you say India is gone?
But yes, if the people of a country are lost for any reason, we will say that country has no meaning. Who cares of vast land of Antarctica today which has just one permanent resident, Father Georgy? Which country does it belongs to? Why does not it has any government? Why does not it has any economy? Or, how many countries were there when humans used to hunt for food in pre-historic times? Countries, Wealth, Infrastructures and booming economies are nothing but creations of efforts of PEOPLE, and they do not have any existence on their own. And the final blow was, When one man can create Satyam as an organization of 53,000 people, why not 53,000 committed people can rebuild one SATYAM? By now, I saw my point was well placed and he stood up and shook hands with me and murmured, Yaar, when I used to hear from my roommate who work in Satyam that EVERY SATYAMITE IS A LEADER, I used to laugh it off. Now, I know why! "
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Day out in Trivendrum
This blogs comes earlier then what I planned actually. I got some time again at the airport this time being the Trivendrum airport. Could not get inside as what I understand that I am so early that even the airline guys responsible for the baggage scanning not even reported.
Last night I arrived home at 11:00 PM from Singapore after a heavy schedule and this morning I had to fly to Trivendrum for a customer meeting. Sleepily I arrived to the airport and did sit in a small turboprop ATR. It was quite congested inside but somehow managed to fit in. For the first time in my life I regretted taking the aisle seat. Please do remember if you are flying to Kerala, do fly day time, In a low flying ATR and have a window seat. All this seems to be mandatory now after this experience. As we were approaching Kerala my colleague declared that we are flying over a big city as he was the one sitting on the window seat and having a gage outside all the time. By this time I only trying to get every word of my favourite newspaper digested which I could get my hands on after few days. I did have a look outside and then on the watch and then as if a great navigator I too declared it is Coimbatore. After some time we could watch a dam, by this time I was totally engrossed in what’s getting showcased to us. My colleague overwhelmed by the sight promised himself to search this place in google maps. Well ATR fly quite close to the earth to give a fantastic view outside. Soon the Pilot was announcing that we are going to reach our destination in 18 minutes flat. We could see coconut trees all around , I must say they are my favourite when I am in land for taking photographs and even as a child I used to draw a lot of them but now from top it seems little ugly as there were everywhere as a elegy would to the water. With best of my effort I could not find a single not green spot on the earth. Seat belt signs where grossly dis-obeyed as people were eager to take the photographs of the beaches, landscape whatever they were able to make out. I just forgot to add the camera in the list above; even if you are just going to set a single foot to Kerala do not forget to bring in this necessary accessory.
Finally we did land into the airport which looked more like a deserted bus stand. Got our cab driver a pot belied dhoti clad guy who speaks broken English, though enough for us to manage. We were to visit a customer a Govt. Educational body 20 kilometres away from airport. Kerala landscape is unique, you keep on playing hide and seek with the sea all the time. The houses are having slopes to beat the rainy days. You get the spurt of churches, temples and mosque indicating the population of that particular locality. We were worried about our food hence called the customer; they ensured us that hot vegetarian food would be waiting for us.
Customer was true to his promise; we headed straight to the mess meant especially for the professors. While serving me I wanted to be doubly sure about a food Item and the director from the back said that everything is vegetarian, it’s difficult to manage non-vegetarian food any ways he added. Food was simple and spicy.
While back had ample of time hence asked Murgesh (Our cab driver) and he took us to a boat club called “Veli Tourist place” . When we reached this place we could see a big crowd at the entrance. Without having a great opinion about the place I still pushed the cash to the counter for the entrance tickets. Well the place turned out to be good it had a backwater, sea shore and most importantly a floating restaurant. We were hungry by this time and had a quick grab at the sandwiches.
On the way back could not resist to drop in by a beach and spend some time in with the waves which were tirelessly hitting the shore. By the time I am writing this I am back on the plane onward to Bangalore. It is already dark out there and I do not repent my decision on aisle seat now. The air hostess were too fast in conducting security instructions as if in fast forward mode that they did finally ended up in eating few words altogether.
I had seen almost the entire length and breadth of Kerala earlier but this day out was somehow very different.
Last night I arrived home at 11:00 PM from Singapore after a heavy schedule and this morning I had to fly to Trivendrum for a customer meeting. Sleepily I arrived to the airport and did sit in a small turboprop ATR. It was quite congested inside but somehow managed to fit in. For the first time in my life I regretted taking the aisle seat. Please do remember if you are flying to Kerala, do fly day time, In a low flying ATR and have a window seat. All this seems to be mandatory now after this experience. As we were approaching Kerala my colleague declared that we are flying over a big city as he was the one sitting on the window seat and having a gage outside all the time. By this time I only trying to get every word of my favourite newspaper digested which I could get my hands on after few days. I did have a look outside and then on the watch and then as if a great navigator I too declared it is Coimbatore. After some time we could watch a dam, by this time I was totally engrossed in what’s getting showcased to us. My colleague overwhelmed by the sight promised himself to search this place in google maps. Well ATR fly quite close to the earth to give a fantastic view outside. Soon the Pilot was announcing that we are going to reach our destination in 18 minutes flat. We could see coconut trees all around , I must say they are my favourite when I am in land for taking photographs and even as a child I used to draw a lot of them but now from top it seems little ugly as there were everywhere as a elegy would to the water. With best of my effort I could not find a single not green spot on the earth. Seat belt signs where grossly dis-obeyed as people were eager to take the photographs of the beaches, landscape whatever they were able to make out. I just forgot to add the camera in the list above; even if you are just going to set a single foot to Kerala do not forget to bring in this necessary accessory.
Finally we did land into the airport which looked more like a deserted bus stand. Got our cab driver a pot belied dhoti clad guy who speaks broken English, though enough for us to manage. We were to visit a customer a Govt. Educational body 20 kilometres away from airport. Kerala landscape is unique, you keep on playing hide and seek with the sea all the time. The houses are having slopes to beat the rainy days. You get the spurt of churches, temples and mosque indicating the population of that particular locality. We were worried about our food hence called the customer; they ensured us that hot vegetarian food would be waiting for us.
Customer was true to his promise; we headed straight to the mess meant especially for the professors. While serving me I wanted to be doubly sure about a food Item and the director from the back said that everything is vegetarian, it’s difficult to manage non-vegetarian food any ways he added. Food was simple and spicy.
While back had ample of time hence asked Murgesh (Our cab driver) and he took us to a boat club called “Veli Tourist place” . When we reached this place we could see a big crowd at the entrance. Without having a great opinion about the place I still pushed the cash to the counter for the entrance tickets. Well the place turned out to be good it had a backwater, sea shore and most importantly a floating restaurant. We were hungry by this time and had a quick grab at the sandwiches.
On the way back could not resist to drop in by a beach and spend some time in with the waves which were tirelessly hitting the shore. By the time I am writing this I am back on the plane onward to Bangalore. It is already dark out there and I do not repent my decision on aisle seat now. The air hostess were too fast in conducting security instructions as if in fast forward mode that they did finally ended up in eating few words altogether.
I had seen almost the entire length and breadth of Kerala earlier but this day out was somehow very different.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Satya(m) (Truth) shall prevail
And hopefully so, Just sitting in A sports lounge in BIAL international airport in Bangalore .I do have a liberty of watching news in two different screens in two different channel . It is past 9:30 and luckily I do not have my wife to worry about complaining. Among news the great Satyam news gets flashed almost alternatively in each screen, I am on my way to Singapore and I am sure to face a volley of question on this issue. Please be rest assured I am in no way going to give up on brand India. I am surely empowered by the news now to face this threadbare. I write again o Satyam as i did have a offline complaint that i did not touch enough on the subject in my earlier blog and rightfully so.
Today India’s top Banker, It Specialist and a regulator took over as Govt nominees to the board of Satyam. Prime minister had statement to make and most importantly this has resulted in 25 percentage point increase in the otherwise badly battered Satyam stock. Surely these guys mean business.
What went wrong? TO be fare to Raju who is branded Shree 420 what he did is what most business does. Probably he over did it. The single biggest reason is the lust and greed which surpassed Raju more than manageable propositions. Let me but a disclaimer that I am no economic analyst. But I am so confident that Mytas is all or mostly on Satyam money. Probably the gaps are almost the same amount siphoned into Mytas. He wanted to correct it by doing this post dated but by that time the share holders in a IT company were not interested to acquire a already sagging real estate business. I am sure there are a ton of other resources available everywhere doing this analysis on what went wrong. Well I am also sure that all the measure were undertaken to siphon the money including increasing the number count of employees, if the news Items are to be believed. Hence for sure he is in jail, falling from grace is just equivalent to the capital punishment or more but our dear Raju Bhai has surely secured his family which enough funds swashed. There has to be more then what the confession statement states.
To me personally the pain is neck is gone; well almost as I just tried to double check it. I am happy that I see a definitive steps being taken to revive the company, employees sticking to the company, former NASCOM chief who is in board now says that being hopeful to revive the company is a understatement and also happy that I did not invest ever in this company. More than anything it gives me enough points to defend Satyam (Sorry read India) abroad. I know some of you be saying that’s mean of me. For now just wish be good luck.
Today India’s top Banker, It Specialist and a regulator took over as Govt nominees to the board of Satyam. Prime minister had statement to make and most importantly this has resulted in 25 percentage point increase in the otherwise badly battered Satyam stock. Surely these guys mean business.
What went wrong? TO be fare to Raju who is branded Shree 420 what he did is what most business does. Probably he over did it. The single biggest reason is the lust and greed which surpassed Raju more than manageable propositions. Let me but a disclaimer that I am no economic analyst. But I am so confident that Mytas is all or mostly on Satyam money. Probably the gaps are almost the same amount siphoned into Mytas. He wanted to correct it by doing this post dated but by that time the share holders in a IT company were not interested to acquire a already sagging real estate business. I am sure there are a ton of other resources available everywhere doing this analysis on what went wrong. Well I am also sure that all the measure were undertaken to siphon the money including increasing the number count of employees, if the news Items are to be believed. Hence for sure he is in jail, falling from grace is just equivalent to the capital punishment or more but our dear Raju Bhai has surely secured his family which enough funds swashed. There has to be more then what the confession statement states.
To me personally the pain is neck is gone; well almost as I just tried to double check it. I am happy that I see a definitive steps being taken to revive the company, employees sticking to the company, former NASCOM chief who is in board now says that being hopeful to revive the company is a understatement and also happy that I did not invest ever in this company. More than anything it gives me enough points to defend Satyam (Sorry read India) abroad. I know some of you be saying that’s mean of me. For now just wish be good luck.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Better Friday
I was contemplating to title this as “End of Oil Terror” but towards later in the night there were more news to be added as a development to the story in my last two blogs made me change it.
I had given my car for repairs to the dealer and was promised that I will get back on Friday. I gave my car before this Oil terrorism happened hence was quite tensed as I knew it had its tanks empty. Luckily on my way back home the petrol bunk was open and I could get tank full of my share. That’s the time I knew that the terror standoff is over and I can now go to office on Saturday tense free and write this blog.
I have been hearing from child hood that one day oil going to get over and that would be kind of dooms day which any way I could sample now. When I was young could see lot of stories that there will be alternative to oil soon and could see Bio fuel, solar, Wind, Fuel cell, Hydro as believable alternatives. The most unbelievable ones were that people are developing a bacterium which can convert water into fuel and worst even they will convert the Co2 in the air into fuel, imagine the Co2 emission will be the raw material for these Oil companies probably of 2209 AD. As again going by the logic of the flat world all this is for sure possible.
I was also wondering if there was a larger conspiracy in these recent oil price fluctuations. Today the oil prices are almost one third of what it was few months ago. If you see it more closely just before distinctive recessionary trend did set oil prices were at its peak and once it the recession settled down in dropped. Once it peaked I could not satisfy myself with all my readings in web, newspapers & magazines the concrete reason of this raise except for that my childhood stories of oil doomsday approaching fast. Even now when it has dropped I face the same dilemma and I am not able to buy the logic that recession has lowered the demand hence the prices has fallen. I am no economist but some time feels that probably all the money has flown from one geographical location to another. I won’t be surprised if after few more years we come to know that it was masterminded by the terrorists.Well Finally when I reached home I defied my wife and risked myself to on the TV as aware the world could change in few hours. There was breaking news “Raju, Brother arrested”.
I had given my car for repairs to the dealer and was promised that I will get back on Friday. I gave my car before this Oil terrorism happened hence was quite tensed as I knew it had its tanks empty. Luckily on my way back home the petrol bunk was open and I could get tank full of my share. That’s the time I knew that the terror standoff is over and I can now go to office on Saturday tense free and write this blog.
I have been hearing from child hood that one day oil going to get over and that would be kind of dooms day which any way I could sample now. When I was young could see lot of stories that there will be alternative to oil soon and could see Bio fuel, solar, Wind, Fuel cell, Hydro as believable alternatives. The most unbelievable ones were that people are developing a bacterium which can convert water into fuel and worst even they will convert the Co2 in the air into fuel, imagine the Co2 emission will be the raw material for these Oil companies probably of 2209 AD. As again going by the logic of the flat world all this is for sure possible.
I was also wondering if there was a larger conspiracy in these recent oil price fluctuations. Today the oil prices are almost one third of what it was few months ago. If you see it more closely just before distinctive recessionary trend did set oil prices were at its peak and once it the recession settled down in dropped. Once it peaked I could not satisfy myself with all my readings in web, newspapers & magazines the concrete reason of this raise except for that my childhood stories of oil doomsday approaching fast. Even now when it has dropped I face the same dilemma and I am not able to buy the logic that recession has lowered the demand hence the prices has fallen. I am no economist but some time feels that probably all the money has flown from one geographical location to another. I won’t be surprised if after few more years we come to know that it was masterminded by the terrorists.Well Finally when I reached home I defied my wife and risked myself to on the TV as aware the world could change in few hours. There was breaking news “Raju, Brother arrested”.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Strike the Strikes
Well I am convinced that India could be put to halt just by few hundred people without any terror strike, without weapons, without any aggression as we know what so ever. We need to redefine all these as in this age we have new form of aggression. Just a few officers of Oil Companies have gone on strike and the whole country is coming to its knees, literally. There is already an ongoing strike to compound the woes from the truckers.
In this new world the venerability of the countries have come to such small things that terror need not strike the way it did strike recently in Mumbai. Example all they need is bunch of politically activated people in oil companies to come with a strike and the whole country can be halted. This venerability could be virtually exploited my anti nationalists further which I even dread to mention it out here. I was reading a book recently on the first gulf war fought by Americans all they did was cut of the electricity in Iraq. This one event made all the equipments fail in Iraq and hence further exploitation of situation resulted in the most successful, fastest and with the minimum cost of money and live a win over Iraq. Use of Nuclear weapon is fools tool in this world all this world requires to develop a device which makes the entire electrical system to burn and the place could be put centuries behind something like the James bond movie “Golden Eye”. This still might be since fiction but as someone who talked about the flat world said that any Idea you can think of is surely being thought of by someone is being worked upon and will surely come in days to come. Unfortunately as it seems our country does not need to be ready to tackle these situations, we have a far easier thing which does not need scientific innovations like a mere political innovation is enough to put everything on stand still.
As a country we really need to do something almost immediately to ward of these threats. This has to be treated equivalent to terror and not more laws like ESMA could be sufficient and probably the newly formed terror law is more applicable. I also understand that the aggrieved people in these PSU need to have some readdress mechanism to fall back to. It’s my strong feeling that we need to strike the strike before it strikes us.
In this new world the venerability of the countries have come to such small things that terror need not strike the way it did strike recently in Mumbai. Example all they need is bunch of politically activated people in oil companies to come with a strike and the whole country can be halted. This venerability could be virtually exploited my anti nationalists further which I even dread to mention it out here. I was reading a book recently on the first gulf war fought by Americans all they did was cut of the electricity in Iraq. This one event made all the equipments fail in Iraq and hence further exploitation of situation resulted in the most successful, fastest and with the minimum cost of money and live a win over Iraq. Use of Nuclear weapon is fools tool in this world all this world requires to develop a device which makes the entire electrical system to burn and the place could be put centuries behind something like the James bond movie “Golden Eye”. This still might be since fiction but as someone who talked about the flat world said that any Idea you can think of is surely being thought of by someone is being worked upon and will surely come in days to come. Unfortunately as it seems our country does not need to be ready to tackle these situations, we have a far easier thing which does not need scientific innovations like a mere political innovation is enough to put everything on stand still.
As a country we really need to do something almost immediately to ward of these threats. This has to be treated equivalent to terror and not more laws like ESMA could be sufficient and probably the newly formed terror law is more applicable. I also understand that the aggrieved people in these PSU need to have some readdress mechanism to fall back to. It’s my strong feeling that we need to strike the strike before it strikes us.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Satyam Jhutham Badsundaram (Truth,Untruth and the Ugly)
Somebody rode the tiger without knowing how to get down without been eaten up . Surely enough he knew that he is riding the tiger in the first place , secondly also knowing that the tiger does not allow you to get down without being a morsel to it, thirdly you try to make or rather you made the entire world fool while doing your good enough bid to dismount from the tiger taming it. The biggest Satya emerges is that you can make some people fool all the time, all the people some time but not all the people all the time. I am also reminded of a saying by one of the best invester in the world “When tides are low you know who is swimming naked”
I had a busy day yesterday. Office internet was down because of maintenance work and I reached home quite late to do the custom of viewing the news in the TV as I thought the world could not have changed in these few hours and off course I did not want to annoy my wife who was any way fast reaching the boiling point. Morning 6:00 I was bang in the GYM to straighten the calorie count which I had grossly abused the earlier day. My first encounter was with a friend and regular in the GYM who after customary exchanges asked me if he can keep the Satyam stock or sell it. I had no clue why he asked me this question but my reply was that I would not be in position to advice. Since empowered by the person’s confidence in me I started my gyan session to add to this fiasco just before coming to GYM I read two weeks old article on Satyam, so you could very well imagine what I would have been sounding as. After some time more friends came pouring in while I was trying to flex my triceps with the instructor putting his bit on the counts my friends broke the actual news. My reaction would have come later but the first thing happened was the shooting pain in the left neck. As I write this still the pain and stiffness prevails in my neck as if symbolic to the pain everybody around must be having.
I never invested in Satyam so apart from the literal pain in the neck I am fine personally. But today the Indian in me is a very sad person. Satyam being one of the top four IT Company in India could be compared to a pillar of IT revolution in India. Today one pillar has most surely fallen. I do not want to elaborate as it increases the stiffness in my neck and it still pains in the neck. For me this is the most Badsundaram (ugly) part of it.
I had a busy day yesterday. Office internet was down because of maintenance work and I reached home quite late to do the custom of viewing the news in the TV as I thought the world could not have changed in these few hours and off course I did not want to annoy my wife who was any way fast reaching the boiling point. Morning 6:00 I was bang in the GYM to straighten the calorie count which I had grossly abused the earlier day. My first encounter was with a friend and regular in the GYM who after customary exchanges asked me if he can keep the Satyam stock or sell it. I had no clue why he asked me this question but my reply was that I would not be in position to advice. Since empowered by the person’s confidence in me I started my gyan session to add to this fiasco just before coming to GYM I read two weeks old article on Satyam, so you could very well imagine what I would have been sounding as. After some time more friends came pouring in while I was trying to flex my triceps with the instructor putting his bit on the counts my friends broke the actual news. My reaction would have come later but the first thing happened was the shooting pain in the left neck. As I write this still the pain and stiffness prevails in my neck as if symbolic to the pain everybody around must be having.
I never invested in Satyam so apart from the literal pain in the neck I am fine personally. But today the Indian in me is a very sad person. Satyam being one of the top four IT Company in India could be compared to a pillar of IT revolution in India. Today one pillar has most surely fallen. I do not want to elaborate as it increases the stiffness in my neck and it still pains in the neck. For me this is the most Badsundaram (ugly) part of it.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
When we would be plain simple Indians?
I really wonder when we will be called only as Indians. We are today a SC,ST, Dalit, Gujjar,Kurmi, Jat,Meena,Bhumiar,Bhramin,Kshatriya and what not but not Indians. We are Hindus, Muslims, Sikh, Christians, Parsis and what not but not Indians . Furthermore we are below poverty line, lower middle class, Middle middle class, upper middle class, upper class, creamy layer and all but still not an Indian. If this was not enough we are Biharis, Punjabis, Bengalis etc still not Indians. The list will go on.
It aches and aches a lot to see that we live by the segmentation done by our dear politicians who can get annoyed for not getting there share for the large birthday cakes they plan for their birthday bash so that they are justified to snuff off life of so called misbehaving person. I am not trying to isolate anyone but this was one of the bizarre case just could not get off my mind. So the biggest colonial legacy still remain in our times “Divide and rule”.
Who is to be blamed? For sure I do not hint to the politicians , it is we the common citizens are to be blamed to get carried away with this kind of ploy so that these people keep on ruling us and rightly consider us there foolish slaves. I am sure they must me having a heart full of laugh .
Things will only change and the actual development work will only happen if government start looking at entire chunk as Indians. Any policy for poor will be good enough for all the poor people all across the above segments. There will be less no of policy to concentrate on hence the effectiveness of the implementation of the policy which could also be monitored better. There are even lot of by-products of this approach too like peace and harmony comes almost free with this. India probably reached the ideal state what this world is now trying to reach that is “Peace and harmony everywhere”. What we know now is Indians are just like cake and the destiny of the cake are to be cut in pieces as small as possible so that it can be eaten at ease and for long. I guess the symbolic representation in the birthday bash with a large cake which our leaders like to show us, sorry mock at us.
It aches and aches a lot to see that we live by the segmentation done by our dear politicians who can get annoyed for not getting there share for the large birthday cakes they plan for their birthday bash so that they are justified to snuff off life of so called misbehaving person. I am not trying to isolate anyone but this was one of the bizarre case just could not get off my mind. So the biggest colonial legacy still remain in our times “Divide and rule”.
Who is to be blamed? For sure I do not hint to the politicians , it is we the common citizens are to be blamed to get carried away with this kind of ploy so that these people keep on ruling us and rightly consider us there foolish slaves. I am sure they must me having a heart full of laugh .
Things will only change and the actual development work will only happen if government start looking at entire chunk as Indians. Any policy for poor will be good enough for all the poor people all across the above segments. There will be less no of policy to concentrate on hence the effectiveness of the implementation of the policy which could also be monitored better. There are even lot of by-products of this approach too like peace and harmony comes almost free with this. India probably reached the ideal state what this world is now trying to reach that is “Peace and harmony everywhere”. What we know now is Indians are just like cake and the destiny of the cake are to be cut in pieces as small as possible so that it can be eaten at ease and for long. I guess the symbolic representation in the birthday bash with a large cake which our leaders like to show us, sorry mock at us.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Equal Opportunities
The world has evolved to provide equal opportunity to one and all. May it be an entrepreneur, Anti socials (can be taken as a mild term for terrorists), so for the policing, Governments, Students, teachers, developed nations, developing nations etc.
In today’s world I would say doing business is much easier than it used to be earlier. All you might need is some good idea or even without it you could manage and scale up cost effectively with ease the simplest Idea to do business. Earlier I used to read about Indian Industrialists going countries acquiring brick and mortar companies and turning them around by just simple cost cutting. This seemed to me like some kind of magic these people possessed until we started thing on the same line. Probably we Indians have always been bought up with a thought to start and keep on continuing doing things with the optimal utilisation of resources. Predominantly I thing this skill comes to us naturally as we were all born in scarcity. Scarcity truly makes you thing to use the resources more efficiently. Today an overseas branch for us is feasible to us as we can manage most of the functionality like financials, logistics and everything almost except the sales guys to be stationed in the overseas branch. I can go on and on this topic.
Today the criminals are exposed to the same technology as what police does. In fact Police must encourage the use of technology to these kinds of elements but at the same time must know how to regulate and control these technologies. There have been ample examples of how enforcement agencies could get rock solid proof for these crimes which have been difficult to proof or even would have been difficult to commit. Just yesterday India could satisfy a long time demand of Pakistan to give ample proof which can stand in court of law on the Mumbai violence. This was majorly on the ground of the footprints left by the terrorists on the sands of technology. Worst even Gujarat police could crack on the terrorist purely on basis of analyzing the cell phone call pattern and data. Surely the technology provided them to find there needle in the haystack.
Today Governments can control their revenue much better. They have all there check posts, customs, sales tax, income tax etc all computerised and now they are supposed to link them all. I am sure the day will come when Govt will calculate your tax and send a invoice to you just like your internet service provider or your cell phone company does for you.
In today’s world I take out any aspect and find that there is a level playing field for everyone. I am sure in days to come it will be more so.
In today’s world I would say doing business is much easier than it used to be earlier. All you might need is some good idea or even without it you could manage and scale up cost effectively with ease the simplest Idea to do business. Earlier I used to read about Indian Industrialists going countries acquiring brick and mortar companies and turning them around by just simple cost cutting. This seemed to me like some kind of magic these people possessed until we started thing on the same line. Probably we Indians have always been bought up with a thought to start and keep on continuing doing things with the optimal utilisation of resources. Predominantly I thing this skill comes to us naturally as we were all born in scarcity. Scarcity truly makes you thing to use the resources more efficiently. Today an overseas branch for us is feasible to us as we can manage most of the functionality like financials, logistics and everything almost except the sales guys to be stationed in the overseas branch. I can go on and on this topic.
Today the criminals are exposed to the same technology as what police does. In fact Police must encourage the use of technology to these kinds of elements but at the same time must know how to regulate and control these technologies. There have been ample examples of how enforcement agencies could get rock solid proof for these crimes which have been difficult to proof or even would have been difficult to commit. Just yesterday India could satisfy a long time demand of Pakistan to give ample proof which can stand in court of law on the Mumbai violence. This was majorly on the ground of the footprints left by the terrorists on the sands of technology. Worst even Gujarat police could crack on the terrorist purely on basis of analyzing the cell phone call pattern and data. Surely the technology provided them to find there needle in the haystack.
Today Governments can control their revenue much better. They have all there check posts, customs, sales tax, income tax etc all computerised and now they are supposed to link them all. I am sure the day will come when Govt will calculate your tax and send a invoice to you just like your internet service provider or your cell phone company does for you.
In today’s world I take out any aspect and find that there is a level playing field for everyone. I am sure in days to come it will be more so.
Monday, January 5, 2009
I started this year with a resolution that not to have any further New Year resolutions. I had been patently witnessing the fail of these resolutions one by one making me feel guilty. Now I am feeling good that this year I am almost sure of getting away with the guilt or.......
There is a strong feeling still to make those resolutions that can make my life meaningful and all that as if it was not so. I do lead a meaningful life but I do not know why and how I got into this competition mode every year to see if I can improve it further. Well one thing I promised to myself (not a resolution) that I will be seen more here and will be writing more often here.
It is already JAN 5 and I am still fighting myself to make those disastrous resolutions.
There is a strong feeling still to make those resolutions that can make my life meaningful and all that as if it was not so. I do lead a meaningful life but I do not know why and how I got into this competition mode every year to see if I can improve it further. Well one thing I promised to myself (not a resolution) that I will be seen more here and will be writing more often here.
It is already JAN 5 and I am still fighting myself to make those disastrous resolutions.
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