Bright Sparks - by Sandeep Manudhane

Women of India rise against rape

2012-12-26T18:07:00.000+05:30

System versus the People

The Indian capital and the Indian media have witnessed a turbulent period recently. Much to the chagrin of the ruling classes (who'd prefer a docile politically dead youth anytime), the educated urban youth of India actually came out in strength on the main street of Delhi - the Rajpath - demanding replies from the rulers. As expected, no replies were forthcoming. Leaders were not to be seen when needed the most. Hiding behind the vast paraphernalia of an inert, inept "system", the leaders let the protests take an ugly turn. Today, a horrified youth is witnessing various organs of the state fighting with each other (instead of focusing on the main issue - women's rights and dignity), and - as various sections of the media allege - trying to destroy a genuine movement of resistance (against an apathetic system) by hyping the story of one dead gentleman constable. May the departed soul rest in peace - but hundreds of women are raped and killed brutally each year. No leader or policeman expresses similar grave anguish then. So as the media alleges, the farce is clear for everyone to see - calling a spade a spade will do no harm.

In this entire episode, over the past 10 days, I wrote some pieces expressing my experiences. Here is the first:

Dear Indian Fathers,

From today onwards, every single day, tell your son(s) repeatedly that "You must respect all women, including your sister(s), mother, and more importantly - other women. If you do not respect all women, you will lose my love, care and protection. You will be a paapi, a criminal and a scoundrel."

When you do this repeatedly for many months and years, Indian society will start to change.

There is no hope for this great nation otherwise. Do it now. Do it from now.

I posted this on social media and was glad to receive great feedback.

Then came this expression of desperation and sorrow from a girl student of mine:

दिल्ली में हुई वारदात के माहौल में मेरी एक स्टूडेंट ने मुझे एप्रोच किया और कहा की सर एक पर्सनल काउंसलिंग आपसे चाहिए .. मैं आउटस्टेशन स्टूडेंट हूँ और इंदौर में हॉस्टल में रहती हूँ .. मुझे बहोत कुछ आपको बताना है .. मैंने उसे टाइम दिया और मिलने के लिए बुलाया। उससे हुई बातचीत का सार इस प्रकार था --- पूरा पढ़ें ---

"सर, समाज लड़कियों से क्या चाहता है? हम अच्छे घर की लड़की हैं और पढ़ लिख कर आगे बढ़ना चाहते हैं। पर इस समाज के लड़के और मर्द - ज्यादातर - ऐसा नहीं चाहते और पूरी कोशिश करतें हैं की ऐसा न हो पाए। सर, जब भी मैं सड़क पर निकलती हूँ, ये मान कर, मन बना कर निकलती हूँ, की 3 से 4 लड़के तो कम से कम गंदे कॉमेंट्स पास करेंगे ही। सड़क पर निकलो तो मोटर साइकिल पर तेज़ी से आके गन्दी गन्दी बातें बोल कर भाग जातें हैं। ऐसा हर बार होता है, एक बार नहीं। पुलिस के पास जाने का सोचो तो डर लगता हैं की जीन्स टीशर्ट पहनी लड़की को किस नज़र से देखा जायेगा पता नहीं। और सर, ऐसा तो है ही नहीं की आप अगर सलवार कुरता पहन लो तो सब आपकी इज्ज़त करने लगेंगे। पहले तो ये ही लड़के आपको बैकवर्ड कहेंगे और फिर ये ही लड़के आपको छेड़ने मे आनंद लेंगे। कई बार इच्छा हुई की पलट कर जवाब दूं ... पर डर ये लगा की अगर ये एक लड़का का 3 या 4 लडकों को ले कर आ गया तब? ये तो मुझे भी उसी दिल्ली वाली लड़की की तरह नुकसान पंहुचा देंगे। सर, लड़के तो लड़के, बड़े भी वैसे ही हैं। अगर कोई पापा या दादा की उम्र का आदमी सड़क पर आपको मौका मिलते ही छेड़ने लगे या गंदे गंदे कमेंट्स पास करे तो सर, पूरे समाज पर से भरोसा उठ जाता है। अगर सब मर्द एक सामान अपनी माँ और बेहन को छोड़ कर बाकि सबको केवल एक ऑब्जेक्ट के रूप में देखते हैं तो ऐसा कब तक चलेगा? क्या हम पढाई छोड़ कर घर बैठ जायें? और सर, इन्टरनेट और मोबाइल ने तो वो कबाड़ा किया है की पूछिए मत। कई लड़के उसका इस्तेमाल केवल गन्दी फिल्में देखने के लिए करते हैं। एक बार हम 3 लड़कियां ऑटो में बैठी तो सबसे पहले ऑटो वाले ने अपना मोबाइल आगे रखा, उसमे गन्दी फिल्म चालू की, और हम सब हक्के बक्के रह गए। क्या करते? पुलिस के पास जाते? एग्जाम छोड़ कर? पापा को फ़ोन लगाते ? ताकि वो घबरा कर यहाँ आते और हमें ले कर चले जाते ? सर, हम लडकियां क्या करें? बहोत निराशा होती है कोई सोलूशन नहीं देख कर। और दिन प्रतिदिन सब बिगड़ ही रहा है सुधर नहीं रहा। आप आदमी हैं आप शायद पूरी तरह इस पीड़ा को फील नहीं करेंगे। पर दुःख के सिवा कुछ नहीं मिलता डेली बेसिस पर। टेबल पर पढने के लिए बैठो तो येही सब याद आता है।"

(translated it means roughly that 'every single time I go on to the streets of my city, I am eve-teased, harassed and demoralised by the men and boys around me. The methods and intensity differ from incident to incident, but the intent remains the same').

All I could say to her was - I feel sorry for you, and women of this nation. But don't lose hope. Just carry on with life, with a great hope that things will slowly change. The Indian male, at present, is unable to digest the Indian woman's freedom. But ultimately he will have to accept it. Historically, India was an equal society. Past 300 - 400 years have ruined us. But we will resurrect. We surely will. Till then, don't lose hope.

Witnessing the strong police action on youngsters, the poet in me then wrote:

Male police beating women!

Mat maaro in bachcho ko..
Yeh ek din ka rosh nahin..
Barson ki beizzati ka..
Aaj hisab mangti hai desh ki naari.
(translated it means 'do not hit these young people, for this is not the anger of a single day... the Indian woman is now seeking answers to decades of depredation and insult').

And finally came this from my 8 year old daughter:

With a quizzical look in her eyes, my daughter (class 4th) asked me this morning : "Daddy, why do boys in my class laugh at me when I tell them I like to play football? Why do they say it is not a girls' sport? Then they should stop swimming - it is not a boys' sport."

This is one of the best schools in town, and the students are from the best families.

What a mirror this statement holds to our society. Irrespective of income brackets, social layer and education levels, it is all the same from top to bottom, generally.
If we start seriously now, perhaps in another 20 - 30 years, this society will change for the better.

For the police, every couple is a criminal couple.
What about constitutional freedom they have by birth?

As expected after such a series of incidents, the local police force in various cities have become very active. They have started catching the roadside romeos (which is good), and in their over-zealous outreach, have started harassing genuine couples (many of them above 18 years of age) found together in parks. I find it disgusting that to stop eve-teasing, you have to actually catch and insult couples sitting in parks willingly! Will this not further frustrate both boys and girls? Is this not a direct attack on the young girls' (above 18 years of age) right to choose their friends, boyfriends, or future life partners? We have to learn to give them their space! This is the problem with a heavy handed approach - any boy or girl sitting in a park is suddenly the target of the police force. Our medieval mindsets will never mature, it seems. Of course, decency has to be maintained by these couples.

People's perceptions also vary a lot. A female government officer in a function in MP felt that the gang-raped girl (Delhi) should not have put up such a resistance that the criminals felt like tearing her intestines apart. She felt that the victim would have been better off by surrendering. It really takes all kinds! Click here to read

Finally :

Heartwarming fact - women are taking to the street raising their voice against the daily string of atrocities against them. And men in large number are joining them.

Sad fact - the system is doing exactly what it does best - conspire, retaliate, pretend and seek revenge from those in the forefront. It does not realise that this is a great moment to be captured for the benefit of posterity.

But something tells me, no matter how rigid the system may be, it's going to be different this time. Even those "inside" the system have women folk in their families, after all.
~

The Garbage Needs a Thought!

2012-11-26T11:43:00.000+05:30

Standing atop my terrace, I observed the garbage collection system this morning.

A neat cycle-trolley was being steered out of the residential colony by an official Municipal employee. The cart was painted - Indore Municipality - and had neat polythene bags stacked inside, apparently collected door-to-door.

Her milk is what some will drink

I was very happy to see that there is a functioning garbage disposal system. Then came the shocker.

The cart reached the big metal garbage container on the main street. And I assumed that the person will now empty everything into the main container. These containers are then taken for emptying by big trucks that pick them up every 2-3 days, and then replace them again (emptied).

But no.

He emptied everything on the road just all around the container (the service road on which the big container is put). Then two rag-picker girls with their sacks came along quickly. They rummaged through the fresh garbage, and collected useful things and left. Then 6 cows came, and started opening (through force of their mouths and hoofs) the polythenes and consuming the rubbish happily. Then the cycle-cart wallah himself collected useful stuff and put it into his own cart.

Then, our friend (the cart-wallah) was busy cleaning his cart with a gentle hand. (I must admit his gentle movements surprised me - for his profession, I expected a rough hand.) He was least interested that he has just collected the garbage from inside the colony, and dirtied the entire service road area! The poor big container must have been begging for some contribution inside, but no sir, it was not to be!

Finally, he left, with a clean and emptied cycle-cart, with all rubbish lying outside the big container. The cows seemed very happy munching through the fresh garbage.

I was forced to contemplate what was going on.

Some learnings:

We Indians have to learn to put garbage INSIDE the containers meant for it, not OUTSIDE!
Even garbage collection systems have their vested interests right to the last point of disposal.
The nonchalance of the cart-wallah meant it was a daily practice for him
The supervision system needs to be very meticulous, with adequate penalties at each point
Citizens need to report to the concerned authorities when they see a flagrant violation like this

Operationally speaking, it was a reminder that no system will run smoothly on its own. Occasional checks and balances are a must, no matter how stinky the affair be!

Power thoughts for professionals

2012-08-13T17:41:00.000+05:30

I started compiling some of the recent updates made by me on LinkedIn, and here is the collection. Enjoy!

What surely happens when we die? In less than a 1000 days (3 yrs) almost every single trace - physical and emotional - would get washed away. So whatever we are doing now, howsoever good it may be, has actually zero permanent value. But we can't stop living actively.. so the trick is "Participate in life and work whole-heartedly and stay disconnected from any notion of material permanence."

^

Q. What does a crisis achieve? Ans. Three things. 1 - it tells you who your enemies are (by thoughts and in action), 2. it identifies the fence-sitters, and 3. it clearly brings out the loyalists in your life. An entrepreneur or professional who has only tasted success but faced no crisis has led a half-life, oblivious of the truth behind all the fawning and friendly faces.

^

Don't treat special privileges that your near-ones or company grant you, as your birth-right. Treat them as a great temporary boon from God. They may disappear any moment. Don't regret then. Be thankful while it lasted.

^

POWER TIP FOR FRESHERS : Anyone who is really good at MS-Excel is blessed with a booster attached to his/her career. A worthy investment.

^

If you work entirely in 'white', you soon get beaten blue and black by those who prefer working in 'black'. Ambiguous morality in money matters is considered disjoint from overall morality, in India. Everyone knows it, and everyone is happy pretending.

^

If you wish to have the combined thrill of a bungee jump, river rafting, mountain hiking, parajumping and a jungle trek, just become an entrepreneur in India. Daily delivery of all these guaranteed.

^

One bad apple is all you need to significantly slow down or retard the positive forward movement of any team. Positive members are like Protons. Negative like electrons. Weed them out as fast as possible. People very rarely can change their attitude - no matter what they may 'say' or 'promise'. Counsellings are usually a total waste with morons. Sad :)

^

POWER TIP FOR HR PROFESSIONALS : A seriously large number of resumes carry false, wrong and exaggerated information. Do your cross-check thoroughly. In fact, at times I am surprised to read LinkedIn profiles of some people I know, claiming stuff that's beyond their capability, caliber or record

^

POWER TIP FOR FRESHERS : Flexibility, tolerance and good listening ability are the 3 magic bullets a fresher can use to propel his/her career at top pace. Flexibilty - to do whatever work the situation demands (even if at variance with your profile or education), Tolerance - towards the time it takes for a raise or promotion to happen, and Good Listening Ability - to ensure you keep absorbing. My old students often tell me - "Sandeep sir, this was one power tip that helped immensely in the first job!"

Will keep posting more from time to time!

~

Big 5 lessons from Apple's success

2012-04-04T15:35:00.000+05:30

Eye-popping sales figures... Industry-shaping technological prowess... Mind-numbing financial strength

What a tremendous success it has been! The Apple juggernaut has trounced all pundits' expectations, steam-rolled all competition into pulp, gatecrashed into the 'PC' market with unquantifiable fury, and totally destroyed all existing business models in its industry.

It is a heart-warming story for those who have followed (the late) Steve Jobs' life and times.

It is a detestable nightmare for the likes of HP, Dell, Microsoft, RIM, Nokia and Google.

It is grand fodder for case-studies that are being churned from leading b-schools portals.

But what is it that's made this amazing success possible? Can it be replicated by Apple itself in the future, or by anyone else? How far can Apple really go? Will it end sometime?

Here is my analysis of the Big 5 lessons from Apple's decade of uncontrolled steam-rolling, left-right-and-centre!

1. Mega success is a unique template

Really big successes - where companies trample everyone else and romp home with full glory - are almost always based on unique business models. There is nothing "standardisable" about such models except the underlying features - genuinely unique disruptive models, firm belief in what the company is trying to achieve, and a loyal fan base. So Apple's model of success just cannot get replicated by someone else. Students of management will remind us of the commoditisation phenomenon, rightly. But other than that, corporate history teaches us that such "repeats" by someone else is almost impossible. Just check out the stories of Microsoft, GE, WalMart, McDonalds, Dell, and Google to get a feel. In each of these cases, no one could repeat their business models with similar success rates.

2. Mega success won't get repeated

Even if Apple wants to repeat the same success story from scratch, chances are it won't be able to. The customers would have changed by then, their tastes would have evolved, the whole set of external conditions will have become novel and different. So the same products just won't work at all. Hence the same model is ruled out. (Yes, they may try new products, but Apple is so much defined by its unique products (of today) that a new set of products will almost mean a new business model).

(if you feel that 2 is the same as 1 above, please read again)

3. New Star is always in the offing

"All empires collapse eventually". The good news is no single player will dominate any segment forever. That is nature's check against monopoly and destructive domination. It is certain that a new player is sitting somewhere is some garage chiselling a bullet with "Apple" written on it. And the bullet will be fired for sure. Those who find it difficult to digest will do well to remember the disdain with which rumours of RIM's fall or HP's inability to face Apple's iPad onslaught were received just a few years ago. In 2007, it was considered heresy to even suggest that some company could dare challenge HP's PC-laptop monopoly. In 2004, it was inconceivable that the multi-models business strategy of Nokia could ever go wrong.

So it will be with Apple. The fact that technology moves forward with great pace, and with no fidelity towards any particular shade of capital, is a sobering reminder that the bullet may appear from anywhere! Apple may not "die down"... its multi-billion dollar horde of cash stashed in banks can turn it into a safe financier of dreams for generations to come. But that won't be the Apple we know, and respect.

4. "Future predictions" are the best bullshit conceivable

The painful thing about human life is that predictions are impossible to make with certainty. In a sense, this is what makes life so interesting - what would we do if we knew our date of departure? But in business, leaders are always desperate to take a peek into the crystal ball and latch on to any shred of news/analysis that can throw light on the future with some certainty. However, one lesson we can learn from the past 20 years of corporate-watching - "Take every pundit's predictions with a bag-full of salt. Most likely, she is going to be proven totally wrong by the future." For any CEO, saying anything with certainty should be perhaps restricted to a couple of quarters, or at the most a full year. Not more!

Talking of uncertainty - let's not forget that even scientific basis of the fundamental particle electron is just a probability cloud. Only the Protons are surely in the nucleus.

No one - NO ONE - can predict the future. That's how the wonderfully woven strands of uncertainty define our space-time. That's why God always smiles in his heaven. Because He(She) knows for sure that the interplay of globalisation, technology and mankind's ambitions make a potent unpredictable mixture.

5. Personality cults are still the best bet - they will remain so

Salaam, o sailor!

Companies make products for human beings. Even petfood is purchased by humans, and not dogs. And humans always will remain emotional beings. So it is logical to assume that humans will always be impressed by role models who are worth emulating. Steve Jobs was definitely the most maverick role model - his Stanford speech proved it. It is a grand mistake to assume that companies and products cannot do well if personality cults are used to promote them. It is an equally grand mistake to assume that companies can forever keep using personality cults to sell with the same vigour - people are mortal, period. (either by age, or by talent)

So what's the best way? Well, a matter of choice. Apple chose Steve's cult to base its entire appeal on (they may not say so, but ask any fanboi and you will know!)

A question entrepreneurs ask me in training sessions is : "Sandeep, should we build our company's brand or our own?" This blogpost should help them get the answe.

Business is so interesting ... just see it from the human lens. It's amazing!

The sands of time

2012-03-31T15:55:00.000+05:30

I wrote this two years ago. It's rather special, and today is the right time to share it once again with all of you!

- - - - - -

It was a call from my elder brother, a doctor himself, that alerted me to the possibility. It was a second call 10 minutes later that jolted me into action. I rushed to the hospital. And found my father on the ICU bed. He was no more.

On 31st of March 2002, I was on a routine visit to the Indore centre of Professional Tutorials. It was a Sunday, but an audit was overdue, and I was conducting it alongwith the entire team at the centre. Around 12:45pm, my mobile phone rang. Deep into the audit, it took me some rings before I took the call. "Come to the hospital, Dad is not well", said my brother from the other side. "Sure, I will", I said and continued with the audit, hoping to finish it in another 30 minutes. In just 10 minutes, the phone rang again and my brother, slightly more impatient this time round, said "Come NOW."

I rushed out of the office knowing fully well what that tone of voice could mean. And my worst fears were proven true when I entered the ICU of the hospital. My father was on the bed, and a doctor was desperately trying to arouse him from his sleep, pushing a big needle into his heart, with some medicine that's supposed to act as a life-safer in cardiac arrests. I realised that the time has come for me to realise what he had told me earlier on more than one occasions -"A day will come when you will have to realise that we all travel alone, and it is our duty to give happiness to as many as we can in this journey. We must give back to society much more than we take from it."

These were precisely the words I used while designing the obituary advt in next day's newspapers. I hope it gave him happiness that I remembered.

I also remembered that just 2 days ago, there was an advertisement of PT in local papers, and my father had called me up to congratulate me. That was his habit. Every time a news article or advt of PT would appear in media, he would make it a point to call on my mobile and talk to me. He liked to do that. In fact, those were the last words we had exchanged - "Sandeep, I liked today's advertisement. Nicely done. How are you doing, beta?" And I had sensed that he was unwell. His voice was low, and not upbeat. I had asked him about it, and he had brushed it aside saying it'll go. (In fact, when his obit advt was printed, I suspected he may call me from heaven congratulating me for a good design).

My father Dr Govind Shankar Manudhane had come from a very small village named Erandol (near Jalgaon in Maharashtra). He hailed from a very proud family of modest means. His father, my grandfather (a famous lawyer) wanted all his kids to have the best of education. And they did have the best of it. My father's medical education was completed in Pune, Mumbai and Britain, and then he returned to a city he had never been to before - Indore. Like a true entrepreneur, he started his career with almost zero capital, struggling to establish himself as a medical practitioner, and would go for days without a single patient walking in. My mother recalls those days and I can imagine what a struggle it must have been for both of them to manage the clinic with the modest means at their disposal. He got married after he had settled himself to some extent, in the new clinic at Indore, which he had rented at a princely (actually) sum of Rs 300 per month (in the 1960s that was a very big amount). My father always made it a point to publicly respect the first family that helped him settle in Indore - the Jajodias. I learnt a very big lesson - always be grateful for acts of kindness others show towards you.

The fact that my father came from a very small village always amazed me. I say this because he would speak (and write and understand) English extremely fluently and effortlessly. So much for those who crib about their rural backgrounds!

It was only after my father passed away, that the full impact of the depth of our relationship dawned upon me. Till that day, I had taken the relationship for granted. Here was this hugely successful ENT surgeon, a thorough gentleman, extremely fluent at three languages (so much so that he could easily be confused for being an Englishman, a Malwa native or a Marathi) - my father, who would always be available for advice. So it was a given. But when he suddenly was no more, a strong sense of vacuum hit me.

The first 72 hours after his death passed by in rituals, ceremonies and managing the nitty-gritty. It was strange to see a gentleman who would eternally keep smiling, remain still. Totally still. The body being brought home from the hospital, relatives and friends gathering at the home, the ice-slab and formaldehyde injections to keep the body problem-free, the string of visitors to pay their last respects, the final moments when the body leaves the home (that's really a painful one), the funeral, the post-funeral get-together to share emotions and remembrances, the 13 days.. and the final moment when we get on with our lives. It's all a set system. It's all pre-defined. Over thousands of years, the rituals have evolved so wonderfully, and they have been perfected so rigorously, there's hardly a scope for error. There are seniors who magically pop up and guide you at each step - it's truly unbelievable.

I distinctly remember a senior uncle telling me just before the funeral pyre was lit "Beta, chehre par ghee zor se lagao, aur khoob sara lagao." I was applying ghee very gently to Dad's face (just before the funeral pyre was lit) but that clearly does not work. They need lots of it. That's practicality for you. One may be emotionally distraught but the process has to be followed absolutely properly. And then the pyre was lit, and all physical contact was lost forever. It's so strange - we hold our dear ones in our hearts, but feel it through physical touch, and when that medium is lost, one really has to dig deep inside one's heart (or mind) and feel it from there. And that can be very painful! In fact, when we went the next morning for asthi sanchay (collecting the bones that remain after the funeral), I felt strange. These were my father's bones!! The asthi visarjan was equally painful. One realises the stupidity of clinging to material things only when one passes through this experience. It all ends, one day. We return to where we came from. Dust. Or call it Mother Earth.

With some maturity, I can see the wisdom in Lord Shiva's nivritti marg which hints at a detachment from worldly realities, as what we see as material truth is nothing more than a play of Maya with our limited senses, to trap us forever, as long as we are not ready to see through it, like Shiva, or if we choose to engage with it wholeheartedly, then we better do it the Lord Vishnu way.

The meaning of human relationships became clearer to me, as days passed by. I remembered who all had come to pay their last respects. They say that the measure of a man's success is not seen by the way he lived, but the way he died. I was stunned to see the huge number of very respectable people who kept coming in for several days to our home, sharing their feelings about how Doctorsaab had magically cured them of their maladies, how his gentle touch and smile was still fresh in their memories, and how his diligence has cast an indelible impression on their minds. You really can't see all this when your father is alive. Unfortunately, the deepest of emotions in people's hearts emerge only when someone passes away.

As days passed by, I was realising ever more deeply the various incidents that had shaped my relationship with him. I remember vividly how angry he was when I did not perform well in my 5th standard six-monthly exams. He was so upset, in fact, that from the next day (till the final board exams day - we used to have board exams for 5th standard also in those times) he spent 2/3 hours every day with me sitting in the small family garden, teaching me step by step. All those sessions helped me score 95% in the final exams, and to become the school topper, and also one of the state's toppers, winning scholarships. He clapped his heart out in that function. Oh, what love! I doubt if I would have the same commitment towards my children. I might lose patience midway. He did not.

I failed to learn from my experiences of the 5th standard, and he had to repeatedly remind me that I could do well only if I really wanted to. And he ensured that his strictness led to really good results all through my schooling. I cracked all exams, including the NTSE exam in standard X, which helped me win a lifelong scholarship (till I would choose to study). The government was lucky, as I stopped studying after my graduation (much to Dad's chagrin)!

I remember to this day the name of each newspaper and magazine that he ensured was subscribed to, for the 3 of us (2 brothers, and a sister). All our growing-up years we read tonnes of books, magazines and newspapers. The Times of India, Naidunia, Chandamama, Nandan, Champak, Tinkle, Tintin, Archies, Bal Bharti, The Illustrated Weekly of India, Dharmayug, Indrajaal comics, Amar Chitra Katha... you name it, and we had it coming to our home. Year after year. Today when I look back, I realise that most of what I am is because of that exposure. He would always say "Padho, khoob padho. I'll never let you face any shortage of funds for books and studies."

Like a silly fool, once I confronted my Dad with a simple question - "Daddy, all other doctors invest so much in land and property. Why don't you do that?" His simple reply was - "My entire investment is in my three children. I do not intend to leave behind anything but three good citizens." The full importance of what he said was lost on me that day. Today, it hits me hard everytime I recall this! It was perhaps the most profound thing he ever said to me.

Every single birthday in my home used to be a true celebration. The mood used to be joyous from the morning, with songs played in high volume (we had an LP record with songs like "hum bhi agar bachhey hote..") almost all day through. Then in the afternoon, everybody would gather for cake-cutting ceremony and a really sumptuous meal, with badaam ka halwa for sure! My Dad ensured that every birthday of each one of the five family members was celebrated with enthusiasm. And yes, he was a photography enthusiast. We still have albums preserved from over decades of every possible event that happened! I have carried that habit with me!

I remember my siblings often complaining to my father - "Daddy (and Mummy), you love him more than you love us!" And he would always tell them - "Come on, I love you equally!" And there was a naughty smile on his face. I guess he did love me a bit more ;-) In the very early days (when I was perhaps 3 years old), he would often put me on top of the dining table and say "Naach beta!" and I would dance, and he would sing a nice little rhyme (family copyrighted!), and everyone would have a jolly good time. I tried that with my kids also, but was not too successful!

All my life, I never heard him utter a single abuse, a single foul word. The only one was perhaps "rascal" which he would sometimes use when angry. Other than that, he was a total embodiment of everything civil, genteel, and polished. Always well-dressed, clean-shaven and soft-spoken, his company was much sought after by his friends. His daily work routine was one of high discipline - getting up at 4am, reaching the OT (operation theatre) by 5am, coming home by 9am, reaching clinic by 10:20 am, coming home for lunch by 1:45pm, reaching clinic by 4pm, and coming home by 8:15pm. Six days a week at least. I saw him do this for 30 years. Imagine - thirty years! He was that dedicated to his profession, and to the well-being of all of us.

Diwali was always a very very special occasion. At his clinic, there would be an elaborate Laxmi-poojan, and the entire family would reach in time, especially me. Although my motives were different. More than the poojan, I was interested in the special samosas we used to get from the corner-wali shop after the poojan got over. Till this day, I remember every poojan, every samosa I ate, every cracker we burst on the first floor of the clinic (in the middle of a very very busy street). Then we would reach home, and prepare for the evening bash. Daddy was very fond of bursting crackers (not the very loud ones) and he would give my brother and me a lot of money to splurge on this! I have continued the habit till date. And yes, one more thing - he loved Sachin Tendulkar!

The day I made it to IIT was extremely special. In the summers of 1989, the IITJEE results were delayed by several months (due to teachers' strike) and we were on tenterhooks till July. Then came the results and bingo! I had earned JEEAIR 647 and made it to IIT Delhi. He was ecstatic as his dream had literally come true. I remember him prodding me since early childhood that "Tujhe toh beta IIT mey hi jaana hai". I did not even understand what IIT meant, but he made sure I realised it was something really worth aspiring for. It is important for parents to keep reinforcing the goals worth-pursuing in the minds of their kids, in their early years. Throughout my IIT preparation days, he was there by my side, at times making tea for me at 2 am in the night. Each one of those moments light up vividly in my mind today, though when I lived through them, they were just another day!

And then I passed out of IIT Delhi, and made it to all the IIMs. Again, he was ecstatic. I still remember him telling everyone this with tremendous pride! My mother would often remind him not to praise my achievements so much - "dimaag ghoom jayea iska, zyada taarif mat kiya karo!!"

But destiny had to strike its wonderful stroke of a seemingly irrational plunge. Like his true son, I went straight to the garage and started an education enterprise. I started Professional Tutorials (PT) in my family garage on 10th of July 1993, and all hell broke loose.

Dad was totally upset with my choice of a career. He thought I had gone mad, or that his misdeeds of past lives were catching up with him (the Bhagwad Gita philosophy). The mood at home was extremely tense for many months in 1993/94. But strangely, I was sure that I could create something meaningful in a teaching career, and maybe create even an enterprise out of it. I was ziddy, totally ziddy (after all, I was his son!). Slowly, in a few years, everyone saw clearly that there was no point in trying to convince me otherwise, and they all started praying for my success (hee, hee!). Ultimately, I did become successful to some extent, and Dad was very happy to see that I had purchased an office, and then even constructed a proper building (in the year 2000). That really made him very proud of me, and I was very relieved (I was scared that if I were to fail, he might feel truly bad about investing so much of emotions in me all through my early years, and it was imperative for me to succeed.) He even came to attend some conferences at PT, where he spoke. It was such a proud moment for ME! Finally, he had realised that I was not all that silly and wrong, and that I could actually do solid things.

In all this, I distinctly remember the tremendously inspiring incident of a senior Professor who came to our residence in 1994, called me for a counselling (by him, to me) looked into my eyes with a dead-serious face (that almost killed me) and said - "Young man, you really think you can make a career out of all this stuff you are doing?" I swore to myself "Boss, kar ke dikhaoonga!" Ever since then, in my career as a mentor, I have never told any young man/woman such a thing :-)

My Dad kept advising me on money matters, which kept irking my mother always! But he would not stop - his advice would flow constantly. Children, after all, remain children always, for their parents. And that's how it should always be. I can totally relate with this sentiment, when I look at my own kids. There is no way I am going to stop advising them ever!!

I have realised a very deep truth about parents. The good deeds of our parents add to the social bank balance of children, that we keep encashing later. As I started working independently as an entrepreneur, I faced several challenges. On many occasions I came across people who went out of the way to help me because they knew and resepected my father. I realised that I had a very rich bank balance that my father left me - the bank balance of invisible blessings, good deeds, & solid karma. Trust me reader, there is nothing more powerful in this life than genuine positive karma. It leaves its indelible traces in the sands of time. Decades after my father helped someone in need, that 'someone' is always around to help me today. Awesome!

Another thing he told me on more than one occasion was "This human society is being run only by 10 - 20% of the good people. If they also turn corrupt, it'll all fall apart!" That really scared me.

In just another two years, two more of the most senior friends of my father also passed away. One of them, Shri H C Singh, was very close to me and had helped me through the initial years of PT through his strategic advice on various matters. A whole era had come to an end for me.

Given his strong sense of humour, on the 01st of April 2002, it was almost as if my father was smiling at all of us saying "April Fool everyone! I am going! Now you are on your own. You better behave well as I am no longer there to take care of you." I was badly upset on many occasions for several days after my father died. Of course, I kept it hidden from everyone (how could I show my weak face!!).

It's been a decade now, and with some more maturity I can now truly begin to understand the pillars of wisdom enshrining the Hindu philosophy - that the best we can do is to submit to the play of Maya fully understanding its nature, and to submit also to the fact that generation and destruction is a continuous cycle, not to be interrupted by any force imaginable, except the human mind.

On the sands of time

Your love and blessings made me what I am
Gratitude would be too small an emotion
To repay and express what I feel
For we are not separate
For we are not spaced apart in time and existence
We are one, together
Our deeds, intent and goals make us one
The only way I can repay what you did for me
Is to do even better for others with all my emotions!
~

Indian GDP's explosive imbalance

2012-03-19T00:50:00.001+05:30

Let truth prevail

It makes for an impressive headline across India's newspapers each year - "Services sector leads sectoral growth once again; clocks double-digit growth, pushes GDP above 7%".
The latest Economic Survey of India (2011-12) presented in March 2012 pegs the share of Services in India's GDP at a staggering 59%. Agriculture and Industry both account for the rest.

Such a figure not only makes a great headline, but creates a great comfort zone for our politicians. They love it. It gives them something to showcase, and hide the systemic faults. It creates a strong illusion that the entire economy is moving forward at a good pace. An illusion that somehow the great discomfort that stems from poor contributions from both the agriculture and industry sectors can be padded using the impressive growth figures of the services sector. And to top it, taxing this sector gives easy recourse to funds.

But the truth is far from this.

The truth is : Among the three, the Services sector - by its very nature - is the poorest employer of people. And when such a sector starts dominating the GDP with the wild swagger that we see today, it's the most visible sign that a stage of imbalance has already been reached.

The risk of such an imbalance is clear : Large employment disparity, leading to social chaos.

Trained manpower is in abundant shortage

India is a huge country, with present population nearing 120 crores (1.2 billion) people. Services sector at present does not employ more than 10-15% of the population. A huge 75% plus of India's working population works in its most unproductive sectors - agriculture and industry.

We cannot ever hope that the service sector will become the biggest employer, or a mass-rapid employer, because it needs "skilled" manpower, and those skills take time to develop; and it has been proven through many studies that the Indian mainstream education system has shamefully failed in staying apace with what corporates want today. Even the National Skills Development Mission cannot hope to remedy the situation because by the time its efforts will start paying off in a big way (if they ever), the imbalance will have tilted the ship over.

The possible solutions:

Give her some hope

Reform agriculture, raise Industrial productivity: Due to legacy factors, Indian agriculture is terribly unproductive. We cannot hope that segmentation of farmlands will stop overnight and consolidation leading to greater productivity will start happening. It will take time - but it can be done. Also the trend of people selling their agricultural lands to make way for modern shopping malls, residential gated communities and industrial hubs is a dangerous indicator of our future food insecurity. Similarly, due to outdated labour laws, industries in several sectors have little incentive to innovate, or create new lines of revenues.
Skills development on a humongous scale: The horrendous situation of mainstream education, the stubborn insistence of Indian parents on "earning formal degrees and diplomas", and the poor social acceptance of vocations that earn well but are not white-collar... these factors contribute to a culture of unproductive white-collarism on a large scale. It's destructive for the nation eventually. The governments (central and state) need to reorient their efforts massively to address these core issues. If skills development starts to happen, a lot of young people can be migrated from agriculture to services sector.
Social change: Parents must start accepting the fact that the world has changed, and degrees have lost much of their significance, if only for the reason that most of what is being taught in Indian colleges is outdated, and most of the teachers who teach them are underpaid, unproductive and disengaged. What results do we expect from such a system! So start putting your kids into vocational training programmes, and if your son can become a great carpenter (and earn 20-30 thousand rupees a month eventually), accept it. Much better than becoming an office-clerk who stagnates and hates it.
Large scale manufacturing growth, and consequent employment: One does not have to think too hard; just use the Chinese trick. The Communist Party realised early on in the 1980s that to save the nation (and hence the Party!) from social turmoil, they needed to generate quick employment for the masses. And they chose the easiest route : industrial production of all sorts, catalysed by easy government policies. India needs to seriously think about this. And it can only happen when New Delhi directs a massively funded central programme, overriding all legacy obstacles.

But as much as we are faced with these problems, we are still running out of time!

If India does not start the process of change now, 2020 will be staring at us with all its seething troubles soon. And we will have only ourselves to blame.

I find no political awareness that's visible, on this topic. It's not a good sign. Wake up folks. We owe it to our coming generations.

Why reading is no longer a popular sport

2012-03-03T17:31:00.000+05:30

How do I start?

Talk to any young person and you realise that the one habit that has taken the maximum hit due to other temptations of the modern world is "reading".

It seems that the young have simply either given up reading, or have restricted themselves to the narrow niches of their professional needs. Broad, generalist readers are a diminishing community. If things go the way they are, it's a matter of time before a fitting RIP is written for this tribe.

Why is this happening? Some reasons I think are important -

False illusion due to social media : Since a lot of youngsters spend a lot of time doing social media networking, there is a false sense of having done a lot of "reading" directly or indirectly through social media itself! Nothing could be far from the truth. The superficial, cursory and utterly peremptory scanning of the written content on Facebook or Twitter can hardly qualify as genuine reading. Still, many feel so.
Lack of peaceful reading time : The lifestyles of many do not allow clear reading time slots. There's just so much noise. The mobile radios, the iPods, the earplugs, the incessant chatter online... it kills the very concept of locking oneself in a corner of your home/room and dedicating some time to pure reading pleasure. This gradually develops into a pattern - people just give up reading. And when it is indeed available, the depth of silence feels too heavy.
Strong negative spiral : Unfortunately, once you lock yourself into a negative pattern of habits like the one described above, there's little chance of breaking free. Partially because one does not realise it, and partially because there's the lack of a relevant shock, things continue the way they are. And deteriorate further. Reading is like tilling a land.. you stop and it degrades.
Lack of inspiring seniors : College and schools do not inspire youngsters much when it comes to reading. Neither do seniors who can drive young people through sheer example. So a kind of societal stamp is acquired unknowingly and the bad habit of poor reading proliferates!

The damage that this does to young professionals is immense. Some pointers:

Utter lack of depth : many youngsters just do not understand issues as deeply as they should
Lack of confidence : scratch below the surface of claims being made, and you realise there's little gravamen below. It's positively scary
Poor decision making skills : the more we know about the world around us, the better we can connect the dots and move ahead in a more concrete fashion

All these are rather demoralising facts! But no damage is permanent. And you can do a lot to rebuild the edifice. Some simple suggestions:

Visualise yourself making better decisions : think of yourself in a complicated decision making situation. And imagine that you knew a lot more about the world, its working components, human behaviour, the economy, the nations in turmoil, and so on. There's a fair chance that you will react much better to the challenges facing you.
Keep a slot everyday : start small. Fix a slot of 10 minutes religiously, per day, that you'll devote only to yourself, sitting in a corner/on your study table, with serious reading stuff. Let this time slot grow slowly, gradually. There's no hurry.
Cut down on your internet consumption and TV time : Try reducing your social media time, and the time you spend in front of the idiot box. While it is wrong to ask of anyone to eliminate TV from their schedules (given the amazingly high quality content that appears frequently on TV nowadays), there's a lot of sick and ordinary stuff that cuts into precious time you could devote to your self-development.
Read what you like, first : In order to not get bogged down by stuff that does not interest you, read what you like, first. Don't get into reading things that do not instinctively interest you. As you grow in stature as a reader, your interests will grow too.
Get into debates and discussions : Nothing stimulates your desire to read more than a pleasant experience of "showing-off" your knowledge in a discussion :) I mean that in a positive and healthy way. So get into debates with intelligent people often. Talk about what's happening in the world - the Arab spring, the resurgence of oil and coal, the uncertainty of the Chinese economic miracle, the problems facing developing nations, gender equality, financial planning, etc. It'll stimulate and grow your existence manifold.

Reading was, and remains, the best self-development tool. Do not underestimate its importance. Start now - it's not too late. Invest slowly, steadily and let it work for you. All the best!

Perhaps I should rephrase the title to "Why reading is no longer a popular sport - and what can be done about it" :)

Getting started on Social Media? Five tips for you!

2012-02-24T20:10:00.001+05:30

If you are one of the thousands who are just about to start their journey on the Social Media highway, and are eyeing a serious payoff from your efforts online, here are five powerful and direct tips to help you make your journey truly rewarding!

Let's fish!

Social Media is an extremely powerful, useful and evolving monster. It is huge, defies limiting definitions, and can cut both ways. If mastered properly from the beginning, then it may be extremely rewarding in the mid to long term. If done without a consistent thought, then efforts are likely to result more in frustration. And since the ocean of social media is teeming with all kinds of resplendent fish, it's important to learn some basics of fishing!

Here goes!

First Power Tip: IT TAKES TIME
If you have just started building your serious presence on online platforms like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Blogger, YouTube etc., then remember the first golden rule - it takes significant time to develop rich, deep profiles that will interest a steady stream of followers. It just does not happen overnight. In that sense, social media property development resembles body building. It grows with time only. So do not be too impatient and even if you are, do not be frustrated with results too soon. Wait, and keep fertilising and irrigating your properties regularly. Incrementally, you will see growth. So, for example, your number of Facebook friends may grow much faster than the number of LinkedIn connections. That's how it generally is. So relax and let it happen.

Second Power Tip: BE SELECTIVE - FOCUS AS PER NEED
Not everyone needs to develop similar kinds of social media assets. In fact, people can have entirely different needs, and hence social media assets. For a college student, Facebook and Twitter may be far more important than LinkedIn and Blogger. For a working professional with significant experience, it may be the reverse. For someone who wishes to remain young and professional at the same time (who doesn't!) it may be everything rolled into one. So the key question to ask every month is : what are my needs? what do I want from my investments into the social media assets I am creating? with my present approach am I reaching there?

Third Power Tip: MAINTAIN UNIFORMITY OF PROFILES
Generally speaking, you must maintain a similar kind of profile on all platforms. Unless you are very senior, have a strong network across platforms, and can take liberty as per your wish, you must maintain the same touch. This includes pictures, posts, ideas, blogposts etc. As you evolve, you will realise the pluses and minuses of it.

Fourth Power Tip: IT'S A TWO WAY JOURNEY

I, Social Media Master

All of us like when our posts are "liked" and commented upon by others. Others like it too. So the trick is to make sure that you genuinely reciprocate on others' posts as much as you would want to have it for yours. It really helps build a relationship with people. But be honest while doing it :)

Fifth Power Tip: BE READY TO EVOLVE AT SHORT NOTICE
It's a bad idea to get married to only one spouse in the social media asset game. Fortunes rise and fall overnight. Orkut was the king (in India till 2008-09) and vanished almost overnight when Facebook took over. People who had built excellent communities and profiles on Orkut lost a lot of real estate value.. but they had to migrate to Facebook nonetheless. Unfortunately there are no easy migration templates (there can't be!!) and hence it's back to scratch all over again.

So time to get started now! ATB.
~

Spiritual management of traffic stress

2012-02-20T16:10:00.001+05:30

I live in a beautiful mid-size town - Indore (MP) - that has an amazing sense of traffic. People create their own rules, and live strictly by them. Some such rules that I have encountered are:

Move when the lights are red, and stop when green
Stop ahead of the 'stop-line'
Criss-cross the road without warning
Never cross the road at the zebra crossing

Many more ingenious versions of these exist in my nice little town.

Now as I am a law-abiding citizen, this gets me really worked up badly. I get angry when I see that a lot of citizens are simply, blatantly, and without a sense of remorse breaking all traffic rules. I start cursing them, and swearing at them, and ultimately have a bad headache.

A practising manager's spiritual pursuit
of equilibrium amidst chaos

And the beauty of it all : nothing changes! In fact, it gets worse by the day :)

So I have found a cure for this huge internal strife that goes on everyday I drive in my town. This intelligent formula is what I call "A practising manager's spiritual pursuit of equilibrium amidst traffic chaos". I will be submitting the writeup of this theory to one of the new IIMs soon for a technical paper presentation, under the modern evolving HR theme (the older, more established ones may not entertain me). Perhaps one of the leading newspapers will also feature me on their front page, with a catchy headline.

The guiding tenets of my newly discovered HR paradigm are:

Realising the nature of the world: The world was not made by me. Its guiding equations and variables were not set by me. In fact, even "I" was not made by "me". So I am not responsible for others' traffic behaviour. In fact, I may not be able to even control mine at times. So my-and-their behaviour seems intertwined in some freaky destiny.
Realising the nature of fellow citizens: Everyone is a universe unto themselves. They have a whole existence that they have defined as sacrosanct, and it manifests most strongly on the streets, while walking, or driving a vehicle. So perhaps they feel that by being the driver of the last vehicle that crosses the red light, goes into the perpendicular lane, and clogs all the incoming traffic till their light turns red as well, thereby clogging the original lane's now incoming traffic, there's spiritual bliss in that sheer moment of joy as it represents the Universe's creation theme. Galaxy after chaotic galaxy bumping into each other and tearing everyone apart. Wow. The Universe's original theme playing itself out on the humble streets of my town.
Realising the nature of the Police: They are a busy lot. In the middle of mulitple construction projects going on, on the streets of my city, they have to somehow stay alive while breathing the little God's good air that comes along with tonnes of dust, grime, CO, N2O and other poisons each moment. So we cannot expect them to sternly make people follow rules. Perhaps it's not even worth the pittance they're officially paid per month. So ...
Realising the nation's scorching growth rate: India is moving fast. We have grown at 7% for almost a decade now. This means prosperity for many more. And that means more vehicles - 2 wheelers and cars. So on the same roads, we will have more and more of these automobiles. For a few decades, surely we can live with extra stress. Economic growth is more important. We - the humble, ordinary tax-paying citizens - cannot undo the untiring toil of decades nurtured inside the byzantine portals of India's planning commission.. now that all that's going to suddenly help India leapfrog into superpower status.
Realising Darwin's modified principle for India's, and my town's, streets: While on the pristine Galapagos islands, the senile old man called Charles Darwin got it all wrong. The real theory of evolution has to be witnessed in live action - yes, live evolving action - on my town's streets. It's called - Survival of the Luckiest. Isn't that truly cool? Every night you go home, and wife gives you a warm hug, you can proudly display that you are home in the same shape that you left? (Yes, yes.. for women who drive, their husbands can check the same too). This sense of achievement can only be obtained by living through such wonderful conditions. For husbands, it's infinitely greater.
Men will be men: And so will be the women. And the kids below 18. And everyone else on the streets driving one of the new fangled autos. Why worry? This is destiny. Even my kids sitting in the back (with strict instructions not to keep throwing the plastics and cups and cones on the street without so much as a nanosecond of second thought - as most people in South Asia seem to relish doing) find it absolutely natural that traffic has to snarl up like this (after all, only the other day their school-bus driver got abused and hit by rowdies who barged in, from a perpendicular direction, and got all messed up). Kids are groomed automatically in the serene tune of Universal disharmony.

Once this theory and its six tenets were perfected, I was in a state of bliss. I realised the inner beauty in the middle of all the chaos on my streets. I saw the molecules, atoms, cells, chromosomes, even the dna floating around challenging all my previously held assumptions. And it was a truly a moment of awakening.

Till I reached a much-cherished T junction. And waited patiently for the light to turn green. And it did. And the bloke from the other lane jutted in his brand new metallic-grey Toyota Fortuner (you can't even see the menacing drivers in any of these SUV monsters running amok on my town's streets nowadays) so none could move. And lo! The lights went red again in the meantime. And the traffic policeman - with all the peace of a rishi emerging from a ten year sadhana - came asking me for "licence and papers Saab"... and I felt like screaming on top of my voice...

And suddenly I remembered the six tenets. And the primordial Universe started floating all around me.

Bliss. Total bliss.
~

When not to take advice seriously

2012-02-16T12:05:00.002+05:30

Live it to know it

If you are a start-up entrepreneur, you have faced it frequently. Advisors of all hues and shades - well-meaning and otherwise - telling you what to do and how to do. Even when no advice is sought, there will be many who'll not miss out on the opportunity to advise you; there seems to be some kind of a pleasure in trying to show the path to a start-up entrepreneur.

But beware ye Entrepreneur!

If the advisor is not of the same fraternity, discount his words heavily. Do not take them too seriously. And for sure, do not act on such pieces of wisdom immediately. Think hard before you accept any such wisdom as gospel truth.

There are good reasons for my saying so.

Only those who are in the active role of an entrepreneur - especially the start-up ones - face the following realities:

Fear of death : If the business model does not work out, and the revenues do not flow in, it could be sudden death with no second chance in the immediate future. All the dreams, the presentations, the excel-charts vaporise instantly
Fear of growing unprofitable : The business may be pulling in revenues, but the profits may just not be happening, thereby making the mid-term prospects of the venture suspect. No one may be interested in funding you anymore
Fear of losing everything one has : If the business collapses, then a lot of emotional investment that happens in it goes with it too.. sure you become wiser, but the pain is harrowing. A daily dose of "we told you so..." is likely to follow

Only an entrepreneur who has lived through the daily pain (and pleasure) of facing these brutal realities knows how things get done under such pressures.

Only an entrepreneur who has faced the agony of repeatedly trying to convince others of the soundness of his vision (howsoever other-worldly) knows how difficult it can be.

Only an entrepreneur is likely to wake up in dead of night wondering how he is going to pull through the next day - the salaries, bonuses, investments needed - etc.

It is practically impossible for anyone who hasn't lived through this to even remotely begin to contemplate what life can be like in such circumstances. Everything changes - your personal comfort zones vanish, your family life gets redefined, your Sundays and vacations are toast, your kids curse you :), and so on!

I have also found it rather interesting that there are full-fledged courses in entrepreneurship being taught by professors who have never raised any company or organisation. How can they ever grasp the soul of what they're preaching?

As an educated salaried professional, there is always a safety cushion that one can enjoy. Things do not usually go bad beyond a stage. And even if one loses the job, there's a next one to be found. The world never seems to come to an end.

For an entrepreneur, often the world seems to come to an end. And the beauty is that he/she rebuilds it all over again. Steve Jobs is perhaps the best (and extreme) example of this. There are many lesser version of him one can find in regular life.

So when someone advises an entrepreneur on serious issues, always ask : Have you ever faced the daily pangs of life as an entrepreneur yourself? Did you come out of it alive and successful? Did your venture die but you survived to tell the story?

If yes, then the advise probably carries tonnes of value.

If not, take it respectfully and keep it aside. It may be of little survival value.

The only exception to what's said above is perhaps specific technical advice one seeks regarding matters related to regulatory compliances and the like. But that's anyway not entrepreneurial stuff :) And not everyone is an Enron, or Worldcom or Satyam!

Painful truth of life this surely is! But unless you walk the fire, you don't know how it is.
~

When professional meetings are a pleasure!

2012-02-11T17:18:00.002+05:30

There are various experiences that come our way, when we meet people. Especially so in the professional world.

I add value - do I?

We spend our most crucial resource - time - in meeting others, and sharing ideas, thoughts, secrets and expecting to learn from them.

One of the most interesting forms of meetings is an open-ended industry-discussion. The participants wish to discuss the present state of the industry they are in, and speculate on the future direction of the same.

It turns out that there are three kinds of experiences one can get, in the course of such professional meetings, depending on the quality of the people.

I. The donkey bray: This is a rather unfortunate waste of time as the other person(s) have little value to add to the discussion going on. Either all are clueless, or one is not and the rest are. If only a couple are good, it creates a complete imbalance in the discussion as invariably, many will be left out. If no one has any clue, it's a total waste.

Cause: Idiots all around!
Outcome / Solution: Pray to God, end it fast, and run.

II. The mediocrity trap: This happens when not everyone in the meeting is an idiot exactly, but they aren't a bunch of Einsteins either. There are no breakthrough ideas that come up. Most of the people know about the same stale things, and repeat it ad nauseam in the discussions.

Cause: No homework done by people
Outcome / Solution: Nothing much to be gained, except reinforcement of existing beliefs

III. The high-on-morphine experience: This is ideally what an alert mind expects. There are people in the group who know what the world has been shaping upto lately, and can connect the dots while going backward, and forward. Various ideas are thrown, dissected, torn apart, and seen from multiple perspectives. People fearlessly put forward their ideas as they have experienced them personally. You realise that people read a lot, analyse a lot, research a lot and evolve not just on theory - but practically as well.

Cause: People have invested in their personal research
Outcome / Solution: A lovely rejuvenation of industry understanding

At the end of it, a professional needs to really make a choice between remaining brain-dead and performing his task dutifully, or remaining alert to the world around while carrying out his duties loyally. No one can help you develop yourself - the time and effort has to be one's own. Read newspapers, watch relevant news channels, talk to people, analyse on your own, think!

This is the only way you can add value in any professional discussion on your industry. And when you start doing that, more and more people start expecting your company.
~

Don-2 – unfortunately the chase continues

2011-12-24T17:39:00.006+05:30

Charming Don

Do exotic locales make a commercial movie stunning?

Does the lead hero’s halo alone create the magic around a great movie franchise?

Can a serious heist theme in a foreign country be the core of a masala Indian Bollywood film and yet pull if off?

Don-2 left a lot of these questions lingering in my mind when I left the hall. When I entered, I had great expectations. But interval came too soon and I realized it was going to be a waste overall. With movies, somehow you get to know in the first 20-30 minutes what’s going to be the overall offering. Very rarely does the pitch change midway. Sequels are always hard to make, and with a technical core, Don-2 just did not make it.

Gorgeously immortal

For those who came in late, the "Don" franchise was built by none other than Big B in the 1970s. Amitabh Bachchan did such a great job as the Don that a whole genre was created from scratch. It's sure that coming remakes will be judged against that benchmark.

Now our modern Don - King Khan – has emerged from the shadows (post Don-1 disaster) and has reached somewhere in East Asia (Thailand I guess) piloting a great yacht through some unbelievably beautiful rivers. And then he asks for the name of the best Italian restaurant in town, before mowing down an entire gang of hitmen armed with Uzis and stuff, who were out to execute him on orders of a rival international cartel. Then he lands up in a Malaysian jail only to smoothly slip out with Vardhaan (Boman Irani).

By the way, the Malaysian jail, if you look carefully, is so neat and clean, that our Indian home ministry mandarins can use it as a training tool for housekeeping guys back home. In fact, the toilets were better looking than of most hotels I have been to. What an amazing jail it must be!

The Don then hatches a grand conspiracy – after all he is the Don – to go for the biggest kill of them all. Why ask for ransom and all such filthy change when you can print it yourself! So the target is the printing-plates of the German Central Bank (Sorry Bundesbank, our guys robbed you right in the middle of the Euro crisis! How inconsiderate.)

Oh so inspiring!

Unfortunately the story’s core forms around this theme – and it gets more and more technical from there on. I don’t know why several moments reminded me of the great “Ocean’s 11” especially when the brilliant computer geek/hacker (Kunal Kapoor) is lubricated into participating in another illegal plot, much against the wishes of his almost-about-to-deliver-pregnant German wife (girlfriend?) and when the fire truck was prepared in the garage, and so on. Similarly the fight sequence between the SEK commandos and the gangsters is all too similar to the memorable military-building sequence of Matrix (part 1).

I suspect that the writers and director realized somewhere in the middle that the movie may lose all grip due to its technical storyline and slow pace, and hence created extra/artificial moments of romantic comedy (very silly at times, cool at some) and some chase sequences etc. But all this is, in the end, artificial, and hence very difficult for audience to accept naturally. In fact, Shahrukh's personal charisma is relied upon repeatedly to maintain the glue. The standard Donisms are thrown at us to ensure we stay in our seats. My advice to SRK - don't let movies be driven only by your cool quotient, or the cinematographer's quality, or some silly dialogues.. let your acting quality and a really deep, good story rule. You are capable of much much better output. Perhaps you need really classy directors to do justice to your talent.

Now the Don has a big target. So big names are cornered who’d help the Don secure entry to the sanctum sanctorum. These big names have a shady past that they’re all too eager to hide, etc. In fact the blackmailed guy starts looking so pathetic after some time you almost start pitying him and wish that this Don character gets a good whacking!

One thing I truly admire – Don’s negotiation skills. The intrepid deals he regularly cuts with the Interpol / police can make any hard-boiled corporate negotiator squirm in his chair. But since the jungli billi (wild cat) Roma is platonically / figuratively in love / infatuation with our great Don, she never shoots him. Not even when it is the final choice between her life and his. One feels sorry about this Sameer (Roma’s boyfriend).

One question though: Is there a single incident in the entire movie that proves Roma to be remotely close to being a jungli billi? In fact one cannot find a more confused school girl.

So after many chases and “booms” and blips and “damnits”, finally the Don escapes unhurt, with the plates! And God save this world – arrives to his mole and Sameer on a bike numbered Don-3.

Fun moments

Mallik (Om Puri) saying “It’s Don” on his mobile, to others around him. Even an exclamation was missing from his deep throaty voice here. His voice was so tired saying it, almost felt as if he wanted Don to win and take away whatever he wanted, and the film to end! In fact, right at the start when he informs Roma that he's retiring, one fears he actually means it!

Roma (Priyanka Chopra) saying “Damn it” with the unserious precision of a high school girl!

Vardhaan (Boman Irani) trying to look menacing – Sir aap kitni bhi koshish kar lo, cute hi lagoge! Surely that Jabbar fellow looks convincingly evil! What muscles, and what a bloody club that was :O

Missing from the movie

Music – did anyone hear anything?

Class – funky cars, slick cinematography and slicker physiques can beguile youngsters to treat it as class, but the mature eye can see the hollow core inside the gloss.

As said earlier, a the Euro is bound to collapse now. With the German currency printing-plates stolen by Don, Eurozone’s strongest economy is bound to fumble, taking with it the rest of the gang. Meanwhile, Don gets richer, presumably running his printing press in some safe corner in Patagonia. (and awaiting his return as the numberplate on the bike - Don-3 - clearly indicated! God!)

There’s a trend I see in movie-reviews and online feedback of latest releases : the imprint of 800-pound-gorilla-like PR machinery. It is distorting public opinion dangerously. So maybe this movie will do great commercial business, but remember - genuine fans of SRK (me included) are left wondering of the denudation that's setting in.

Cheers!

The Tintin saga - now in a theatre near you!

2011-11-21T16:49:00.002+05:30

Let me start by saying a big "Thank You Steven Spielberg!" for bringing Tintin on screen in a serious way! After all these years of make-do animations, here's a promise that Tintin will reach out to a new generation unaware of the magic. While as a Tintin fan I feel there's a long way to go before justice is done on the big screen to the legend that's Tintin, it's a great start.
...

Close to 80 years ago, a Belgian artist dreamed of a boy character who would take on the villains of the world, and stand for peace and justice. Little did that artist realise that Titin - his boy character - will become a legend in his own lifetime. 'Millions of books sold in many languages around the world' hardly captures the success of the boy character. The zeal and love that his fans hold for him in their hearts perhaps does.

Tintin was a result of the circumstances of those days. The artist - George Remi (R.G. - Herge) - brought real life incidents to bear upon the development of the character of Tintin. Slowly, over the decades, more characters joined the duo of Tintin and Snowy.. and the family grew to a handsome and reliable lot! Travelling all around the world, taking on the most devilish of villains in the most believable of ways, Tintin brought happiness and cheer to kids and adults alike.

Over the decades, the strength of Herge's character grew so strong that he had to often run away in isolation - to regain his mental balance (Tintin drains me completely, he would say). Each character added to the script was so profoundly intense in their own ways, it was totally magical. From the loyal and irasible Captain Haddock to the dumb detectives Thomson and Thompson, and from the ultra-intelligent and absent-minded Prof Calculus to the singing sensation Bianca Castafiore, it all fit in really well.

I grew up with Tintin through the '70s and '80s, till the time the last major adventure - Tintin and the Picaros - was published. Then new adventures stopped with the death of Herge.

But surprisingly, the Tintin magic only kept growing. Once addicted, I found it impossible to get off. In fact, like a mellowing wine, I started enjoying the adventures the more I read them (the same ones!). Strangely, even a change of published format allows for another reason for a die-hard fan to buy the same adventure book again!

So Tintin became a living legend in his own right.

I feel this is what made him so:

Ultra-realistic drawing by Herge, taking into account the minutest of real-world dimensions
Deep and meaningful storylines, rendered credible by real-world happenings
Something for everyone - kids loved Snowy, adults loved Haddock, everyone loved Tintin!
Genuine humour, clean fun
Almost zero violence even when it was present
Tintin hates guns, and abstains from vices (like liquor) - a perennial message throughout the series
Pan-national appeal (perhaps villains like Rastapopulous are everywhere!)

So far, there was no serious big-budget attempt at bringing Tintin to screen. Steven Spielberg does a wonderful job of it.

Here are my observations about the movie:

Fantastic quality of animation - real-life like!
Nicely mixed the two adventures - "The crab with the golden claws" and "Secret of the Unicorn" to create a new story altogether
Great idea to use a lot of characters in the first movie itself - except Prof Calculus, almost everyone was covered
Three cheers for Spielberg for believing in the story of Tintin

Here are my suggestions for future productions (which inevitably will come):

I feel that too many guns and gunshots were used. These are not needed in a true Tintin adventure. At least try to avoid 'Tintin firing too many shots'.. it is disconcerting to genuine fans
Let Snowy talk. It'll be good for the storyline, even if he talks to himself only
Too much of action is avoidable - an entirely new action sequence (in the city of Bagghar) was added to the movie (not there in original adventures). Perhaps it can be avoided or made less destructive
The amount of damage and destruction shown in the end of the movie (in the city of Bagghar) is something Tintin would never approve of! So be cautious in your attempt to Americanise an essentially European character :)
Turning a hit storybook into an equally hit movie is a very tough job - still, the steadfastedness with which Herge created the original deserves a matching effort by moviemakers.

I will be happy if more kids get exposed to stuff like Adventures of Tintin rather than the utter gibberish they are used to, on television.

Crumbs! I am going on and on. Let it end here! Adios amigos, see you soon.
~

A Chinese Arab spring?

2011-11-10T18:59:00.003+05:30

A question that's popped in many minds since the Arab spring started dislodging long entrenched regimes in the Arab world is - Will China go the same way?

I did a social media brainstorming.. here are the results! Very good insights spanning the whole spectrum. (insights not edited)

The Question
Almost all the Arab world dictators have fallen in past 10 months. In Dec 2010, no one had seen it coming! Do you think the same can repeat in China one day? If yes, when?

Piyush Joshi why will this happen in China?

Kunwar Gyan Singh Pawar sir ji china ka to pata nahi, but India me 2013 me jarur hoga

Aditya Jain The day China enters in a war with India. All the attention of armed forces and intelligence agencies of China will be on India and that will be the end of China's communism.

Deepesh Baghela Definitely yes...when growth of China will be slowed down & People of China will focus on Democracy

Nitesh Arya not in this decade..

Abhishek Sharma It is said that Chinese communists have grown old and they fear to hand power to younger china, well lets hope for the collapse of old and stiff Communist rule in China.

Adhiraj Dare The day when someone grows stronger than China.. US certainly cant afford to do this to its biggest lender.. Cant see happening this in the next 20 years or so..

Umesh Mali all the chinese people lives in out china back to china and face as usual old policy of china , I think that day change in china,, Actually process aginst chinese people against sys start but, china govt don't explore any thing in world wide mida,, it's verry near future same prob face rashiya also,,,

Himanshu Khandelwal This will happen anytime from now, the thing which trigger this will be the cultural globalization which has already started. As more n more people from china come across the liberty enjoyed by people of other demography, they will start demanding the same for them n then starts the great collapse of Chinese communal ism. My prediction is towards the end of this decade may be around 2017-18.

Amit Maheshwari well it can happen but the speed with which and the way they are doing may be it ll not happen in china.....

Claire Mansha Swami it might be a most wanted Fall to come up!!!!!

Saurabh Jaiswal I think the china will re-engineer the concept of communism and yet retain its soul.

Bharat Jhalani One of the main reasons behind Arab spring was the inflation in essential commodities tripled with the slowing growth and rising unemployment (as they say..empty mind is the devil's workshop)... Interestingly China has started facing some of the same problems (High inflation, tightening monetary policy and slowing growth).But unemployment is not a pressing problem in China yet (its just 6.5% as compared to 12% in Egypt). A lot depends on the the way Euro crisis shapes up. If Greece falls, it will have a domino's effect on rest of the Euro zone especially in Italy,Spain & Portugal.. And the repercussions will definitely be felt at China. Communist Party must divert some part of its huge $3.2 trillion reserves to Euro zone if it needs to rule it own backyard 'Peacefully'!!

Shivalik Daga Even if the Chinese 'dictatorship' crumbles I doubt it will result in the sort of economic logjam like it did for the USSR..the Chinese are already reaping the benefits of a market economy and they already have a lot of capitalist institutions in place. But one major impact I can think of if the communists lose power is that China's population would definitely grow faster in the small to medium term as the OCP is repealed : Imagine generations of Chinese people have grown up without knowing what it means to have a sibling!

Mukesh Muwal It is comparatively very easy to protest against one person or a few people than to topple an empire of 7.5 crore people. Anyways, Chinese people doesn't have much reasons (b'coz they are employed) and sources too, to recognize the real face of govt. and above all, only extremely committed and uneducated people protest for a cause, I think china lacks both. Fall of Chinese communist party is not possible this way but it can happen if people within the party protest against it.

Navin Kaushal I guess it will take a long time this to happen in China as their government is taking all the necessary steps to provide employment to their people hence frustration level among the people would be lesser. Also many Chinese people have the fear and memories of Tiananmen Square Massacre

Mohammad Malik May not happen very soon.. Whatever happen in the recent past is just a part of larger world politics, then the actual people led revolutions. The commanility of kingdoms have been Oil, non alignment with US, and ambition or rather purchasing power of arsenals other than US made.. The Coupe has been mostly instigated by US and company. Infaltion, and unemployement have been the catalysers, offcourse. China on the other hand is an Oil deficit growing economy. Any urest will be non healthy for huge US investments. Its all about controlling the stearing, rather than lifting the car on the shoulder and move.. :)

Virendra Phr only Hosni Mubarak and Gaddafi have fallen .Arab world is pretty complicated as I experienced it ...there are many rulers who dont have dictatorial designations but still rule the country on the same lines.....

Nilesh Dani Never....

Ayush Rathore maybe

Anup Mittal it will take time...........

Kshitiz Bhutani i think sir this thing will take years to happen in china......as there administration and political decisions regarding development issues within china are very strong and committed one's....its not like that they had not provided autonomy they had done it in few areas....but ignoring defence powers there ! China seemed to have an different outlook then that of arab crisis....they equally think about there people its not like that the people of china are not aware what is happening arround the world, what we saw on news channels and interprered version china is this , china is that might we are only faccilitated with those facets only bcoz media we trust upon operates from europian countries then how would european super powers could make highlight those aspects which are chineese feeling oriented.....i just mean to say we should consider both faces...! If something unusaul happens there they will sought out themselves weather by hook or crook those things will never exposed in a bigger way as that of arabs , chinese have that much of strength that they could easily crack this nut.....we should also remember no NATO....will interfare in b/w issue of china , they are also a super power every nation will think twice before making such decision ! Its dragon

Arijit Chakraborty Iran is in que...

Neeraj Tiwari i think sir it took lot time them to be there at

Ketan Bapat as soon as the younger generation become elite and free from mean mentaliies...........

Herwig Streubel If it is going to happen too soon it will be very bloody! But it will happen. Hopefull a sort of Chinese Gorbatshev will rise before that happens.

Sandeep Manudhane All empires collapse, eventually

Tumuluri Rammohan ‎"You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain"

Sonam Jain when people will fead up of this dictator ship this will repeat in china also

Rizwan Khan some one china dictator needed in India, who at least people work and not waste time on facebook like me.

Gautam Kumar CHINA CHINA CHINA....ab aur nahin...In China the new generation that is coming up has not seen the adversity of the olden days. The orderly succession that is managed till now will be a problem in future coz the discipline of communist part has gone. Today smarter, younger ones don't want to sell ideology they want to sell coca-cola. China getting deprived of ideology...its dependency for raw mat on other nations increasing...domestic consumption doesn't seem to rise...not in near future but eventually it will fall...as of know world seems to be without leader.

A good brainstorming this was!
~

Why India lacks a "Harvard Business Review" - a case study

2011-11-01T18:45:00.003+05:30

Appeal for the World

Management institutions are built to serve three core purposes - (a) promote direct education of young and mature students, (b) create productive academia-industry engagements, and (c) act as a research and publications platform for high-quality, original thinking.

It is the third role that we will discuss in this case study.

Undoubtedly, when there's a lot of original research going on in a B-school (if you have a smile on your face, you know the malaise!), there will be an inclination to publish it. It's perhaps the best currency of power you have with corporates. It can generate future revenue streams for your school more reliable than student enrolment, perhaps.

So, research and publications at any management institution depend on some factors:

Quality faculty willing and capable to do original research
Enough industry interfaces available to ensure lots of credible raw material to research on
Design and publications team that can present the ideas and research paper in a lucid manner
Successful commercial interface (advertisements and marketing promotions)
Process owner - the key driver of the effort

The number of managements institutions that dot the landscape of India, the amount of public funds that the central government lavishes on the chosen ones (the Indian Institutes of Managements - IIMs) and the tremendous media heft that these B-schools carry with local and national media, suggest to a layman's mind that there would be several world class management journals being published from these hallowed portals of management education in India.

Surprise, surprise... there is not a single world class publication that India can genuinely showcase. That you can take to the boardrooms of the world's top corporates and read (and show) with pride. And if you set the HBR (Harvard Business Review) as the benchmark, the situation is visibly shameful. Indian management publications stand nowhere. And in the past 3 years, it's all the more amazing that HBR has been able to hold its high ground, when the whole edifice on which western capitalism itself stands is shaking wildly than ever!

To put it crudely, most of the so-called management-journals being printed in India by various business schools seem only to be there to fulfill some requirement of the AICTE or UGC law. Drop that requirement, and the number of journals will drop overnight. When you print something just to fulfill some norm, it's obvious what commitment you'll carry behind it!

Before I move any further, let me define what I feel will qualify as a "world-class management journal". I feel it's a publication that engages, enthralls, excites, and raised the reader's intellectual level without him/her even consciously realising that. It presents the real world problems in a colourful, tasteful, artistic and lucid manner that most people can comprehend. And most important of all, it lacks bullshit disguised as academic jargon. Stuff that's only there because some professor wanted to prove a point.

Example of bullshit - "Customer-engagement metrics were redesigned and recalibrated to create a sustained harmony of user-experience that was unparalleled in the industry landscape dotted with horror-stories of failed paradigms that threatened to obfuscate the need for ground level research"

Simplified, it reads - As many companies had failed in this sector, we redesigned our approach to customer service. We wanted them to get a fantastic user-experience.

This example is a strong indicator of the editorial scissors that must be used in ample measure.

So, why is the situation so bad when it comes to management journals from India? And is it really a bad situation? Let me offer a dispassionate review.

I have been a subscriber to the HBR for more than 15 years now - the international edition. They played around for a while in between automatically offering local Indian edition, but reverted quickly to the original western edition upon my protest. (This further gave me a strong insight on why Indian publications simply lack the kind of gravity you get addicted to when using the western editions.)

What makes HBR solid? Here are eight differentiators -

Terrific presentation - from the cover page to the cartoons, and from the graphics to the colours, it's totally gripping. The graphics are outstanding, the cartoons very enjoyable!
Intense commercial engagement - advertisements and promotionals from leading brands of the world make it very credible, and readable (the advts are generally so well-designed, they are an education in themselves!)

Cohesiveness - the whole issue looks cohesive end-to-end; one does not feel like putting it down without completely absorbing what's in it. Leaves a great impression everytime, and a deep sense of satisfaction

Colour, taste, style, substance
Goodbye, academic bullshit - management professors are very good at quelling all resistance from ordinary mortals through their complex presentation of facts, statistics and statements. HBR consciously seems to distance itself from all such nonsense. Very rarely does one find an article one wishes to skip due to its academic rigour. This absence of bullshit is commendable because the editors must be inundated with tonnes of it, I am sure. The scissors are sharp, indeed
Real world problems in a simple language - a senior practising manger can relate to at least 60-70% of an issue. An entrepreneur can relate to almost 70-80% of what's being said. A young b-school student can understand at least 50% of what's written in any issue of HBR. That's the power of simplicity
A big central theme - each issue (generally) picks up a big theme that's the cover story, and that's appealing, and then goes on to dissect it. Innovation / Leadership / Emerging Markets ... you name it!
Big names all around - as you flip through the pages, you see photos and interviews of names you have heard of, seen on TV, and perhaps one day dreamt of becoming! This creates the readership glue most magazines strive for
ROI - there is a conscious effort through all this to make the reader feel there's a great ROI on what he/she is investing in - it's more than putting in colours and graphics.. it's a conscious effort by an owner to tie the whole thing together in a tremendously market-friendly package

Now compare the typical management journal from one of the leading IIMs in India. How does it rate on the above 8 parameters? Here is my reading. (You may surely differ!)

Presentation - dull, drab, almost colourless, academic graphs only
Commercial engagement - (forced or friendly) advertisements of leading corporates who perhaps fear denial of slots during campus placements :)
Cohesiveness - missing, sense of accomplishment (to a reader's mind) - totally missing
Academic bullshit - I found stuff that most practising managers may not understand or relate to; you be the judge!
Real world problems - present, but presented in a manner that takes a lot of effort to digest
Language - tough, definitely not user-friendly, replete with jargon amazingly arcane and senseless
Big names - do not hit you hard anywhere
Practical ROI for anyone who reads it sincerely - the big question :)

I subscribed to two such journals around 10 years ago, and discontinued after 2 years of failed effort to engage myself with them. There's just no appeal! It's so sad.

In all fairness, I must add that perhaps the global nature of business that Harvard is exposed to makes it easier for them to churn out issue after delightful issue... but then the Indian economy is no less colourful. So how come the leading Indian B-schools get it so wrong? Perhaps - and most likely - they just don't believe it's worthwhile investing so much energy into a publication. Perhaps it doesn't affect the Professors' career prospects. Perhaps they just don't understand it's the nation's image that can get bolstered with an honest effort.

It also reminds me of a painful conversation I had the other day with a student who reminded me that there was not a single Indian university in a recent top 200 ranking in the world. While that's a debatable issue, what's not debatable is the fact that there should be many Indian names in such lists, given the insanely high value we attach to a formal degree based university education in India.

My suggestions to make a desi HBR that would stand high and mighty one day -

Create a dedicated team with a 5 year target - set specific metrics for what a world-class management journal from India should look like. It should be a dispassionate exercise, without fear or favour
Get young blood into the driver's seat - desperately needed young drivers for a new world that demands speed, social media savvy and worldwide engagement
Commercial engagement - this is the most important aspect. Understand this with an open mind - when you actively seek out commercial support from leading brands, you are forced to create a good product, a worthwhile return on investment. More than anything else, this can drive your project
Get real - With almost all multinationals setting up base in India, getting uptodate inputs on practical issues that matter to most readers (many of them non-MBAs and non-Professor types) should be rather doable. Think of entrepreneurs as your potential readership base - you'll see a lot of light now
Get lucid, get colourful - will be difficult once you are addicted to speaking long sentences to make a small point, but needs to be done
Allocate serious funds - this thing is costly to do, and takes time, bandwidth and global reach to gain traction. It is doubtful if a smaller private player can ever pull it off. Has to be an IIM, or an ISB type giant that pushes hard till it happens

It's important to do this because it's high time public funds were used appropriately to showcase Indian management education industry's genuine and intrinsic strengths that can render asunder any cobwebs that threaten its very vitality.

Put simply, it's public money, don't waste it. Do something worthwhile!

Ra.One - Oh fish

2011-10-30T19:52:00.003+05:30

As is the tradition with movies that are promoted like mad, most of them turn out to be far below expectations.

And so it is with Ra.One.

If you have taste, and watch a lot of good movies, and appreciate the calibre of actors like Shah Rukh and Kareena, then Ra.One will come as a terrible disappointment - to be aptly summarised in the words of the irritating boy character Prateek - Oh fish!

The movie comes from Ms Gauri Khan's kitchen, inspired thus:

Today we will create a new Hindi SciFi Action movie - Ra.One

Take the golden container labelled Shah-Rukh-Khan

Put in 300 gms special effects from Matrix (be shameless, go ahead)

Add 250 gms special effects from Terminator series esp. Terminator Salvation (mix hard, don't feel scared)

Add another 500 gms of totally-out-of-the-place emotions (sprinkle uniformly across the movie)

Don't forget 100 gms of robot-learning-antics from the classic "The Bicentennial man"

Plus 1 kg of a totally-cool Chhammak Chhallo that's absolutely out-of-the-place in this movie

Don't forget to put in some glamorous faces (ensuring makeup even in mourning)

And some now mandatory Hindi expletives (the Delhi-Belly effect)

Now wrap it with a silver-foil called Kareena

Cook to a charcoal-black, and let the smell spread for many months before you serve.

Enjoy patrons. Thanks for buying the tickets, and paying extra for the 3-D glasses.

As the movie starts, a bumbling Shah Rukh Khan (a south Indian character, poorly played) tries to park his car, and throw the keys to a friend (valet?), doing both with amazing errors. Quite surprising for a genius who ends up creating artificial reality that even the Wachowski brothers were scared to bring forth so quick in their creations.

So this genius video-game programmer has a kid who does not believe his father is a cool dude (pronounced 'dood' idiot, not 'dude'). The father tries instilling some good south Indian family values in the kid, but the producer unfortunately neither gives enough time in the movie for some good moments to depict that, nor is the Director too worried that a thin treatment of the core message of the movie will dilute the whole game. That's what happens. The movie loses all track soon, and the storyline vanishes like Kareena's grief soon after her husband's sudden death. A song with words like "Mohan" appears out of the blue when a nattily dressed dead Shah Rukh Khan is ensconsed in his coffin, for everyone to see. The song is out of the place, the death is strangely executed, the whole sequence is terribly done.

Things move rather fast. The villain - Ra.One - is a powerful one because the father needs to oblige the son by creating a really strong villain because that's what the son longs for (although plays for the Hero, and that too strangely with a black name - "Lucifer"). So he creates Ra.One. And in the launch party, the son quietly plays away while father is busy dancing and singing to some utterly stupid Hindi number in the heart of America (with majority of non-Indian Americans around). And the oriental mother of the father's colleague ensures her distaste for Jackie Chan is properly displayed (why, oh why!).

So the son leaves the game midway near the end of the second round, and Ra.One comes alive. "How dare you leave me thus?" (The anger is quite understandable, given the budgets and all).

Ra.One fantastically crosses the border from virtual to real, by invoking all available and willing electrons in the lab, and starts doing pretty nasty things.

But lose no heart! The hero - G.One (or Jeevan, in Hindi) was also made by the father Shah Rukh Khan when alive, although a much weaker one (because Prateek wanted it so). So through some electronic tomfoolery the glamorous techincal assistant of the now-dead father brings G.One back to life. And then G.One starts rocking, from America to India.

Then, as we just said, follows a great journey from America to India, once the father is killed, mother moves back home to an assorted menagerie of airport goondas (unbelievably lame sequence!), Mumbai local driver's coach (eeks!), a fat south Indian neighbour, and some more attempts at holding the masala loving Indian audience. Unfortunately when you create a film based on a Sci-Fi film, it inevitably degenerates into an emotion packed trashcan that has everything in it but genuine science fiction.

G.One jumping around the Mumbai local could have been done much better, at least. Why do Indian science fiction movies resort to crutches of comedy repeatedly? Does the Director completely lack confidence in a pure sci-fi sequence?

I particularly find it rather tiresome when characters are artificially inserted to try to make you laugh through their out-of-place physical antics that have no sense in a setting like the one. Satish Shah wasted.

Finally, after all the mumbo-jumbo and heavy animations are shown from all angles, and the animation studios have earned their fees, comes the final showdown. A shadow is all it takes, fantastic. And Arjun Rampal (oops, Ra-One) is tamed.

If this movie is for kids, you are doing a bad job because they will learn that this is what science fiction is. A very bad idea. If it is for adults, then please give it a mature treatment. The idea was not bad - you just cooked it charcoal black, and had nothing truly original in the tactics, or the storyline treatment.

A lot of effort - all gone down the drain.

After all these years, I am still waiting for a genuine Hindi science fiction movie. Come on Bollywood, trust the audience. We deserve much better. And don't try to convince me this was an action movie - that would be a grand excuse.

I wasted a complete Sunday evening for this? Oh fish!

Inflation - the many sides of it

2011-09-21T14:19:00.012+05:30

India has been facing an inflation headache for more than 2 years now. Nothing seems to be able to tame the beast to levels the government would like to. The central bank (RBI) is doing what it can (raise the benchmark interest rates), the government is doing what it can (issue positive statements, push supply side factors to the extent possible etc.), and the people are doing what's the only option for them (bear the brunt!).

I posted an update in social media, and people brought in fantastic angles of the story to the fore. It turned out to be a very lively and intense debate, sure to benefit anyone who reads through the whole thing. Enjoy the heated debate, in all shades! I have not edited the comments.

Sandeep Manudhane: It's quite amazing that the Indian central bank (RBI) is following an inflation-busting strategy using higher interest rates, quite independent of what the government may want. This highlights two things (1) The RBI may be becoming more autonomous and free of Finance Min's control, and (2) It is charting a course different from other nations in the world (ex. Turkey that reduced its interest rates, hoping for higher growth & hence lower prices).

Sunil Talwar: while rbi may b growing its wings, the entire strategy seems to be lopsided. raising interest rates, assuming that people will buy less and save more to reduce pressure on the economy, is not right. in india we need a two pronged strategy to control inflation; ‎1. remove or reduce corruption, by which i mean the black money in circulation. immediate or instant fall out of this action will be so much more money in the system ‎2. reduce interest rates, open doors for more capital to come in not in the service industry as it is coming in today, but more in manufacturing set up, in hard core infrastructure. attract large capital with long gestation periods of pay out or no movement out at all

Munish Sharma: Perfectly put Mr Talwar.

Sunil Talwar: we need fresh infusion of capital, money that will not move out of india like it does today, in the stock market or other investments. we money to stay back in india and put to productive use

Sandeep Manudhane: Bingo. That's precisely why I started my status with "It's quite amazing..."

Sunil Talwar: rbi seems to have forgotten basics of economics and its application

Munish Sharma: Just a counter argument: The monetary tightening effected so far by the Reserve Bank has helped in containing inflation and anchoring inflationary expectations, though both remain at levels beyond the Reserve Bank’s comfort zone. As monetary policy operates with a lag, the cumulative impact of policy actions should now be increasingly felt in further moderation in demand and reversal of the inflation trajectory towards the later part of 2011-12. As such, a premature change in the policy stance could harden inflationary expectations, thereby diluting the impact of past policy actions. It is, therefore, imperative to persist with the current anti-inflationary stance.

Sandeep Manudhane: Yes, that's why it's politically unpalatable - action happens, results take time. But RBI Guv need not bother about political feedback, he is not an elected official.

Ajay Pal: True sir..and addition to this RBI increased the Repo rate and revers repo rate with 0.25% which is the 12th hike after 2010. And i think due to this GDP growth rate, which was 8.8% in June 2010 has been decreased to 7.7%.

Sunil Talwar: this is the simplest traditional way in Monetary Control Toolkit that Governor Saab can apply..Grow up its not 1947.. keeping all arguments and counter arguments in mind, the only thing that looms large is that there is a larger than life cost of living which is difficult to service. cost of real estate, cost of education, cost of medication, cost of travel, cost of food, cost of capital. way too high and the future estimates of costs dropping also looks very bad. we need to re look at what and how we produce and not at what and how we cost it or buy it. we need to make more for what we invest. we need to be able to service our loans and investments better

Sohil Mahendru: ‎@ sunil talwar that is what the point is the basic resources are the vital point rest is the game of numbers. Economy and all things depends on demand and supply.

Sohil Mahendru: Sandeep Manudhane sir dont you think there are various factors which had given rise to " Mahangayi "? Just to say resources used in non-vegetarian meal are far more those used in one vegetarian meal. To prepare one chicken it has to be given, so much grains and water other stuff. On the contrary if those resources were used to provide food to other people. More than 200 people in our country can fill there stomach, all the poverty could have been ended its just the thing in which way we can interpret.

Sunil Talwar: by rbi increasing interest rates, they effectively dampen the run on money in the immediate short term and once the rates cool down with a slight relaxation the fires are back in action. we are facing this situation for the last 3 years plus now

Sunil Talwar: ‎@sohil mahendru if you see our basic resource management, i have only one ward for it 'bad' look at the way we were mining precious iron ore via the reddy brothers and their like for the last so many years. un ashamed mining of natural resources and shipping them off to china for free. giving away krishna godavary basin gas for free to reliance....sick is the only word. these are only a few instances of bad politics which has lead to this sorry state

Sandeep Manudhane: Yes Sohil - non-veg food is extremely energy-intensive (even before it's consumed!). But that's the food of choice for many.

Gold-e Tuteja: Nice discussion... but I feel the RBI guv is in a catch 22 situation ... he'll be criticized either ways ... I myself feel that inflation will not b tamed by merely increasing the interest rates.... it has to b attacked from various angles... raising interest rate is not the only solution. All said n done RBI has always been ahead of the curve... they have gone wrong at times... But it's just the way of staring at the glass ... its either half full or half empty ;-)

Abhishek Jain: Well, Raising interest rates is not a very efficient tool to curb inflation, as our economy is not credit based such as USA, where you buy everything on credit. The major problem of India is food inflation and we don't buy vegetables taking loan from a bank, so how come raising interest rates solve the basic problem?? Then what is the solution? The solution is to approve FDI in sectors such as retail, as FDI are more permanent source of growth than FIIs. An FII can remove their money any time they want while an FDI is for long term. But Alas!! The politics!!! Raising interest rates just reduces some percentage points from our growth rate every time. Why China grows at 9-10% and we fell even below 8%? Lower interest rates and improve infrastructure to attract FDIs.

Ashish Andani: Inflation in this part of globe in pro growth and Demand side inflation rather than a supply side, which can only be tamed with taking measures on creating leverages on supply side both agri and non agri commodities..... RBI on the other hand is doing what it can, as they can sit idle in the country where ministers need reasons to kill babus..... on that side of the chair....

Rajesh Kumar: The basic idea is that if inflation is more than the rate of saving people will avoid saving and spend more and saving rate will come down. The major funding of government debt comes from public instead of institutionalized debt. Higher spending in consumptions is not good for any economy. The present day inflation is not based on demand and supply effect as despite the bumper crops and good monsoon inflation has not come down. Inflation can favour borrowers at the expense of savers – because inflation erodes the real value of existing debts- if real interest rates are negative. These are the reason RBI always tend to increase the rate to counter the inflation. I think Government should increase the Petrol prices say by Rs 50 and reduce the diesel prices by 20.00. The burden on petrol will not only tax on luxury (Big cars or Buffet Tax on Obama) but also someway reduce the automobile pollution. The Petrol users can be asked to avoid unnecessary petrol vehicle and to use the public transport. At the same type VAT on Diesel vehicle purchase should also be doubled or increased substantially which will reduce the freight and carriage charges which will necessarily reduce the price of essential commodities. Similarly to check the pollution we need a law that a particular type of color car of private vehicle should run run on a specific day. Say white run vehicle should not run on Sunday, Red on Monday, Green on Wednesday, etc..

Sunil Talwar: Don't run after cars. You will run out of steam and nothing will come out of it. Petrol or diesel price will not control inflation.

Abhishek Jain: Well Petroleum prices should be deregulated to have better market driven pricing system. However inflation does not get affected mostly by petrol prices (Diesel prices affects transportation cost though). The commodity trading of agri products plays major role in hiking their prices. It's all virtual price increase, as anyone can see in the recent rise in gold prices. The exchange trading of Agri products should be banned, to control inflation till we have enough tools to control it...

Sunil Talwar: I will not agree to ban e trading of agri commodities. Look around u there is a tighter noose choking the agri market, the Mandi. Remove all politicians who sit as mandi chiefs and then see how these markets behave. At the end it is all about good money chasing bad demand

Prateek Patel: Nice One Sir, our Central Bank is acting Capitalistic..!!! But, it will again fail because our economy's DNA(which is socialistic indeed) will not let it happen..!!!

Abhishek Jain: Well actually raising interest rates cannot be considered as capitalistic approach, as Capitalism works on 'Laissez faire' i.e. no intervention of Govt., while our Govt. controls everything. For ex. The Petrol pricing, in which we rank among one of the most expensive countries, due to excessive duties and surcharge on that. However the austerity approach of RBI saved our banks from investing in low rated debts, thus we were largely unaffected by Euro debt crisis. But raising interest rates to curb inflation, is not a good or at least permanent way, it is slowing our growth.

Ram Gupta: GE Sir, Government is playing an opposite role by increasing petrol prices, which will definitely, nullify the RBI move.......

Rajesh Kumar: It is a good idea that future trading on food & agricultural items should be banned from comex . Since the start of comex the food items have never come down despite bumper crops

Abhishek Jain: ‎@Rajesh Kumar, I agree with you, because the excess food grain is rotting in the inefficient storage and the public has to face the inflationary prices due to the Future trading of Agri products. Thus the Commodity Trading of Agri and Food product should be banned for a certain period of time till we have better tools to fight inflation than interest rates.
Rima Chaturvedi: in some areas autonomous behaviour of institutions is quite important...

Mustafa Jaorawala: this is an institution where the entire economy vis a vis the governance is done....so its important to have fin.min.to control the inflows and outflows of the revenues and the rates else it wud be a complete haywire situaion..where inflation has to be calculated on a daily basis...

Sumat Singhal: sir i reserve my opinion, first lowering interest rate may hinders economic growth and RBI is considering priority of growth over inflation and second even on behalf of govt it is not clear that it really wants to control inflation although RBI is autonomous and independent and governor D subbarao has also made it clear.

Jonathan Livington Seagull: The FM has always maintained RBI had an autonomous role, though in concurrence with FM & The Planning Commission for the fiscal policies. Turkey's case is a stray case altogether where Islamic Laws in relation to Interest were also considered. In the case of RBI only RRR etc can not curb the nation's Inflation; the other factors like Demand Supply, Prices of commodities like Oil, Budget Deficit, Fiscal Deficit all account to Inflation.

Ali Mn: Infact if you watch it closely, the hike has more to do with feeding the interests of the big banks. The logic is simple; the rates get higher so that govt. bonds are issued at higher interest rates and who are the buyers..guess..yeh...banks and financial institutions..so they make more money. Not this hiking interest rate has other side too. It not only absorbs money but on th other hand also gives bank a chance to increase the floating rates on the loans given to borrowers. Also, as the bank increases its portfolio of RRR, it can also lend at an increased amount to the public. And here the spiral generates. Now the bank has more money to lend as compared to before hiking the rates. Banks have dual advantage of the hike i.e. increased lending power - one from the increased portfolio of RRR and other from the increased deposits from the people.

Was a wonderful debate, wasn't it!
~

GOOD NEWS ON PROTON HIGH COURT CASE - WE WON!

Please check
http://www.proton.in/proton-indore-degree-100percent-valid-historic-win-in-high-court.htm

http://www.proton.in/proton-indore-degree-100percent-valid-high-court-judgement-pgp.htm

Towards a mature Republic

2011-01-28T16:59:00.004+05:30

Majestic and proud

Six decades is not a small period in a nation's life. India just celebrated its 61st Republic Day anniversary (26th January) and everyone who loves Mother India did stop for a few moments to ponder on the direction we are taking. The past few months have especially been extremely disturbing in our national life, with a near-complete loss of political balance, and a steady deterioration in the public's perception of what our leaders are upto.

Mother India is a vibrant, prolific and culturally rich entity, and it hold significance for entire humanity. With its 1200 million inhabitants, modern India is moving forward with a lot of promise. There are tales of "the India story" and "the Indian Elephant stirring and shaking", and the world tends to believe that the next decade will be dominated by stories like India's.

Distractors and the distraught often say that "भारत के गणतंत्र में गण पर तंत्र हावी हो चला है."

So it's time for some reality check. And who better to answer some fundamental question than Indians themselves! I wished my social media friends a happy republic day, and asked their opinion of what they wish to change in modern India, and as usual, the replies were eye-opening.

Here goes! (I have not edited anything in these replies)

Saurabh Baradia - I hope that India concentrate more on agriculture and manufacturing rather than the IT world....The scenario is going to change. thats the reason of high inflation. Thats the scenario what people in WEST have already face and are facing. So India should be well aware of all such issues in advance....Still INDIA is the best.......

Sumit Desai Happy Republic Day!!!! Jai Hind!!! Inquilab Zindabad!!!

Nick Jain ‎"khud ke desh mei TIRANGA nhi lga paye" that where our Nation is Moving and Shaping like never before...

Contrasts.. thy name is India

Shivansh Mishra sir i m happy with my country but not with its politician all though some are remarkable but some are proved as a shame for the country

Kunal Pursnani Happy Republic Day sir.... Sir I think India is standing on a point from where it can grow (sky is the limit) and it can even go in a downfall as 28 years is avg age of people living in -India but mostly people are illiterate.... And now how india uses young population is the major question that will decide the KAL of india. I think If uneducated youth is employed in manufacturing this is a guarantee we can leave china behind. JAI HIND

Bhavik Savaliya First of all we need remove corruption from our nations, then after we can think for next development....

Sujeet Sakalle Lets decide before saying this.... Will indian become superpower till 2020 that....wether we the indians want to become superpower till 2020 ...and we will shape our and countries future...right sir....???/

Niraj Vashi happy republic day sir.... this decade is going to be so important for india and we have to be hungry for development.....

Ankit Bandi keeping finger crossed... hoping india become more prosperous.... economy continues to grow at steady rate.. India become more strong in defence, agriculture and industrial sectors...governement promote SME's more then MNC's so that more y...outh select enterpreneurship then high packages.. all money deposited in swiss bank come back to india and be in rotation in the market..... and hopefuly we will able to unfurl flag at lal chowk, shrinagar in next decade and then we can truly claim kashmir hamara hai.... Happy Republic Day sir !!!!

My shelter is omnipotent

Yogendra Rai Is din hamara samvidhan lagu hua tha. Samvidhan banane walo ne best cheejo ko shamil kar ise banaya. Lekin ise lagu karne aur karwane wale dono nakam rahe. Legislative, executive apni credibility khote jaa rahe hai, ummid ki chhoti si kiran kewal judiciary me dikh rahi hai, lekin woh bhi aajkal controversy me aa jati hai....Media jisko fourth column kahte hai(jiski duty hai ki poore system ke nigrani kar sach samne laye), woh to ab puri tarah se TRP ki gulami kar rahi hai. So i am not happy with the way nation is shaping up.

Ritesh Sharma Respected Sir.... I am very happy to be Indian as every citizen of the country, Republic day for rights and duties , law and civilization , democracy and culture. As we have the largest democratic country . I really respect our constitutio...n but as we are rapidly moving towards the Modern India , here we need to make some amendments which could help for better advancement like: 1) Cases which deals which cognizant offence should deal in fast-track process. 2) There should be online process for police complaints and actions. 3) Media people should feel there resposibility from there authority . and laws should amend for the same. and Many more.

Avinash Kumar In every country there is somehings which curse u and create obstacles to move ahead and India is also one of them but still the best part of the country is people know how to overcome from the worst part and make it as a learning object WHICH HELP THEM TO SHAPE THEIR FUTURE NOT ONLY IN INDIA BUT ALL OVER THE WORLD E.G. BARACK OBAMA HAS ALREADY TOLD IN THE SPEECH, INDIA HAS DONE WELL EVEN IN THE RECESSION, AIRTEL LIKE COMPANY SPREADING ITS BUSINESS IN AFRICA WHERE NO ONE WANTS TO GO

Manish Gangwal Jai neta ki jai adhikari ki jai hind

Herwig Streubel For the last 26 I am observing the development in India. An economic development was initiated in 1991 and you could see it in towns by 1995. Around 2000 there was visible more cash also with poorer people in towns and 2005 in quite remote ...areas (MGNREGA helps a lot!). Now the government has started to take its social duties more serious - Education Guarantee Act, Anti-Corruption Drive. I really hope they continue this path, especially they have to drop the top-to-bottom approach in different schemes and have to foster basic democratic systems like Gram Swaraj - all schemes have to be implemented only with the approval of the concerned Gram Sabha (participation with the majority of the villagers, 50% women etc.)

Through the shadows of time

Mukesh Kumawat Republic day is a celebration of the historical day on which the citizens were given sovereign power and exercise this power by electing representatives, directly or indirectly. The coming decade will be very crucial for India and will be o...ne of the most "INTERESTING TIMES". India will have the chance to raise to the rank of a superpower if this gargantuan corruption gets controlled and the govt. succeeds in creating jobs for the rapidly increasing population. Moreover, radical changes will be needed in the education system and the agricultural output will be required to rise substantially to meet the food requirements. The govt. will be required to revolutionise the sports infrastructure and faciliites. The red tape will be needed to be reduced and entrepreneurship spirit will be needed to be seriously encouraged. Only then will India truely "shine". Lets be optimistic.........JAI HIND !!

Rajat Sharma First of all Happy Republic Day to you too Sir! This day reminds me that India is my Mother Country and for the proper continuation of democratic system India made its Constitution and it's absolutely one of the best like others. But it has ...not been followed properly. I am happy the way it's advancing day by day, and it is now even praised by developed country. And as per this situation it will be more technical based and strong country in the next decade. But the only thing is missing in our country is the feeling of belonging to it. But I love my country. Jai Hind!

Subodh Puranik i proud to be an indian the way nation is shaping up northward.young generation and the ambition they have will definately take nation to new hights

Ankur Chourey yeah!! the way our nation has shaped itself in these 60 years has been remarkable.India is undoubtedly one of the best stories throughout the world even before china and to be a part of this country I feel proud..

Colours that beat the world

Pallavi Chauhan we always celebrate our birthday , anniversary, and our religious festivals also. But this is the real festival because of this we are able to celebrate our all these festivals so in real sense this is the real festival to be celebrated. i am very happy that we are growing so fast and i am sure that in coming decades we will be top in the list......................

Tulesh Sahu Jai Hind Sir, i can see all comments its very nice & i came to know that we common people know what is going wrong hence we can say our politician may also know bt still they are enjoying their POWER & POSITION & doing nothing. WE... LOVE INDIA

Prashant Ghotkar I think era with in British empire was better than this, planned shaped and up to mark. I thank them the physical foundries they took from us returned in same manner, and later we lost them.Thank to them for nice administrative setup, railw...ays, special thank to them. I still dont think our natinal leader still have any concreate plan to take this country in coming next 10 years. We need to have key focussed drivers to shape it up. JAI HIND.

Punkaj Goyal Adrash Society in Maharastra

70,000 Crore in CWG
Raakesh Mohan Thanx Sir,Same to You...Probably the Apt time has come to start contributing further to the develotment of Nation by self decipline and knowing what good you can do for the society...and You are one of the examples,Mr Manudhane...

1,76000 Crore in 2 G Scam

Uncountable money in swiss bank and much more.

OR FIR EK DIN ONION AND PETROL K PRICE BADKAR LOGO KI AANKHO ME AANSU LA DETE H OR SARE METTERS SCREEN SE DIKHNE BAND HO JATE H.......Sir, i hope u can guess our hopefulness in coming decade!!!

Karan Verma i am personally not at all happy the way it is shaping up sir. Despite the fact tht many of us has forgotten the sacrifices of our ppl, for our nation andfreedom, we still r supporting tht coward congress govt whose corrupted upto core level. Look at the inflation rate, & Ice-ing on the cake Dr Manmohan Singh condemns hoisting of Indian flag. Now that is boiling up the blood streams, such a shame for letting such ppl governing us. THE YOUTH IS ANGRY, FURIOUS AND WHEN WE SPILL OUT OF OUR GLASSES THERE WILL BE ONE MORE REVOLUTION..

Anand Singh Tomar We need to think properly in order to develop the Nation..... Its really really high time for us.... all youths of Nation need to pull their socks up.....

Modern and traditional

Prahlad Baghel Happy Republic Day to You sir, and to all PROTON family, This is PRAHLAD BAGHEL, Ex. student of PT Education. This day is meant a lot for us, as the day signifies the democratic and constitutional remedies of the country.

Paarth Ashok Narang Happy, yet not satiated :) Instead of complaining; I will try taking that one step, which is waiting to be taken by the commoner. Congratulating the masses on this day spelling integrity and republic status of the state!

Satya Mahant its really proud to be INDIAN, really we have achieved a great height,but still somewhere we lack.We lack good politician,awareness and responsibility to change fate of INDIA.bcoz still there r people who sleep without food,children who r u...naware of school and still great pressure on the mind of middle class people for everything and there are people who r still filling there bags with money enjoying the money of ours. i think we youngster can change this we should understand our responsibility not only towards our family but also towards our motherland. So lets start to be a good citizen.lets take an oath to contribute in the development of humankind and our INDIA.For that we have to be honest, energetic, determined and feel ur heart with proud of being INDIAN.

Mohit Wadhwani Historically this day counts a lot, constitution came into existence rules and regulations needed for smooth running of country came into existence but now it's just a book nothing else. Every1 knows how to bend laws for their use, lakhs of cases are pending with judiciary, which will take another 5 to 6 yrs time. I think if India needs to get fwd not only economy needs to be strengthen but judiciary too. HAPPY REPULIC DAY TO ALL

Sameer Katarpanch जय हिन्द

Jasvinder Singh Hora Well,its time to keep Personal Interests apart and try Shaping the future !! Problems are around the World including Corruption and Me First attitude,a Hunger for Getting Noticed and Materialistic Mania !! When the Parametre of Success is Fo...reign Holidays,Property Assets and Fat Bank Balance for We Youngsters as Well then for sure we will Continue falling prey to the Craving to accumulate. Try checking the Trail of Existing Politicians,I guess majority would Inherit the Position by Virtue of Family in Politics or after earning Lot of Money or being a Celebrity the Last Destination remains Politics. Intelligent People like Amitabh Bachchan stepped Out from Politics stating "Its Not my Cup of Tea". In this Context,the Need is that the Political Corum should be 50% THINK TANKS and 50% EXECUTORS.Social Workers who have made a Mark in some Social Cause should have Place in the Corum.

Avinash Choudhary We've demographic advantage but don't have the educational infrastruture which can transform this young population into a positvie force. And how dangerous ambitious, unemployed, indisciplined youngsters can be to ...a society, is something we will see in the coming decades. Because every school can't turn into an English Medium school, instantly. Even if it happens now it will take 12/15 years for these student(who are in 1st std of an English Medium school) to get jobs. And in the next 12-15 years, I believe India's chances will be almost over. It is only the people who are starting English Medium schools in villages can save this nation. And they are doing it at a rapid pace, I've witnessed in my own town. Still, in my opinion, unlike what our PM says, we will have a very EXCLUSIVE growth. But even then I am very hopeful, as I come from a village where most of the houses(including mine) got electricity connection when I was in class 5th. And today I am connected to the world by Facebook & internet. And read very good books & interact with very successful people which I always thought of. Though above contradicts my exclusivity point but India is very big than my village, here a small part of population is also very big in absolute terms.

So that's the voice of modern India. Insightful, appealing, emotional and so clear.
~

Stepping into the uncertain decade

2011-01-01T18:11:00.004+05:30

Hopeful. Exuberant. Bullish.

It was the 31st of December 2000. There was abundant enthusiasm all around. The world economy was on a roll, with the USA leading the charge as usual. Dotcoms were bubbling all over, with mind-numbing valuations. Risk was contained neatly inside properly designed mathematical models that now governed a lot of stock market trading. Despite the LTCM debacle, rock-hard optimism about a pink future had steamrolled all objections from naysayers. Mainstream media, as usual, played along and magnified the sense of well-being and promise of prosperity.

Not a single soul - apart from the planners sitting inside Afghanistan - had an inkling that September of the first year of the fresh decade will bring havoc. That it will rewrite all rules of global diplomatic and military engagements. That it will force the 800 pound gorilla that's the US to actually flex its muscle militarily in faraway lands, in engagements that were potentially capable of bankrupting it monetarily and for a short while, even philosophically.

That's uncertainty for you. While the immediate physical pain of the horrific 9/11 incidents has subsided substantially, the learnings derived from the same poke fun at every human attempt to create some amount of predictability out of the utter chaos that's human life now. And the entire decade of the 2000s was spent with one crisis spilling into another, piling all along, and so on. Political crises completely overshadowed the various technological and economic gains made through sheer enterprise of innovative companies the world over.

Here's what really went wrong with the 2001-2010 decade :

Blackest of the Black Swans

Asymmetric terrorism: a whole new genre of terrorist reach and impact was created with the Al Qaeda creating missiles out of commercial passenger aircraft. American defence establishment - armed with the most sophisticated batteries of assault weapons and satellites - watched helplessly as this asymmetry engulfed their entire existence for a short period of time. It was clear to everyone that a new chapter had begun, with absolutely new levels of destruction now possible inside home territories. No nation was safe anymore. No shred of intelligence was extra anymore. No suspicion was unwarranted anymore. All this meant that the basic threads of civility that tie our modern civilisation into what it is came under attack. The impact was to be felt throughout the decade.
Unrealistic overseas adventures of the US: Though it was morally obliged to do so, the US overstretched itself in the overseas military adventures through 2001 till date. Iraq and Afghanistan bled the coffers profusely, and visible victories were far and few in between. Many allies were also sucked into the whirlpool of "with us or against us" rhetoric, only to pay their own price in terms of terrorists attacks (England, Spain etc.). The terrorist organisations proved flexible and robust enough to survive the direct attack by the US army over several years. This drained the international enthusiasm for more direct military action, and the good-old strategy of peaceful diplomacy suddenly started looking like a viable option!

Is greed still good, Mr Gekko?

3. Capitalism's excesses: This surely would have given Bin Laden & Co. maximum satisfaction. It was amazingly sad to see capitalism's infallible promise of prosperity being torn to pieces, by the merchants of greed and excesses. The Federal Reserve of the US failed completely in its mandated task of maintaining monetary macro-stability in the US, as it allowed a giant housing bubble to build, through its loose monetary policies. The inevitable collapse of the mortgage markets (and the CDOs/CDSs) spread panic in lands as far as Iceland and Australia. It was obvious that the biggest names were morally and financially bankrupt. For a while, communism's vendetta seemed coming to fruition! Hopefully, through the right policy mix, over the next decade, capitalism's captains will be able to create a system that'll no longer be held hostage by a bunch of greedy idiots.

Who says we don't care
about human rights?
China's clarity of purpose! There is no doubt about it - the Communist Party has no intention of easing its vice-like grip on any aspect of Chinese life. They intend to keep the economy, the exchange rate, the diplomacy, the social setting and the global adventures firmly under the unique influence of Chinese brand of Socialism (which is basically state directed capitalism!). This was clear from the various incidents and exchanges, from the annual posturing towards Taiwan, to the aggression against the Japanese (the fishing boat incident). Whatever little hopes the stray statements of luminaries like Wen Jiabao raised, were quickly quashed by the brutal state machinery. China repeatedly reminded other global powers to mind their own business - most notably in the Liu Xiaobo Nobel peace-prize incident. So the writing on the wall is clear - Tibet or Tiananmen, the Communist Party is in no mood to relent.
No major breakthroughs on global issues: Humanity lost another decade in its fight against the spectre of global warming, with both Copenhagen and Cancun turning out to be almost dud events. The urgency with which we must act in unison NOW so our future generations may have a planet worth living, is missing. That's very sad. We are running out of time.

Fit for the decade ahead
6. The Russian monster: Vladimir Putin destroyed whatever little democracy there was in the world's largest country, with a systematic undermining of the judicial machinery. This was evident in the Mikhail Khodorkovsky trial where the second (and latest) judgement has again put him away for another cool 14 years. Mr Putin, it seems, is here to stay for another decade. You can image what that means for Russia, and its relations with an already uneasy West. A quick survey of Russian economy over the past 10 years reflects the state clearly - stagnation in all major indices. But the political reality of the Kremlin is so stark, that even the Wikileak expose claiming the "Kremlin being at the centre of a large mafia operation" does not seem to cut much ice with anyone in a decadent state. Poor Mr Medvedev - he can only wait and watch while his master prepares for the eventual takeover as the next President of the Russian state. Interestingly, his fortune is directly tied to the oil prices - much like that of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.
Growing ethnic and racial tensions in Europe: While Europe gradually started to sink into its demographic decadence, immigration was on the rise. As the natives' fertility rates drop alarmingly below 2.1 (replacement rate), original "white" populations have started to shrink. This inevitably will lead to significant amounts of immigration in most European nations, leading to cultural, racial and ethnic clashes. The Turks inside Germany have already started facing the heat. It will only grow.

Easy now, dear friend, easy

The intractable Israelis: As one of the world's hottest political flashpoints, the middle east tensions refuse to ease out. Israel's position hardened through the decade, and in response, the frustrated Palestinians responded in kind. While it is obvious to the rest of the world, the Israelis refuse to accept the inevitability of the two-nation solution. Until that happens, we must prepare ourselves for an explosion anytime. Iran won't miss the opportunity to inflict collateral damage, in such a case. The overhang of the Nazi brutality on the Jewish mind is so severe, that they measure all other races in the same context.

And this is what went right :

I'm not 30 yet

Social media revolution: In an almost unprecedented manner, social media came into being, then dominated the internet scene, and is now threatening to overturn established monarchies (Google, etc.). Till 2000, most of us had no idea what the internet could offer other than an email ID and a great search engine. Today we know. This will surely count as the decade when humans around the world came together through the social media websites, that evolved so fast that all predictions of pundits failed. I find it extremely painful that while social media websites brought far-flung people together quickly, cheaply and 'lovingly', the political situations (mentioned above) acted to tear them apart.
Only a recession, not a depression: It was good that the US economy used the first stimulus to avoid a massive depression, and escaped only with a recession. Had the economy plunged into the depression (which surely would have been worse than the 1930s one), the consequences for other nations, including India, would have been catastrophic. A minor bout of IT projects slowing down was enough to throw corporate India into total panic (through late 2008, entire 2009 and first part of 2010).
India and China on a high growth trajectory: It was interesting to note that for entirely different reasons, both India and China maintained a robust 7-8% per annum GDP growth rate throughout the decade. That surely was very important, given that close to 40% of humanity resides here. Though India failed to generate employment on the scale that the Chinese manufacturing juggernaut did, this is what Indian policy makers will surely focus on in the 2010s. The honeymoon with Services sector growth has taught India one thing - there ain't nothing like good old smokestack manufacturing when it comes to generating millions of jobs quickly!

Questions for the decade that's upon us : (and my estimates)

How quickly will the US influence decline? (steadily throughout the decade)
Will the Chinese, tied down as they are due to the trillion dollar worth of US paper they hold, get reckless and ruin the relationship? (in newer ways, yes they will)
What of Taiwan? Will China finally annexe it? (yes; the incoming President Xi Jinping will try that)
Will Pakistan disintegrate into pieces due to internal friction amongst the major power centres - the government, the judiciary, the army, and the ISI? (perhaps yes)
Will China allow democracy to flower? (Certainly no, barring some radical asymmetric development)
Will Talibanis rise again in Afghanistan? (Yes)
Will India's maintain its high GDP growth rate? (Yes)
Will job creation for young workers in India happen at the pace required? (Perhaps no)
Can terrorists try to go for a big kill - using nuclear weapons? (They will try their best)
Will Kashmir break apart? (No)
Will the Naxalite problem in India be solved? (It will be contained, not solved)
Will quantum computing become a reality? (Almost near the end of 2020, yes!)
Will Facebook destroy Google's dominance? (No, they'll go their own ways)
Will corruption in Indian public life reduce? (No, unless some radical movement shapes up)

Circumspect. Tentative. Unpredictable - adjectives that define what's coming up.

So tighten your seat-belts friends! It's going to be a rough, bumpy and enjoyable ride. After all, what's human life without its share of uncertainties. My best wishes to everyone for a great decade ahead!

What WikiLeaks really means

2010-12-10T19:30:00.004+05:30

"A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has" - Margaret Mead, anthropologist.

An unknown individual who calls himself 'Australia's most famous ethical computer hacker' - Julian Assange - puts up a website that supposedly carries leaked versions of documents and communications on sensitive state subjects. All hell breaks loose, as the one of the states concerned is a mighty power, engaged in multiple controversial & costly wars abroad, and the leaks put a big question mark on the entire authority of the apparatus itself! Apologies in advance are offered to friendly nations worldwide by the superpower (perhaps a diplomatic-first of its kind). Red-faced bureaucrats and politicians patch up in advance on many issues likely to emerge! The website promises more and more juicy releases, nation after nation goes after the site's founder (and administrator) and finally one of them nabs him.

Welcome to the WikiLeaks controversy. Perhaps for the first time in modern history, a single individual has challenged the might and repute of the superpower that's the USA, and dragged alongwith the reputations of many others. Perhaps for the first time, world governments realise how vulnerable they are to what a single man can do to them. Perhaps for the first time ever, media and its unbridled power to create extreme transparency are under question.

This controversy raises fundamental questions which I will attempt to answer below. I feel the three questions raised are

Does a State have the right to do anything in the name of sovereign power? And then cover it up?
Can media truly exercise extreme transparency without upsetting human civil values?
What is the nature of truth itself? Are there permanent truths for us to hang on to?

Death by a thousand cuts!

It's rather easy to be killed by a single bullet. The mind will not get enough time to feel the pain. Getting stabbed is painful but it ends quickly. The real torture is when someone inflicts countless minor lacerations on your body, and death arrives of blood-loss, slowly and steadily. WikiLeaks does precisely that - putting entire legions of foreign service-men, diplomats, ambassadors, bureaucrats and politicians on tenterhooks - awaiting the next cut to their reputation, the next blow to the carefully built facade that's been holding the reputations for long. On the face of it, the whole business of doing business with foreign nations comes to a halt, as suspicions build up. It's the classic spy-vs-spy story, with WikiLeaks as the huge catalyst for aggravated suspicions.

A simple analogy, anyone?

Imagine that someone puts a secret camera and microphone inside your bedroom or living room, and records everything you do. And then promises to release stuff bit by bit, on some website (SharmaLeaks, for example!!), over a long period of time. The intolerable pain of having to wait for what's coming next can tear the family (or marriage) and the reputation apart. Our lives are like scratch-books - some incidents are scribbles, others deep-etched memories of things really important. When voyeurism prevails, both categories get mixed up in dangerous and avoidable ways.. and it's never good for anyone. There's no husband in the world who will want to live with his wife any longer if the complete history of every single conversation that the wife has ever done is made transparent. That's how humans are. We accept our partners, friends and colleagues on "averages". On an average, things work out just fine as the pluses outweigh the minuses. Try finding someone, any one, who has never spoken ill about you, and you'll end up searching forever. (the husband-wife example quoted was intentional; the reverse order is 100% certain!).

The State as the Big Brother
What's wrong with someone who tells you the truth? A lot, if the truth trespasses the thick line that separates concepts underlying individual liberty from those representing State's sovereignty.

The State is all powerful. The State is not to be played around with. The State can get you, anyday, on any pretext. The State knows it all, and there's no escape. And to live happy ever after, it is necessary for everyone to pay a rent to the State. In nations like India, rent-seeking assumes multiple forms, most of them illegal and unconstitutional, yet unavoidable (unless you are willing to learn the basics of law, human rights, and are willing to fight for the same). In developed nations of the West, high levels of media scrutiny keeps raw power of state under check.

So what is this "State"? The term represents the whole concept around which modern civilisation stands. Independent, powerful and supposedly benign national powers that take care of their citizens, provide for them and create an environment of peace and prosperity. Rule of law governs everyone, thereby levelling off any specific advantage a group may command. Everyone is equal before the law.
Who is this "State"? What's the permanence of people who make it up? Well, certainly the people who make up the State's machinery are not permanent. They come, they go. Some of them stay on for 30 or 40 years, making up the bureaucracies that we all so love to hate. But ultimately even they have to retire. No one stays on forever. Everyone has to die some day! But even though men (and women) come and go, the system keeps grinding, as the policies are documented, positions established and dogmas fertilised and kept alive. It never stops. It's the system that overrides all individual identities. Corporates like McDonalds may revel in their magnificent systems-and-process culture but no one comes close to the predictable repetitiveness of a State's bureaucratic machinery - cold, calculated, selfish, and always inward-looking.

Limits to tolerance - the empire strikes back

For centuries, kings, princes and authoritarian regimes have tried to carry a heavy pretense of looking democratic, open-minded and transparent. But history teaches us that limits to all these do exist. As long as peripheral and harmless issues are raised the State may pretend to actually get affected and take corrective action (on its own agents). But the moment someone points a finger at any core aspect of the State, the empire prepares to strikes back. And that can be pretty nasty. Agents of the empire (the police, the military, the administrators, and the judicial system) can cause harm that may take years to repair. And since the process of revenge-seeking is orchestrated by a body that's amorphous, foggy and amoeba like, hitting back (by an individual) is a very difficult and uncertain process. Countless examples exist. In fast moving systems like Singapore (a rich, developed State), the State precludes a lot of civilian retaliation possibilities by creating a vast array of repressive policies covering a wide gamut of civilian life en (no chewing-gum, for instance). Caning is a frequently used punishment (sounds medieval, right!). In complex and slow moving States like India's, most citizens are under-informed about their own basic legal rights, and can be taken to task almost without any effort by agents of the State (fear of loss of reputation if the police merely reaches one's home, for example).

Enter Julian Assange!
Well, to hell with the State, said Julian Assange. And he attacked where it genuinely hurt the most. The secretive communications that constituted the inner workings of the American State. Thus, he exposed not only the Americans, but also all those linked with them - other State-heads, informers, military generals, and so on. His WikiLeaks website, designed as a digital drop box, is a place where anyone can anonymously submit sensitive or secret materials to be disseminated and downloaded around the globe. In April, it posted its most explosive leak yet, a video shot by an American attack helicopter in July 2007 as it fired on a group of men on a Baghdad street, killing 12, including two unarmed Reuters employees. It continued in the same spirit thereafter "leaking" cables (communications) between the American embassies worldwide and their US Head Office.

WikiLeaks' commitment to what might be called extreme transparency means that it hasn't turned away documents of questionable news value or origin. According to WikiLeaks' credo, to refuse a leak is tantamount to helping the bad guys. "We never censor," Assange declares. No doubt, mainstream media's limitations (due to commercial interests) also got exposed in this melee.

How did it gain prominence?
Here are some of Wikileaks' biggest hits, that apparently have helped it gain the weight it has.

Video shot by an American attack copter as it mowed down a dozen men on a Baghdad street, including two Reuters journalists
Detainee treatment manuals from Gitmo
Inventories of US military matériel in Iraq and Afghanistan
NATO's "master narrative" for Afghanistan, which WikiLeaks said it unlocked by guessing the password ("progress")
Stolen docs from the Swiss bank Julius Baer's Cayman Islands branch, allegedly showing tax evasion
Confidential documents about sexual abuse by United Nations peacekeepers
Deailed reports on corruption and political violence in Kenya
Emails from Sarah Palin's Yahoo account
Holocaust denier David Irving's emails
Membership lists of the far-right British National Party
An internal report from the oil trader Trafigura about its disposal of toxic cargo off the coast of West Africa
Scientology manuals, including a list of URLs owned by the church, such as purehubbard.com and scientology-sucks.com

Since its launch in December 2006, WikiLeaks has published everything from the operating manuals of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp to NATO's secret plan for the Afghanistan war and inventories of US military matériel in Afghanistan and Iraq, plus plenty of dishier stuff—Sarah Palin's hacked emails and Wesley Snipes' tax returns, as well as fraternity initiation books and a trove of secret Scientology manuals.

Basic assumption about WikiLeaks
That what it says is actually "true" - who knows that for sure? The governments are in a state of vehement denial, and there's never going to be an official proof of anything. Those who are benefitted by any specific leak will never deny it even if it's false! So the truth, alas, is based on a fundamental assumption that Julian is not making a fool of everyone :)
Also, the whole story of WikiLeaks has strangely accorded a certain reputation and status to Julian's credibility, and people tend to speak of him with a certain level of respect. That's interesting.

The leaked cables!
Now the really juicy stuff started about a month ago when Julian Assange started exposing "cables" that contained intimate details of foreign policy of the US. This is perhaps the biggest expose in the diplomatic history of modern world. It proves just how vulnerable everyone is, in this age of nano-second IT connectivity and mass rapid media consumption.
Three critical aspects of the "leaked cables" -

How nations interact - It becomes apparent that most of what we study in the erudite tomes on "Political Science" is actually correct (what a relief!). It is true that "in international politics, there are no permanent friends or enemies but only permanent interests". The way the US diplomats have described the various heads of states is telltale. Who would argue with the descriptions accorded to the North Korean dictator, or the French president. And frankly, there seems to be nothing wrong in the way it's been done. What's wrong is that is that it got leaked, thereby becoming scandalous. Otherwise it may have gone on for years without any potential impact.
How nations will interact - If you really reflect on this, it becomes clear that one of the two things will happen (the second one has a higher probability)

breakdown in relations
a big hearty laugh, and move-on!

Immediate potential damage - Yes, heads will roll. The Presidents and the Prime Ministers who have been shamed brutally will find scapegoats. The diplomats who uttered the most honest observations will be removed! But ultimately, the needs and necessities of international politics are such that everyone will have to move on. They will take a deep breath, and move on.

Let's get real. The diplomats of any nation, in general, are rooted in reality and understand that every nation will try to protect its turf by all means. That Americans need Pakistani support in their war in Afghanistan is obvious. The Pakistani establishment supports terrorism and funds it, and hence will use the Afghan lever in all its negotiations with the West. If WikiLeaks exposes this, it will only confirm the worst fears of the Indians.. it will not tell anything new.

Do you hear that Mr Anderson?
Like the detestable Agent Smith in the memorable Matrix movie trilogy, the State - for now - seems to be holding Neo (Julian Assange) in its grip uttering menacingly "Do you hear the sound of that train, Mr Anderson? That's the sound of inevitability.. the sound of your death".

Freedom!

It is certain that world governments will not take to WikiLeaks kindly. They will do everything possible to have it shut down permanently. That the greatest proponents of free speech consider this as the right thing to do speaks volumes about the context in which free speech is truly allowed to exist. Let's face it - modern civilisations have a threshold limit of tolerating dissent. The moment it threatens to upset the balance of the State itself, it ceases to be able to exercise its right to exist without fear. Julian has been arrested, and may be put away for ever. Wait and watch. As far as I am concerned, Julian's courage (whatever the motives may have been) fascinates me. It's the ultimate tale of one man versus the establishment. It's very inspiring. It's very disruptive, and it's very much a story to be told to yourself when you are down and out.

Margaret Mead made her memorable quote thinking of a small group of committed individuals. The debate rages over truthfulness of motives, the limits of media transparency and the rational of extreme disclosure.
~

Sundays!

2010-12-04T17:12:00.001+05:30

Oh the images that a Sunday conjures in our minds! Happiness, joy, enjoyment, togetherness. While we all have our own reasons to look forward to the weekly manna from heaven, I conducted a small survey among my social media friends, and here are the innocent, happy and amazingly enjoyable replies to the simple query - What is the one thing you enjoy doing on a Sunday?

The insights I got by asking a simple question were revealing. 360 degrees, in fact. From the apparently enjoyable act of merely dozing the day off, to the more cerebral tasks of planning and executing, the range is exciting! The more analytical minded of my readers will want to do a statistical post-mortem of this compilation. Go ahead! I am sure lovely learnings await.

A million thanks to all those who shared their thoughts.

For all marketing managers, here are the insights you were looking for. Now plan your budgets, and get cracking :)

What's the one thing you love to do the most on Sundays?

Kaushal Kasat - Sleeping, watching Movie, playing cricket and picnic.....
Pooja Khatri - Movies
Gireesh Nagar - Outing after a week long work.

Rohan A Shah - sleeping and sleeping and sleepimg
Shashank Upadhyay - Poha Jalebi, Family time
Dixit Javia - lunch with family, n hangout with friends and manage some events..
Ronak Shah - Want to attend college... gud one...

Gautam Gunjaria - Havin bread butter nd tea........

Chetan Chaudhary - Fun with friends,outing,dinner and at late night planning for next week.

Ajoy Sodani - prevent myself from thinking about Monday

Ruchi Dosi - Sleeping n cleaning of room

Piyush Dubey - On sunday, I feel like having the most perfect day of my life; a perfect lunch/dinner, a stimulating conversation with mates, casual yapping with friends and family, reading a good book in the afternoon and a perfect preparation for the next day.... Aah!! Eutopia... :)

Ibrahim Modiwala - planning 4 da next week ahead..........

Kirtan Chauhan - I Spend My Time For Spiritual Activity At BAPS Centre, Which Makes Me Feel That I Can Do Better For My Career, My Family And My Country To Live Happy.

Ritu Grover - Sleep """""""""
Amit Chaudhary - best 1 ll gt a prize..??
Akshay Joshi - learning learning & learning bcoz xm on head....
Sakshi Maheshwari - ‎@Sir - i try to make others (not only family but unknown too) happy as much as they can in a day.....

Kshitij Mahendra - sleeping......lol

Shraddha Agrawal - Net surfing, Biking with frndzzzz, stroll with family and Muvizzzzz........ :-)

Farzana Nasreen - sLEEPING, gETTING lAZY, n sPOILIn aLL uR pLANS wAT u hAV mADE 4 sUNDAY.... ;-)

Krunal Gurav - waking late and hanging out wid friends

Ankita Patel - Sleeping nd roaming out wid frnds..

Prasad Maha - sleeping and listening music!!!!!

Monica Dagaria - Be the most lazy soul alive on the earth!!

Hina Bajpai - sleeping till 10 in morning,then again sleeping in afternoon,n going to bed early at night..

Mohit Jain - i love to learn something extra......... which does not relate wid our study bt necessary in our life.........:-)

Kunal Pursnani - Sir , my sunday morning is same as any other day as we are open 365 days :D but still i jus love the feeling of telling how good is to work in organised manner :)

Anant Dadhich - Roaming n making sundy=funday..

Amit Pandit - soccer in the evening!!! what can be better??

Shoaib Qureshi - spending more time in the shower...
Shanu Tembhre - obviously sir... Studies...

Kishan Mundra - Farming

Pooja Jain - Family time............... :) :) :)

Lokesh Kothari - Gng to ma shop...

Rohit Gandhe - party-sharty, movies

Gagandeep Singh - IIFT'S exam.....

Virendra Jain - Sit on couch wid strong hot tea and fried potato; and watch fox history..

Rajesh Pathak - Being with the family
Prateek Khatri - to complete and maintain account books

Aakanksha Jachak - Only riyaaz (mandatory n i cant miss that ever :-o) and then MASTI all da tym ... :-)

Neeraj Mishra - I Love to sleep on sunday...........
Nidhi Agrawal - refreshing:):)
Jay Jain - Relax.....
Nikita Patwa - what about a refreshing day with children in an NGO or OLD AGE home...osum outing for me really...because i hate sleeping on Sunday.
Himanshu Gupta - sleeping
Priya Bub - an outing,movies n spending some time with my ownselves!!!

Anil Pandey - I use to plan for my next week business priorities and i use to get more revenues as compare to my week days.

Manish Bhagtani - Baddy n Cricket....
Shivansh Mishra - listening oldies and driving
Hashwin Chawla - my sunday is mostly relaxin n rejuvenating frm d past week...i gv time to introspect my past week... wat gud, wat bad... wat improvements i shud make in myself... but spend my most of d tym to cum out of d stressful week i hv had, n sleep a... lot
Herwig Streubel - Sleep longer

Shersingh Baghel - I want to hang around with my buddies...

Uttam Gangesaria - Sleep.......
Kalindi Bhatt - listen classical music and read books which outof std.
Trapti Agrawal - njyg and dng unplanned thgs :)
Ratandeep Bhatia - waiting for monday........ to do some work..... i hate being idle..... I love being at work.... i jus wait for next sunday..... because its nt possible to do everything nd complete pending work in jus one sunday...

Sunil Rajput - i try hard to excute all the plan that made for sunday but always failed.

Sukrat Tamali Ray - Dal Bati in Lunch
Ruchi Jain - blogging.........
Kalpesh Rakhasia - i wud choose to marriage
Neha Fatehchandani - Spendng time with my niece and nephew.

Satyam Chauhan - Spending atleast 12 hr with "Skype"....!!!

Jaya Pande - Doing all d work which mom does normally n giving her ample time to relax....it makes my Sunday really fruitful
Malini Agrawal - Try to make my brain stop thinking about any work. :-) serenity
Shishupal Singh - sleep_sleep_sleep
Devansh Bhatt - spend the earnings of other days to enjoy sunday......cheers sir!!!!! sm thng really parallely interesting to do other dan sleeping ....
Priyaj Vyas - hoping against the hope to have the next day also a "SUNDAY"
Akil Kotwala - playing cricket with all friend.........
Shailendra Verma - sleeping till 11 o'clock..
Mahesh Choure - Spending time with family and friends.
Shashi Singh Kushwah - sunday goes like a moment............hence I couldn't recall, what I do on sunday............
Kumud Chadhar - Offcourse sleep for long.....n other pending work of weekdays....
Shivam Jaiswal - reading PDF of GK lectures.....
Saransh Garg - taking rest sir.... n keepng mind lil offtrack frm d normal daily life....:)

So get set with your plans, and remember to share them with us!
~

The repositioning of Airtel

2010-11-26T15:55:00.003+05:30

We have arrived, world!

All of us have been hit in the face by the new logo and brand identity assumed by Airtel recently. There is no street, no traffic junction, no major hording that's left untouched by the striking red and white combination of its unique new design.

Why is Airtel doing what it is doing? And how is it doing it? What does it hope to gain from this? Here is a detailed analysis.

What's in a name!
Well, nothing really, but surely a lot! The name carries the entire persona of the brand with it. The words used, the colours chosen, and the way the whole thing blends together is a direct representation of the class of the brand itself. Just like situations and circumstances in the real world change, so does a brand's need to stay relevant and contemporary. The latest major upgrade by Airtel to its visual brand representation is precisely this - a desire to stay relevant (in the consumers' minds) in a changed world.

A picture speaks a thousand words

Time for goodbye

As said, the logo becomes the visual depiction of the entire company. The striking visual becomes the live embodiement of everything the company stands for. People may not know the company well, or may not be its customers, but the logo strikes a certain chord in their heads when they see it, and the company ensures that it (it's brand, that is) has ensured a position in the mindspace. At least for now. The large clutter in the brand street also explains why the "red" was chosen - the human mind is hit hard by red. That's why traffic lights are red too (of course, there's the Physics behind it - minimum scattering due to maximum wavelength etc.).

What has changed, really?
Well, Airtel has evolved with changing times quite rapidly. From a very small and loss making telecom company in the late '90s to a mammoth multinational (almost), it has traversed a long distance. The significant challenges it faced on the way were strategic - Mukesh Ambani's entry into Telecom, introduction of CDMA as a rival platform, emergence of newer players, and the need to spread its footprint around the world (not restricting to India alone). To the credit of the company's founders, so far the challenges have been met with ample confidence and style. Reliance could not trample Airtel no matter how hard it tried to, and the myriad & byzantine legal/regulatory apparatus of Indian Telecom sector did not decelerate its growth. It has also entered into all the new-fangled areas of telecom - broadband, 3G, VAS and all such terms most of us fail to fathom! Finally, Airtel rose to the occasion and spread to Africa, thereby becoming the first true Indian Telecom multinational. So now the Airtel head honchos feel that the new look of their company must be very modern, smart, youthful and bright. Remember that India and Africa are both young regions. So, smallcaps + swoosh + red is the combination chosen.

Why smallcaps + swoosh + red?

Swoosh?

Small caps - because it represents the internet and email generation, and looks informal

Swoosh - touch of class, speed, modern

Red - aggressive, appealing, visible

Also, if you look at the Zain logo carefully, the element of swoosh (resembling the "a") is there already. Perhaps Airtel had to borrow that (as part of the deal) and fix it into the new existence. So the new airtel is the old Airtel plus the Zain a shape, plus a striking red.

Curry for the brain

A problem this creates for Airtel surely is that it is strikingly similar to Vodafone's visuals. But I guess red was indispensable, and that's the explanation. There are 3 major brands now that come to mind that play on this red factor - The Economist magazine, Vodafone and Airtel.

What does this do to a consumer's mind?

The original?

Well, red being the colour it is, the logos' appeal tend to overlap. When we see "The Economist" logo, we may recall instinctively the other two as well. And if this trend accelerates, and some more mainstream companies decide to go red, it'll be trouble.

Red, red everywhere and not a place to hide..

Operational excellence in executing the change
I would rate the company 9/10 on this. It was amazing to see that the logo was changed almost "everywhere" simultaneously, a gargantuan task given that there must be thousands outlets and locations where the old logo was prominently displayed and the new one had to "suddenly" appear. We all know that telecom companies specialise in such outdoor acrobatics quite skillfully, but this was a very refined game Airtel played. I carefully saw that even on the smallest of shops (sponsored glowsigns) the new design was up and running! Now that's a fairly complex operation. My guess is that work on this change must have begun at least 90-120 days in advance, and a dedicated team of at least 20 to 30 at the Airtel HQ would have directed the pan-India transformation. Maybe even more. But the commitment shown towards this change was intense, and appreciable. Not many companies will do it with such speed and aggression. Now, if only Airtel can transfer the same spirit to the other parts of its operations (customer service, delivery, new products) it would be good.

A few pictures will prove this point!

Bach ke jayega kahan!

Every single point of sales

Gamut of services

Big time!

Why Africa?

Not just Africa,
middle east too

That's the last frontier for capitalism. It's untapped, unexplored and hugely nascent. Any company that has the 21st century leadership dream on its radar can't afford to miss on that continent. Also, telecom has proven to be the biggest social transforming agent in developing nations. Studies have shown an almost direct correlation between the growth of telecom density and the growth of that country's GDP. Many African nations understand this and are encouraging the telecom sector's spread. Airtel (like many others) sensed this and was trying to enter Africa for a long time. It finally succeeded with the Zain deal.

Money, honey?

How much would this have cost the company? A better question would be - how much would it have cost if the change were not made by the company? Many companies delay a change - it's taxing on top management's bandwidth, after all - and pay a big price. In the world of branding, remember the golden rule - Timely change is priceless, Delayed change is worthless.

Having read all this, it's worth reading the company's official line on the change! Taken from their website, we quote

airtel unveils new youthful and dynamic global identity

• Crosses the 200 million customers landmark, reinforces leadership position in global telecom

• A R Rahman composes a refreshed airtel signature tune in line with the new identity and global outlook

New Delhi, November 18, 2010 : Bharti airtel, a leading global telecommunications company, today unveiled a new identity – a shared worldwide vision across its operations in 19 countries in Asia and Africa. airtel also announced that it has crossed the significant milestone of 200 million customers, reinforcing its leadership position in global telecom. Announcing this, Mr. Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman and Managing Director, Bharti airtel said, “Fifteen years ago Bharti airtel started its journey in India with a promise of delivering world class and affordable services. Today, as we expand on the global stage, this new brand identity gives us the opportunity to present a single, powerful and unified face to our customers, stakeholders and partners around the world. It reinforces our promise to deliver innovative services and a superior brand experience to our 200 million customers across Asia and Africa.” From the birth of the brand as a single city operation in India, airtel has truly gone global today with the creation of a single and unified identity across the world. The new face of airtel is youthful, international, inclusive and dynamic – representing the journey of the first Indian brand to go truly global. The new identity underlines airtel’s willingness to embrace everything that is new. The red colour, which is an integral part of the brand, continues to represent the energy and dynamism that has made airtel the success it is today. The new curved addition to the logo is a symbol which will help ensure instant recognition across diverse international markets. The airtel signature tune has also been refreshed by A R Rahman making it youthful and dynamic in line with the new visual identity. Like the earlier tune, which has made history as world’s most downloaded mobile music with over 150 million downloads, the maestro has once again delivered a master piece. The new tune retains the essence of the original but uses an inspiring musical style, with a universal appeal, that will be loved by listeners the world over. The unveiling of the new identity also marks the 200 million customers milestone for airtel. airtel crossed 50 million customers in October 2007 and 100 million in May, 2009. The company added the next 100 million customers in just 18 months. This further cements airtel’s positions as one of world’s leading telecom companies. For its customers in India, airtel also announced that it was on course to launch its 3G services by the end of the year.

Students of management and marketing (and that includes almost everyone of us!) must pay close attention to these details as herein lie the secrets of building a long lasting empire. All the best!

Fiction : The day Ajinkya thought of it all

2010-11-23T20:18:00.003+05:30

This blogpost is a work of fiction. It's an excerpt from a book I am writing on this theme.
If you are a reputed book-publisher, contact me at sm@ptuniverse.com

The day Ajinkya thought of it all

Ajinkya Joshi looked outside the PMO's window pensively. He was overwhelmed by emotions, as memories of the past decade and a half flooded his mind, rushing like a series of powerful gusts of storm winds, ready to uproot everything he held dear all his life. It was the 28th of April 2023, when Ajinkya, as the Prime Minister of the broader state of Indian subcontinent, was presiding over a nation that was rooted in a new geo-political reality. The 'broader state of Indian subcontinent', as it was now called, included chunks of other neighbouring nations, some governable, others chaotic. It was the only democratic nation left in Asia.

Ajinkya was barely 45 years old when, four years ago, he was urgently summoned by the National Council of Patriotic Indians (NCPI), from his Finnish hometown. As a brilliant IIT graduate who earned his PhD in Nuclear Physics, he shone in the world of global security establishment. He had not understood fully the reason for the immediate call, but the broader picture was clear to him. Ever since he left the American Nuclear Command Services based at Washington DC in 2016, he had decided never to dwell back into that kind of work ever again. Though India always held a dear place in his heart, he really did not think his family would be able to adjust to the grim socio-political realities of the subcontinent now. But nonetheless, he had returned, much to the cheer of everyone in the NCPI. Much against his wife's and daughter's protests, he had left the secluded underground town of Kristiinankaupunki in Finland. Kristiinankaupunki was one of the few destinations in the world that boasted of completely nuclear-radiation-free lifestyles, still (most others had resigned to the fact that residual radiation was a part of life, and one had to move on nonetheless). Immigration was strictly controlled, and robotic processes ensured only those still un-inflicted could get in. Scandinavia had 21 such locations, interconnected through underground tunnels. There were open areas and cities, of course, but the risk of getting irradiated was entirely the residents'.

The collapse in 2015 of the National Power Grid in India due to an army of cyber-warriors on the rolls of China and Pakistan, the bombing of large parts of Jammu & Kashmir by Osama-controlled Egyptian-Sudaneses mercenaries, the splintering of the erstwhile Pakistani state into ungovernable chunks controlled by tribal ganglords (aided by earlier ISI men), and the memories of what was the USA back then made Ajinkya frozen with nostalgia. That a single lifetime will make him witness so many dramatic events was unthinkable for him just in 2008, when the first signals of what-is-wrong-with-the-world emerged from what they called Wall Street back then.

"A cup of coffee, Mr Prime Minister?", said Ronnie Abraham, the pantryman in Ajinkya's chamber. Memories of how Ronnie was the last of the remaining children from the Christian School in Jammu came alive in Ajinkya's mind. He was barely 17 when everything around him was bombed by the splinter group of what used to be the Pakistani army back then. In retaliation, the nuclear command of the then republic of India's defence forces had let loose a barrage of Agnis and Prithvis across Pakistan and Afghanistan, many of them not nuclear-tipped (but a couple of smaller ones indeed), reaching central Asia as well. No one could do anything, with the third last remaining chunk of the USA army firmly tied down in a grand war with Larger State of China along the (North) Korean peninsula. The Russians were firmly withdrawn into their shell after the sad collapse of democracy (or whatever it was in their nation since 1991) after a mass of frustrated Muscovites, hungry and tired after nearly six years of a tanking economy, had threatened the political establishment of dire consequences. The other two chunks of the USA's defence forces were stuck deep down in Catalonian ranges - the surprising new haven of a resurgent Al Qaeda - and most of the remaining used up in maintaining basic law and order in a now very difficult land - the USA itself. Ajinkya realised with a sense of perilous nostalgia that Osama never got caught after 9/11 and the billions spent chasing him.

For any right thinking human being, these events were just too many to digest. But for the NCPI this was destiny, much as the manner in which they had taken over control of Delhi aided by a mass revolt by the Army in the winters of 2019, when much of the existing political class was asked to relinquish office en masse till things would be set right. The army's disgust had begun an year ago with the arrest of the Chief of Central Defence Services Staff by the Government's Investigating Agency on charges of plotting a revolt against the state (when all he had done was persistently ask troubling questions of patriotism and propriety to the political establishment!) and had erupted with the final revelations of the unbounded wealth horded in Swiss banks, a feat achieved due to a tenth-grader's online adventures from Bhopal - an expert at cyber-espionage! The kid stole all Swiss data and let it loose on Facebook. Indian after horrified Indian started discovering the worth of their local politician, creating pressure-cooker discontent.

Bereft of any significant national-stature political class, with the army (and navy and the air-force) firmly in control of the state's affairs, better sense had prevailed. Leading citizens from various walks of life were summoned (!) to Delhi (and one more undisclosed location) to create the NCPI, the top governing body for the new state of India. Among the first things on its agenda was the search for a leader who exhibited strong future potential keeping in mind the now completely changed realities of the world. Of the 23 individuals of Indian origin shortlisted by the QuantumParam supercomputer based on 42-desired-character-matrix provided by the NCPI and vetted by the Unambiguous-Authority-of-Indian-Identification-and-Corruption-Prevention (UAIIDCP), the successor of the almost eponymous UIDAI which was dissolved unceremoniously by the central government in 2015 when it emerged through its pioneering efforts (although unintended) that more than 30% of NREGA funds were being usurped by 5% of individuals, most of them non-rural!

With a lot of effort, Ajinkya got a hold on his thoughts. He restrained the unchained flow of events that was tiring him out, and decided to get back to the Independence day celebrations. It was precisely 3 years ago, on the 28th of April 2020, that Indian nuclear forces had destroyed whatever resistance they faced in the subcontinent, and had suffered a terrible radioactive fallout. But freedom from fear was more important than anything else, and the choice had been made. The first pan-India 5G enabled survey was an instant hit - 89% Indians had voted in favour of 'karo ya maro'.

Ever since then, 28th of April 2020 was celebrated as the day India gained independence from the terror of living under constant fear of those who had sworn to destroy her. Of the 7.9 billion humans alive barely a few years ago, just 5.1 billion had survived the multiple nuclear confrontations. Many nations had no means to either counter the inevitable fallout, nor create a medical system capable of handling the crisis. "Chernobyl was such an insignificant joke", Ajinkya sighed in his heart.

The confluence of events that happened in the past decade was truly unbelievable. But the seeds had been sown many decades ago. With the global capitalist economy ravaging the planet like nobody's business, and with the massive collapse of the US housing bubble in 2007, capitalism itself had taken the severest beating ever since Adam Smith had accorded it the respect on the foundation of a philosophy of invisible hand. All that was past, as governments who had otherwise sworn themselves to the much-hyped laisseze faire had shamelessly bailed out white-collar criminals masquerading as corporate chieftains. The debt bill of all advanced nations had become unsustainable, and attempts to print the debt away had caused currency pressures no one had quite imagined. China had persistently refused to appreciate its currency even after the West's pressure, and that put a huge stress on the global trade chain everywhere. Savings rate in Japan and China had soared on hints of a global turmoil. Europe and Japan had also generally lost confidence on themselves due to the adverse demographics and the economies' inability to revitalize themselves again.

Military fallout of these events was inevitable. The world was up for grabs, and all major powers had sensed it around 2014. The militaries had become intransigent realising they were the trump cards in the global game of chess being played, and politicians had continuously lost out on their moral power which was the first condition for ensuring a neutral military that would follow the civil systems command.

How strange! It took centuries to create most of modern humanity. Like dominos, it seemed to fall apart in less than a decade. Truly, man's greed had proven to be his undoing. The complexities of modern mankind had made the system implode on itself. Almost. Ajinkya remembered the famous Nassim Taleb and his "black swan theory" that spoke of precisely such times.

Ajinkya finished his cup of coffee as he prepared to leave for the Union of Nations' summit meet of world leaders. The discussion was "Post-nuclear emerging world order and Prospects for humanity". He remembered, with a sad smile, that an international seminar with almost the same theme was successfully held way back in 2006 also. He hurried to the airport. He knew that the road ahead was pot-holed with landmines of risks unimagined, and unimaginable.
~

The Limits of Success - what internet companies can teach us

2010-11-17T22:16:00.012+05:30

As we go about experiencing and studying the business model of internet companies, there is a fundamental big lesson to be learnt about managing businesses - the limits of success.

Every business, new or old, successful or not, has to undertake strategic planning for its future. It can be an informal approach (as it is with most SMEs and FMBs) or it can be a formal HQ directed approach (as with most MNCs). Whatever the model be, there was a time when strategic planning meant creating a vision for the next several decades. Then it got reduced to perhaps around 10 years, and then 5, and then not more than the present fiscal. I doubt if strategic planning today can be done with any amount of confidence even for the next 6 months.

This is especially true for internet companies. By the term "internet companies" I refer to those firms whose main business is to provide a certain platform/service to users on the internet. This platform/service can be social media (Facebook), search engine (Google), online auctions (eBay), cloud services (Microsoft) or retail store (Amazon).

What do we mean by "the limits of success?"

Going beyond strategic management, the internet companies are a great way of learning crucial lessons about the most pressing question in business management - the limits of success. Four questions define this:

How much can a company succeed in its business?
For how long can a company succeed in the same business?
How profitably can a company keep on, in the same business?
Is success permanent?

These questions almost seem encroaching in the domains of philosophy and futurology, but they remain the core questions that every manager worth his/her salt has to confront some or the other time. As I said earlier, studying the internet firms is a fantastic and enriching way of understanding the answers to these questions regarding the limits of success.

Let me illustrate my thought with some detailed examples :

The engine and the windows

Browsers I remember way back in 1993, there was a time when the email was just beginning to make its presence felt. As the email spread around the corporate world as the most fancy thing to have, the path was set for the development of the first business model of dominating the internet - the browser. Netscape Navigator (NN) was the first classy internet browser that came along. Created by the famous Mark Andreessen, it soon became the dominating force for desktop internet search. However, this lasted only for a couple of years when Microsoft made a u-turn on its stand on the internet, and decided to come full force and destroy the NN. In classic Bill Gatesian style, Microsoft bundled a free Internet Explorer browser with its dominating operating system the Windows, and naturally, as always, it killed the NN in a short span of just 2 years. NN could do nothing and watched in horror as it almost vanished from the market. It still exists, but the glory days are over. As a dedicated user of the NN, it was quite shocking for me to see its sudden demise, and the inexorable rise of the IE browser. This - amongst other things - culminated in a legendary battle between Microsoft and the US Justice Dept, which again Microsoft won, and saved itself from being cut up in parts to avoid its monopolistic abuse of power.

Choices galore

Search Again, around 1998 I heard the word Google for the first time. Till that time, searching something on the internet was a mundane task, performed using a multitude of search engines like Lycos, AltaVista, AskJeeves etc. We never thought that search itself will become a business model for any company! And suddenly the upstart Google came along, created a fantastic new algorithm driven by their PageRank concept (which delivered much more relevant search results), and changed the whole game. Existing players could do nothing but watch as Google became the de facto starting point for anyone on the internet. Doubts were raised about their financial model (how will they earn because search was for free!) but Sergey Brin and Larry Page successfully built a text-based Advt format (AdWord and AdSense) that made them humongously successful. It took Larry and Sergey some time, and the wisdom of CEO Eric Schmidt to realise that their main business was not search but data-analysis and data-mining. Microsoft could do nothing but watch in horror as Google became the de facto standard for many more things- Email (Gmail), Maps (Google Earth), Videos (YouTube), and to some extent Social Media (Orkut). Microsoft tried everything it could but even with all the resources at its disposal, nothing much was achieved.

Battleground
supreme
Email There were hundreds of email providers around the world. The first big push for branded email was when Microsoft purchased the Hotmail service from an Indian creator - Sabir Bhatia. Unfortunately, Hotmail met the same fate with a new owner, as did MySpace (with Rupert Murdoch as the new owner). Its fortunes kept tumbling. Yahoo did rather well, and its email service became hugely successful. But the big bang came when Google introduced a completely new email service that was truly disruptive in nature - the Gmail. Yahoo could do nothing but watch in horror as millions defected to Gmail and made it their only ID on the web! Microsoft was never in the race, though it kept fighting bravely with its clutch of services under the MSN brandname, and kept the flame alive.
Social media Now this is really interesting :) The latest rage - social media came barely 7/8 years ago. Around 2003, websites started springing up that promised users connectivity of a different type altogether - online social networking or OSN. These websites had features where users could post/share/exchange information, pictures, videos about themselves with those whom they chose to keep in their group. And all this could be done in an informal setting. Some key learnings here -

Nobody imagined that social media would become such a rage (or else Microsoft and Google would be dominating it at any cost today), and hence a set of new companies emerged from literally nowhere to occupy the various niches in social media.
Facebook entered the informal networking niche, MySpace the funky and hep networking niche, LinkedIn the professional niche, Twitter the micro-blogging niche, Blogger the blogging niche, Orkut the teenager niche etc.
Till about 2006-07, they all were beginners. It was a game wide open. But the winners emerged around late 2008 and through 2009. Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter trounced almost everyone else. But there's a catch - these are global leaders, and some nations (China, Russia) have their own local leaders as well.

Emperor,
for now!

Of all these, Facebook's is the most astounding success story. With more than 500 million users (subscribers), Facebook presents a danger to Google and Microsoft (and Yahoo) like no other. While FB is the leader in social media right now, it will only take the introduction of new services on its platform to completely disrupt the existing power structure. Remember Nokia and what its integrated digital cameras did to Kodak?
Similarly, when FB introduces an email service, Gmail stands at a dangerous precipice. I was surprised to see the sharp and cunning dodge by Mark Zuckerberg when while launching the new FB email service, he claimed that Gmail is not on his radar at all, and that this is not an email service (in the true sense of the word) he's launching! That's smart. Perhaps he wants to lull Gmail into summoning no frontal assaults till he establishes the product well. Expect a grand Sumo battle in this space in months to come. It'll be vicious. {Signals of this started appearing when the single-click data-migration battle began (between Gmail and FB mail). That's a complete story in itself, in which Google appears to be holding the higher moral ground for the time being.}
We must remember that Google's desperate clawback through Wave and Buzz has all but met with failure. They failed to generate the kind of traction Google hoped for, indicating that customers cannot be coerced, howsoever subtly, into accepting multiple offerings from the same giant. Remember how Buzz had made the mistake of automatically connecting (without user permission) contacts in a user's Gmail account to the Buzz social account also - something that privacy advocates freaked out on.
Mail and Social are two different animals. This is a bitter pill Google had to digest post the Buzz fiasco.
Google's entire existence is on just two pillars - Search and Email. If tomorrow Facebook were to launch a really good search engine as well, then Google will find it rather tough to remain the marquee brand it presently is. The recent pathetic attempt by Google ($1000 bonus to everyone and a 10% payhike) to retain its staff from defecting to Facebook and others reflects the growing angst. And till only yesterday, we all thought Google was invincible. So much for permanence of brands!
Meanwhile, Microsoft's desperate attempt to integrate what all it can offer into one single device continues. Its launch of the mobile operating system WP7 with various services 'burnt into it' like Bing, Zune etc. is reflective of it.

Warrior of the waves

Mobile phones A huge battle rages here. I cover it in this article as most mobile handsets (and OS) now have internet apps inbuilt (in them). The battle is between Blackberry (RIM) that's now trying to become something for everybody (a strategy fraught with risk), Apple (too cool for all others to match, at least as of now!), Nokia (trying to regain lost ground), and Samsung (with the successful Galaxy range). The Android OS will prove disruptive here, and may give Google an edge in the medium term, it seems. Although the Adroid has created a tremendous edge for Google in the battle for mobile OS, but analysts feel that the strategy of giving it away for free to any hardware vendor who asked for it, was not entirely sound.
You can read more here :
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/11/did_google_train_its_own_enemi.html

From all this, we can come to certain conclusions. Let me list those.

Three rules apply to internet companies :

Though they look like masters of the world they have created, they live in a totally unpredictable world, alive with the fear of the next garage entrepreneur chiselling a bullet with their name on it even as they relish their present (temporary) moment of glory.
Internet companies' branding is almost entirely in the control of their users, and no amount of control at the company's end is going to define the fundamental fabric of success. Facebook is what it is (in the minds of people) because the users made it that way. Orkut was the leader in India till Dec 2009. It isn't, now. Its fall has been a reminder of the dangerous network effect - "I need all my friends to be on Facebook because I love it and I am there. So dump Orkut." The words "Orkut" and "Facebook" may have exchanged places, and perhaps they do, in some parallel universe!
No amount of funding can guarantee success of an internet enterprise, or else MySpace (and hundreds others) would not be in the ditch it finds itself now. Only users can make or break these companies.

In instant success lies the seed of failure :

A glance at the phenomenal success of Twitter - a micro-blogging internet company - will prove the point. Twitter completely depends on the users' tweets to enrich the user experience. More is the number of people around the people tweeting regularly, better is the flow of information through Twitter's servers, and better is the user experience when they search using any keyword. Mainstream media may be beaten hands down during crises, when realtime on-site tweets are uploaded by actual victims or witnesses, using handheld smartphones (or mobiles). Now the sheer speed of success of Twitter (from Jan 2009 onwards) is so astounding, there is no reason to believe that another internet company tomorrow will not disrupt Twitter itself. All this is totally unpredictable, almost asymptotic, and well, very scary!

Practical learning :

Any 'consultant' or 'media visionary' who claims to guide these companies about their future is a charlatan. There is no point trusting them.
Keep your antennas up for any new disruptive force, but do not be lulled into believing the funkiest of them. You never know which one will succeed, and the chances of your buying a stake in "all" emerging future winners are slim. This may be nature's way of restoring balance to the business ecosystem.
Total domination on present day technology does not at all guarantee any presaging of what lies ahead - we may get too locked into the present mould of thinking to even imagine what lies ahead.
Mergers, acquisitions and takeovers may or may not work the way CEOs want them to.

So, the central thought of this blogpost is:

The internet companies' world is completely unpredictable, driven by consumers' fickle choices, and winners can relish their success only with the fear of ultimate, and perhaps sudden, demise. The limits to their success lie in the collective subconscious of the populations using their product, and that, much like the sands of time, has only one thing that's certain - Change.
~

ICH - an enduring brand

2010-11-13T09:22:00.003+05:30

I wrote this awash in nostalgia. It might as well be written by a student of the discipline of marketing, and for all I know the story carries so much gravity it could easily turn into a case-study one day. I hope it does! I like it when Indian stories take that route.

For almost all of us, some of the enduring memories of childhood relate to the time we spent with our loved ones while eating out. Those memories, vivid in detail, flash through the mind several times in later parts of our lives. These are pleasant memories, happy moments that stay with us forever.

It is rare for service providers and manufacturers to last beyond a certain age. Usually companies come and go. That's the rule. Very few stay. Either the concept gets worn out, or the promoters may lose interest for a variety of reasons.

Especially so for (retail) food companies that don't indulge in aggressive marketing. If they survive as a brand for decades, it means three things for sure

the quality of food is excellent
the loyalty of customers is pretty high
pricing of certain critical items is strategically done

India has its share of successful food brands. Amul is the foremost and the poster-perfect example of one such success-story. What makes Amul special is that it's not some high-sounding corporate that created it, but a cooperative federation. It's a sterling example of a truly unique experiment that was managed to near perfection. Not just the philosophy behind it, but also the commercial side was taken care of very nicely.

One more brand that has stood the test of time is the Indian Coffee House, or ICH. The name is a misnomer as they serve a full range of meals and food-items. And very tasty & healthy stuff really!

The Indian Coffee House is run by a series of worker co-operative societies. It has a strong presence with hundreds of restaurants across India, but largely in South India. I really like the idea as it is a commercially successful venture run by worker co-operative societies. This is as close as you can get to a healthy blend of socialism and capitalism.

Like many of those in my generation, I have been visiting the ICH since my childhood. I distinctly remember how my brother and I could not control our laughter when we would see the (usually) tall Malayali waiters wearing those unique headgear that made them look even taller! We found it very funny. I remember how we would always ask for extra 'chutney' and 'sambhar' and how delicious the extra bowl always tasted. I cannot forget the verrry long 'sada dosas' - crisp, crunchy and falling out of the plate, that was always shared between the two of us! I distinctly remember the stern-faced floor-managers who would prepare the bills at the front desk, and we would always try to save on the tip! Those 1 and 2 rupee coins meant so much then.

*Today I realise that the headgear was one of the branding symbols. An enduring one.

*Today I can sense that the taste of that chutney and sambhar was their secret recipe.

*Today I can understand that the stern faced South-Indian manager was their operational masterstroke.

*Today I can relate to their operating principle of low-cost and quick turnover.

Even today, the Indian Coffee House remains as strong a brand as ever. I do not see a lot of trendy young people visit the outlet in my hometown, perhaps because the aggressive marketing and image of the CCDs, Baristas and McDonald's creates a mental barrier.

Don't make that mistake young guys and girls! Go to the ICH once, and try the stuff they serve. You will not only like the taste, but also the earthy and no-frills ambience, the rates, and the sheer Indian-ness of the place.

A comprehensive historical description of ICH -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Coffee_House

They serve a full range of foods. But some of the stuff they offer is very must-have kind. You will not believe that the mini-meal pictured here costs just Rs 60! It's as hearty a meal as Mom could make. And at only Rs 60, it's a steal. Sure there are other bhojanalayas in each Indian city that do serve meals for as low as 30 or 40 bucks apiece but what I like here is the hygiene and the taste. Bet you will not remain hungry after finishing the 3 vegetables (in good sized bowls), Daal, Dahi, Sweet-dish, plate full of rice, basic salad and Rotis/Pappadum.

And of course, there is the trademark Filter Kapi (south Indian filter coffee!) that's perhaps better than most you will taste anywhere else. The item is so distinct in its appeal that the name ICH sounds justified.

And how can I not mention the entirely ethnic, original and very tantaslising Tutti-Frutti, presented in true ICH style. And for less than 50 bucks, it's again worth trying several times! Just look at the bright colours, the simple glass, and the way the decoration appeals to the child inside us :-)

So, can you afford to miss these? Let me now wind up before I sound like an official marketing agent for the ICH. Ha ha!

If only the ICH management can deliver some contemporary marketing messages to young people, there can be a strong growth through word-of-mouth as the product is excellent. Shorn of all frills of modern restaurant management, and yet fast, clean and tasty, ICH represents a unique old-age concept that can survive despite the unrelenting flood of modernism that seems to flatten everything in its wake.

Long live Indian food brands. Long live ICH!
~