You and I are here for a reason

"I'd imagine the whole world was one big machine. Machines never come with any extra parts, you know.They always come with the exact amount they need. So I figured if the entire world was one big machine... I couldn't be an extra part, I had to be here for some reason. And that means you have to be here for some reason, too." - Hugo, 2011

How can Congress respond to the Anna situation in a win win way

I will keep this short and simple. This is a multi-party win-win solution so let's first define the parties:

1. Dr. Manmohan Singh
2. Mrs. Sonia Gandhi
3. Congress Party
4. Mr. Rahul Gandhi
5. Mr. Anna Hazare and associates
6. Opposition Party
7. General Public at large

Let's quickly review the facts:

1. People in general are frustrated with Dr. Manmohan Singh's silence and inaction. They expected that with a clear mandate, he will do some good things and improve the condition of the country. He has chosen to stay silent and inactive even when he needed to take action. He could've been a great President, watching everything, inspiring people and providing guidance but unfortunately he is sitting in the Prime Minister's seat and that is an executive position and he needs to act in some way - good bad or ugly.

He himself is confused and lost and will be very happy if there is solution to bail him out with minimum damage.

2. Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, it appeared initially, never wanted to have anything to do with politics especially after what happened to Indira and Rajeev. But it became compulsory for her to step in for two reasons - Congress Party men needed a Gandhi name to act in a sensible way else they were becoming mad, secondly she had to ensure that Rajeev's reputation and family fortune are protected and also ensure a good future for Rahul Gandhi

3. Congress Party: Congress Party agreed to Dr. Manmohan Singh becoming Prime Minister only because Sonia Gandhi decided so, else there was no way they would've been so peaceful. They have been watching all the smaller parties take all the juicy portfolios and squeezing away all the money. They are now restless as the "time in power" is ticking away while they are getting nothing with Manmohan conceding to other parties than to Congress Party and with Sonia Gandhi as the head of NAC, they can't really revolt against Manmohan. They have been patiently waiting for either Priyanka or Rahul to take over as Sonia has refused, which suited them earlier. Their only hope lies with Rahul now and they think he has been trained enough in the populist activities/actions

4. Mr. Rahul Gandhi would've happily settled in some foreign country enjoying a normal life had it not been for the Gandhi tag. He would've never asked for this but "luck" has placed him where he is. Unable to enjoy simple pleasures of life and having to do something political forcibly, he has been doing a reasonable job. He is still not ready and is not sure when he would be ready. He would've been happy had Priyanka agreed to lift the mantle but now he has no option. He looks innocent enough and has enough people around him to advise him that he would be able to handle the leadership for the remaining period of the 5 years if it is thrust upon him. He would never say give it to me.

5. Mr. Anna Hazare and his associates have grabbed the attention and curiosity of the frustrated citizens and have successfully got masses behind them. Mud slinging attempts of Congress have created some confusion in people but whenever they hear Satyagraha, people think, something good will happen. For now Mr. Anna Hazare and his associates want to win this battle while we really don't know which war they are actually fighting

6. Opposition Party, which is the BJP, we can say has no agenda. All they want to see is something happening and their leaders being able to make some comments.

7. Finally we have General Public at large, which is dissatisfied with what they are getting. Inflation is rising, interest rates are going up, and to be honest nothing seems to be working at the moment. Whatever good is happening, it is happening at random and they see that the government including the politicians and Bureaucrats are either doing nothing or are making life difficult for common man and are amassing large sums of money. There could be exceptions but this is the general view. They keep seeing big numbers being reported in print and electronic media but can't really figure how exactly it is impacting them but keep feeling the pain nevertheless. They want something good to happen, they want a new leader to come up and they want some affirmative action. They would like to see supply (production) side improvement to tackle inflation and not just simple rate increases by RBI, they would like to see transparency from all those who are in a position of power - politicians and bureaucrats alike, they would like to see education getting reinvigorated in some way, they would like to see how we as a Country are going to tackle increasingly alarming environmental problems and many more.

Now lets move to the solution:

Step 1: Dr. Manmohan Singh announces that he is resigning as Prime Minister as he is unable to do justice to the position and that he is open for all investigations as he has not benefited himself even by a rupee throughout his tenure as PM
Step 2: Mrs. Sonia Gandhi welcomes the bold move of Dr. Manmohan Singh and invites him to be a part of the NAC and continue providing his services to the country in a consultative way
Step 3: Congress elects Rahul Gandhi as the Prime Minister and Rahul Gandhi accepts this while announcing his plan for the remaining tenure
Step 4: Rahul Gandhi as the new PM announces that the suggestions of Anna Hazare and associates would be accepted without any major changes

This solution will satisfy the objectives of all the seven parties for the moment and if all the parties make sincere effort will lead to a win-win future for India

Thanks for your patient reading. Jai Hind

Upcoming blog posts

After a long time I have decided to start blogging again, thanks to my teachers for guiding me to clarity. I have almost stopped blogging due to lack of clarity but this time I expect to do a good job. Two topics I would like to quickly touch are:

How Congress can respond to the Anna situation in a win win way

Why Mba is not mandatory for your success

Looking forward for your feedback

State of Customer Service in India

From what I have noticed in recent times, customer service, in particular, for telecom and DTH, reaching a customer service executive is becoming almost impossible. Instead writing an email to the respective id is bringing better results.

This is a reasonably good development for those who have access to email but it is highly restrictive to those who have limited access to email and highly discriminative to the illiterate.

Cost reduction efforts are great but this is an area service providers need to keep in mind. Explaining a service issue itself was a great challenge and now if one has to articulate, imagine the difficulty. If the issue is hot brought out properly, there is a good chance of getting a standard reply defeating the whole purpose.

I can't even imagine taking someone's help to write such mail in case I'm illiterate and lack of writing email in native language makes it further difficult.

Hope someone is reading and taking note of this feedback

Fwd: HNY 2011

Wish you all a Very Happy New Year. Along with the wishes I am enclosing an excellent message from a good friend, read on ....

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: AK Rao
Date: Sat, Jan 1, 2011 at 11:14 AM
Subject: HNY 2011
To:

My dear friend,

do you realize it is already a decade old in this new millennium? let me take this opportunity to wish you a very happy and prosperous New Year. i came across a very nice article on the new year resolutions and thought i would share it with you. who knows perhaps, you would take time to read it or print it and mull over it and transform eventually.

"Set and Forget"

Isn't that the typical approach to New Year Resolutions?

Before we consider a 7-part solution, lets start with the top 7 reasons why New Year Resolutions fail:

1.     Projection

With past failures comes pessimism, learned helplessness and negative expectation of life desires being little more than hopes and dreams without belief or conviction.

2.     Purpose

Having no greater sense of life direction or meaning to help steer daily choices, resolutions exist as 'floating islands' in the sea of life's distractions.

3.     Process

A lack of a system, no solid plan-of-action, leaves resolutions as nothing more than wishful thinking.

4.     Prioritization

Rational priorities are overpowered by conflicting emotional priorities – such as the instant gratification of overeating delicious ice cream vs. the struggle and hardship of eating sprouts and drinking carrot juice.

5.     Procrastination

Lack of discipline, thought and control. i.e. Plain old-fashioned laziness.

6.     People:

Circle of friends that drag us down discourage us from achievement, maintaining the status quo of mediocrity.

7.     Politics

Economic troubles and political uncertainty with forced-backed regulation acts as an invisible hand that drains success and limits the globe's progress as a whole.

But if we can flip these 7 factors right side up we will have cracked the code to…

 

Keeping New Year Resolutions

1.    1. Projection

A positive attitude that:

"I am capable of learning how to achieve each resolution".

Mind-map showing the top 10 New Year resolutions of both 2009 and 2010 according to Franklin Covey research, and the 5 life categories they can be grouped under:

Turn negative expectation and pessimism into positive expectation and optimism.

Create positive expectation for success by building the confidence to succeed via the following 6 factors…

2.    Purpose

·      This list of resolutions is significant milestones to my greater long-term life direction and purpose.

·      Making resolutions is usually one of the most significant things that people do for their lives, their families, their success and their happiness each year.

·      After all, New Year resolutions signify some of the most critical, irritating, depressing addictions or problems in the majority of people's lives.

·      But to help them stick, they must be integrated with a personal overall life values and greater sense of long-term ambition.

·      This helps provide the emotional fuel needed to make behavioral and lifestyle changes.

·      Writing out thoughts can do this and feelings to capture on paper your views and perspectives on yourself and your life. This can take a long time, but you are worth the time it takes.

3.    Process

·      I have a simple yet comprehensive method for creating a clear plan-of-action for each and every New Year resolution

·      Create a way to break each resolution into a series of logical next steps.

·      Here's the general plan for keeping New Year resolutions:

o   Jot down clear, precise statements of my resolutions.

o   Pre-plan the landmarks to achieve each goal destination.

o   Maintain my enthusiasm and dedication.

o   Set up my efforts with memory joggers and simple next steps.

o   Review progress and adjust the plan accordingly.

·      It isn't brain surgery but it's not so effortless either. Otherwise everybody would always accomplish his or her resolutions.

·      The biggest difference between success and failure comes from what most people carry out which is basic Goal Setting vs. creating a genuine plan of action through something I call Processing.

·      W E Demming – a very influential corporate guru, said: "If you can't describe what you're doing as a process, you don't know what you're doing."

·      Setting goals means identifying something you want. Processing means developing a step-by-step method to attain a goal.

·      If you have a specific procedure for how to complete something, naturally you will be a lot more optimistic, and can go ahead and take steps to achieve the resolution.

Consider it:

o   TRY to maintain minimal confidence about doing something, when doing that something is simply a string of straightforward next-step physical actions visibly laid out for you in writing.

o   You'll find yourself having a lighter mental state, better outlook, and not because of any inspiring peak performance fluff, but due to the fact that you'll own a process of achievement and not merely a list of wishful thinking.

4.    Prioritization

·      I prioritize my entire lifestyle so that the New Year resolutions fit in with the rhythms of my daily life.

·      You don't only need a process for each resolution, but all resolutions must fit neatly enough into your overall lifestyle so that your path of least resistance leads you to success.

·      What in your life must be re-designed to fulfill your aspirations?

5.     Procrastination

·      I work to develop sufficient willpower to maintain any effort or discipline I need for achieving each resolution.

·      Let's be real. New year resolutions are possible with this 7-factor approach, but that doesn't mean they're easy.

·      It's hard to give yourself permission to take enough time to choose your resolutions, plan them out, factor them into your lifestyle, and then make efforts to take the first step, and each next step, until they are all done. But it's the only way.

6.    People

·      My circle of friends are developed or replaced by people that can encourage and support me in the direction I wish my life to take this year.

·      You may have heard that your income probably matches the average income of your 5 closest friends?

·      Likewise: If you want to get fit, get healthy, improve your finances, spend more time with family, and so on, then having friends that are traveling the same positive journey as you will help you stick to yours.

7.    Politics

·      Damn be those politicians bankrupting our economy and I will play my part to vote the bastards out so our civilization can pursue it's great technological rise into prosperity and harmony.

·      Empower yourself with knowledge by reading from liberty and reason oriented info sources such as Cato Institute, Reason Magazine, Twelve Visions Party, Wikileaks, etc.

Keeping New Year Resolutions – The Bottom line:

·      If you want the best opportunity of attaining your New Year resolutions in 2011 be sure to go way beyond the easy first step of listing things you would like manage the 7 factors of projection, purpose, process, prioritization, procrastination, people, and politics.

·      Take the time and trouble to define in maximum detail exactly how you want life to be and the step-by-step details of each resolution this year.

regards,

AK Rao
www.onechildonelight.org

RE: Something that answers one of my questions

Hi Kiran,

I just have a line or two to describe my thoughts on the question you posed below…

It's like someone sitting on the top of a tree branch & hurriedly cutting it – without noticing the abyss underneath him/her… we are too moved the constant need to outperform us vis-à-vis the competition, that it hardly matters as to the means employed..  maybe it's like … "Ends justify means".. and hence, the means that we are using now-a-days, may result in "The End"

Something that answers one of my questions

I have gone through this small article in yesterday's ET that kind of gave an answer to my question. Actually when I started asking this question, I knew the answer but I thought if no one is thinking like me, then I could be wrong, so instead of going with opinion and solutions, I took this questions to many learned people. They give a wide range of answers and none of them satisfied me; may be I was looking for them to match the answer I have (my own bias), but then it doesn't matter. Now that someone published in the paper, I decided to make my opinion public by agreeing with this article and appreciating the article.

My Question was and still is: Is the current hunger for growth really necessary? If every corporation (incorporating the desires of individual) drives for more and more and keep learning from their failures and become more and more efficient and complex, what would it lead to? Can our Blue Planet support this hunger, can it sustain the man-made changes or will make it such changes that man cannot sustain? Now to the article:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DEEP ECONOMY

Bill McKibben


FOR most of human history,the two birds More and Better roosted on the same branch You could toss one stone and hope to hit both.But the distinguishing feature of our moment is this: Better has flown a few trees over to make her nest.That changes everything.Now,if youve got the stone of your own life,or your own society,gripped in your hand,you have to choose between them.Its More or Better.Given all that we know about topics ranging from the molecular structure of carbon dioxide to the psychology of human satisfaction,we need to move decisively to rebuild our local economies.These may well yield less stuff,but they produce richer relationships;they may grow less quickly,if at all,but they make up for it in durability.
Shifting our focus to local economies will not mean abandoning Adam Smith or doing away with markets.Markets,obviously,work.Building a local economy will mean,however,ceasing to worship markets as infallible and consciously setting limits on their scope.We will need to downplay efficiency and pay attention to other goals.We will have to make the biggest changes to our daily habits in generations and the biggest change,as well,to our worldview,our sense of what constitutes progress.The old realism an endless More is morphing into a dangerous fantasy.In the face of energy shortage,of global warming,and of the vague but growing sense that we are not as alive and connected as we want to be,I think weve started to grope for what might come next.And just in time.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Let me know what you think about this.

Suggestion to Banks with online banking facility - HDFC, ICICI and others

I have sent the below mail to one of the banks and wanted to reproduce it in a public forum for the benefit of other banks.

Sub: Suggestion regarding cheque transaction management.

With the rise in usage of cash withdrawal from ATMs and payments/fund transfers through Internet Banking, customers (at least the salaried class and those who are well versed with online banking) are using cheques sparingly. But then these customers are the most prone to not doing the diligent part of cheque payments, which is maintaining the required amount till the time the cheque gets cleared.

I have a suggestion to your Bank to add value to its online internet banking service by helping customers overcome such issue and all the associated (Cheque returned for lack of funds, penalties thereof and reputation risk and the inconvenience in correcting the error) problems.

All the bank has to do is add a new service in the online banking service that can be called "cheque management." This service should work like this:

1. Whenever a customer issues a cheque, he/she can login to the online banking account and click on the cheque management service.
2. Fill the details of the cheque issued - name of the party, cheque number, amount to be paid etc.
3. Then click on the block cheque amount. After confirmation the said amount will get blocked from the customer's account and he/she will not be able to withdraw that amount from any means and the blocked amount will be used only for payment of the cheque indicated
4. In case there is any change in the cheque payment transaction, customer should be able to unblock the amount and do the necessary.

This should be only a voluntary, customer request based service and the Bank should not have any liability of any mistakes in amount blocked.

The information fed in the online account can be used to cross verify the cheque presented and can be used to avoid frauds too.

I would be delighted if the merits of this suggestion is discussed and implemented in a suitable manner. In case any further details are required, feel free to call me (your customer care has my number - hehehe)

Thanks and Regards
Kiran Kumar A

What makes an ocean

I always had a pessimistic view about the CSR initiatives of companies. So when I got a mail from our Branding group to send them a list of CSR initiatives taken up in our vertical, I simply wrote a run-of-the-mill mail to other locations to forward me the details of initiatives taken up them. I just got three points, first one is about a medical camp conducted at some village where our project is being implemented - I thought what's so great about it, next point is about a 5000 rs donation to CRY by a group of employees, I felt that these are better than me, may be they didn't do anything themselves but at least they believed someone to do some useful work and the last one was the most interesting - as a part of our project implementation, we would need access to certain place and we pay crop compensation to the farmer whose crop may get damaged in that process, in one such case, the farmer is a old man and had a paralysis stroke, he got the usual crop compensation, which might be better than what he would have made from the crop (owing to the drought conditions), the story actually starts here, the two young engineers who were involved in this activity decided to go the extra mile, they discovered that the farmer wanted to buy a pair of oxen with the untimely money he got but was not in a condition to visit a market, negotiate and buy the ox, so these guys helped the farmer in identifying an excellent pair of oxen and then did all the negotiations and bought the oxen. When I saw the photograph, somewhere in my heart I felt very good, I surely have a soft corner for agriculture and cattle owing to my childhood in a remote village but then who doesn't like agriculture and who wouldn't appreciate the beauty of the pair of oxen in the photograph. Great job friends, small drops of good deeds such as these do create the ocean of positive energy and I am writing this post just to add another drop to that ocean


Kiran Alla

Twist or a turn

My quest has led me to a new route. It could be a twist or a simple turn, not sure at this moment even as I start feeling better. But why write these thoughts on this blog - is it an attempt to project myself, is it to gain acceptance from some known and some unknown readers; I know that these are embedded in my actions and whenever I realize it, I would stop writing my thought junk on the blog but then the second principle that I want to implement is making me write this post.

For quite sometime, since the time I became independent, I have been following the principle that I will do no act that will harm others (at least to the extent my knowledge/wisdom goes) and I will not allow or keep quiet if someone is harming me. This has been the guiding principle for me to channelize my energies and to reconcile my actions at the end of the day. The second principle, about which I have been aware for quite sometime but not been practicing as rigorously as the first one, is that my happiness is not something that is limited just to me, it is linked to so many others and other things that if I just focus on myself, I would just remain independent and will be living in an island and would be going in circles.

Finally after about 12 years of experimentation and intermittent implementation I have decided to adopt the second principle in all my actions. Apart from not doing harm to others and not allowing others to harm me, from now on, I am going to spend time in evolving myself and others around me, with the clarity that only effort is mine while result depends on many other things. I have now decided to fully adopt the principle of "Interdependence" that Stephen R Covey wrote about in his Seven Habits book. Not that I have not practiced it but from now on I will make a conscious effort to make every action a beneficial interdependent action.

I would keep sharing my experiences and would greatly appreciate any inputs, reflections.

Dynamic websites

My blogging has surely become quite intermittent. This is not because I have stopped having anything to share but because I am trying multiple things but my blog is still like my native place. I have been trying to bring whatever I am doing elsewhere to this blog, so that the regular don't miss seeing my ramblings (those who get used don't care if it is good or bad, I presume they just need the dose).

I would like to share this idea that has been coming back again and again in recent days and after seeing Firefox launching its Personas, I felt it is good time to share this idea.

I keep visiting certain websites on a regular basis, for example - my personal mail, a news site, my bank site, a certain professional body and so on. All these websites are well designed and look great for the first few times you visit them but after sometime they start getting boring - same color, same fonts, same logos.

I started thinking wouldn't it be wonderful if they make the website look dynamic not just customize/personalize. More and more we are living (spending time) on the internet and since the marginal cost going dynamic is small (I am assuming this here), it would be nice if we can make internet more like the Wonderland that Alice went to. This will provide opportunity for the creative part of us to come out on a larger canvas and keep life (internet) more interesting.

Google has been doing this on its home page and I think people like the surprise element of that without loosing the basic nature. I mean to say that websites can become dynamic without changing their basic character/identity. I can try this on my blog itself but then I am not that savvy and even though I tried to get some help earlier, not much actually happened.

I want this message to mainly reach ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, ADB, WRI, different sites hosted on nic.in, even gmail. Let's see if someone is reading

What to do with the extra money FM gave us - Save or Spend?

After a long time, our Finance Minister gave relief to all of us in the salaried class. By increasing the tax slabs and adding another 20k tax free investment in Infra Bonds, he gave 51000 extra money in hand (if your taxable income is 8 lakhs or more) and 6000 reduction in tax payable if you chose to invest 20k in infra bonds.

 

Splurge or Save will be the big question. I hope that I am correct in saying that my reader group has more or less reached a certain maturity level in our careers and that we are all cash positive and we expect to be on a growth path for few more years. My further discussion would be based on this assumption.

 

What to do with the extra income - splurge or save? Before you choose to decide on the correct answer, let me take the fizz out of the question by adding that there is no single correct answer. The plausible answer is "it depends."

 

One has to live in the current moment otherwise there is no life, you would either have memories or dreams. Memories and dreams are not totally unnecessary - you get cheered up when you recall a happy moment and will get motivated when you start thinking about a dream, in fact they are part of present but alas memories and dreams cannot feed us nor can they make things happen. You have to make things happen in present so that you can realise your dreams in future look back at these as past memories.

 

For me, Money is a kind of measurement. Measurement of various things - value, utility, energy, requirement, needs etc. Of these, utility is the most subjective one that impacts our view about money and all other earthly things. What is this utility, then? Utility is supposed to be the happiness (another subjective word) derived by the individual by doing a certain task, physical, mental or emotional and disutility is the unhappiness or discomfort.

 

Utility, as can be observed easily by any one of you independently, can be derived from various things - eating, sleeping, playing, watching a movie, possessing a rare thing, interacting with someone, caring or being cared by someone, reading a book or watching a nice movie, spending time with someone you like, mostly categorizable as satiating different types of hungers and certain abstract things such as meditation, prayer etc. Sometimes utility and disutility go hand in hand and in such situations we think about the net effect and decide whether to do it or not.

 

End of the day, all of us want our day to be a day in which we have gained some utility and thereby experience life positively. If, on a given day, all you experience is disutility, you would wish that you were better dead than alive. What I am arriving at is that on a daily basis we keep searching for utility like a bee searches for honey - searching has some disutility but finding what we want has greater utility, so we are ready to experience some disutility to gain utility later.

 

 

One of the first steps to make life better - is to identify the things that give us more and more utility. But as money is designed to represent the aspects that have common utility to all human beings, it generally can buy things that all human beings can recognize - you can have tasty food, travel to a exotic destination, but some entertainment, indulge in a pleasure hobby etc etc. And the utility money can buy is the easier one though it may not last long and since the disutility of doing the work to gain money and utility that is gained by spending such money are disconnected we never know if it was worth it (disutility of earning money vs the utility gained by spending money)

 

While we need the utility that can be bought by money to live, there are many other things not related to money but can be done if you are alive. My take is that we should keep using money to buy those things that we need to live - food, house, clothing etc but learn to see the real utility. Wearing a 2000 rs branded shirt may make you feel better and superior to a roadside pedestrian but if you look at the real utility, the value of things that 2000 rs can buy will look like a mountain compared to the branded shirt. You can spend 500 rs at a multiplex but if you make effort and plan and meet few friends for a sport, it will give you far more happiness. So learn to understand yourself and your utility for various things. One of the most important activities I have done as a human being is having good friends. Human being is supposed to be the most evolved being on Earth at least in my conscious and spending time with a mentally evolved human is the best thing I can do after my basic hungers are fulfilled. While fulfilling hunger is necessary you have understand the hunger first, why do you desire something so much is a difficult question to answer but you can keep trying.

 

When you save, you are postponing consumption of things that money can buy and it means fulfillment of someone elses utility. If you have got enough utility for the day, then your postponement of that little utility not cause disutility. Thus right amount of saving is a zero utility/disutility activity and knowing this "right amount" is critical.

 

To conclude, it is a good time to do a review because you have that little extra money in your hand (about 10%) without any additional effort. You are not sacrificing anything and therefore you need not feel bad and decisions that are taken when one is stable would be good decisions. Take a good decision

 

I hope I gave you some good utility in writing this mail and sharing my thoughts with such good friends is a great utility for me. If you want to discuss anything personally, feel free to get in touch with me.

Inovative ways for New Joinees Induction

I received a mail on Linkedin from a contact seeking suggestions for new and Innovative way for New Joinee Induction. He mentioned that they do the Following things:
1. Corporate Induction Presentation
2.Sharing with Company's each and every policies in details along with HR
3.Corporate Office/ Factory round.
4. Meeting with Key person (HOD's)

 

My reply, which I felt can be of of help to other HR Managers is as below:

 

One of the first things a new joinee needs is a friendly peer. Seek volunteers in different departments who would like to volunteer for such work and train them a bit on what to say and what not to and during induction introduce these guys a friendly peers and tell them that the new joinee can approach any one of them for any issue. Slowly they will develop good rapport with one or more old employees, which will help them transit smoothly into the system.

Another innovative thing you can do is to conduct a small competition among the new joinees. Give them a target such as making a presentation about the company to an investor or a customer and give them a list of people they can meet to get information.

Regarding policies and processes, give them a challenge of coming up with the most difficult questions they can think of about the policies and create a repository of the same as FAQs. Everytime someone comes up with a new one that is not covered earlier, reward them with something. That way they will go through the policies thoroughly and will also act as feedback to the company. Later let them go through questions raised by previous new joinees.

Dear Shri Manmohan Singh

Dear Sir,

I am writing this letter to bring a message from my fellow Indians to your attention. It is mainly related to what they have been expecting since they voted Congress (and you) back to power with much clear majority. Last time they were not so sure but looking at what you managed to achieve even with left problems, they decided to relieve you of that problem and keeping in mind the global crisis they felt you are the best choice to do something progressive as you earlier did (or appeared to) in 1991.

We have already taken note of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi's sacrifice of position. We know that Sonia Gandhi would never like to be in a position of direct power and that she is doing whatever she is doing so as to create a good situation for Rahul to succeed. There is time for this to happen and the Indian population will wait for that. But meanwhile we are expecting little more than just holding the seat for Rahul from you. In the last 8-9 months we have noticed that you had allowed ministers to be chosen not on merit but on a spoils-sharing agreement within Congress and with other parties. But then you are still the Prime Minister.

We have given you enough time to test the pitch and play defensive for quite a bit of time and if you are thinking you can play out the next 4 years like Dhoni tried to and failed to in the test against South Africa, let us know immediately. It is better to act retired hurt and sit in the pavilion rather than being out there and wasting precious time. As the Prime Minister of a country with 1.2 billion Indians, every minute you waste is equivalent to 33 lifetimes and I request you to keep this in mind whenever you chose to waste a minute.

More important message I would like to bring from my co-countrymen is that we have expectations other than those Sonia Gandhi, Congress, allies of Congress etc have from you. We want to lead a peaceful, harmonious, simple life. Majority of we Indians aspire for few simple things and are ready to live with many imperfections.

First of all, we need to have good food. It is good that Agriculture's contribution has shrunk to less than 20% from a high of 60% earlier but the food still forms the major portion of our consumption, at least 40% to 80% of daily spending by an average Indian would be on food. If you now see the way food prices are growing, whether it is the making of Mr. Pawar or it is because middle class Indians started eating more as former US President Bush said, it is becoming increasingly difficult to have two square meals without feeling sad about the amount of money that has been spent on them. How can a average Indian come out the poverty or below average life cycle if he is constantly grappling with the challenge of increasing food prices. All his increase in productivity, innovation, hard work is getting sucked by the spiraling food prices. Please think about this. As the Prime Minister, you have access to all the intelligent brains of the country in various bureaucratic, political and academic positions, brains that were nurtured over a long period of time and brains that keep writing excellent theories for newspapers and if you can put the best brains together, we are sure that you can come up with a pareto solution, which will address one of the basic responsibilities of modern society - opportunity to live.

Second, please stop thinking in terms of stock market rallies or dips and the macro GDP numbers for sometime. If you ensure that all the entrepreneurs are facilitated to achieve their goals in fair means, they will push the GDP enough. Simplify the regulations and taxation and ensure that you don't have provisions through large fish can escape but the small are caught. Treat everyone equitably. Tax income of every individual and organization and ask no more. Don't entertain smart Chidambarams, who come up ideas such as tax a honest man who wants to withdraw his money from the bank. Be fair and try to see if you can keep Gandhi's words in mind while doing this. Mr. Gandhi, if I remember rightly, said that an individual should earn only as much as he needs in his lifetime. Every individual needs food throughout this life, needs a shelter over his head, would like to educate his children, would like to have some entertainment in the form of TV, music, cinema, arts and other cultural activities, would like to help his fellow human beings in need of it. Few may want other goals, let them do it but don't let them lock in the resources in the form of money to such extent that other human beings are starving as they have no opportunity to earn their bread for the day.

Lastly, it would be great if you can keep asking representatives from different sections, representatives who truly represent their section not those who claim to be representing, what is that one thing if changed would impact them in a positive way, not from financial dimension but from societal and economical dimension. Ask the young kids from different regions, ask the bread-earners, ask the bread-makers, ask the mothers, ask the honest, ask the corrupt, ask the responsible, ask the laggards, ask the MBAs, ask illiterates, ask the roadsider, what I mean to say is develop a feeler network. The objective of our democratic society is not to achieve a high GDP growth or a certain level of per capita income or to ensure that the stock market goes up or to ensure that the interests of few are served, it is to eliminate the "might is right" and other similar brutal forces and help human and other living beings leadn a civilised and collaborative life in which there is always a give and take between living and non-living beings.

May be I wrote a little too lengthy letter but I am sure you would have got the message. Please think about this and do something about it. We have high hopes from you.

Regards
A Indian Citizen

Where do we stand?

Just saw this article on Economist. Wonder do we (India) gain a position in such graph.

Wish you a Happy Sankranthi and what exactly do I wish

This blog post got triggered when my friend Satya sent our Middle Earth group a Happy Pongal e-mail.

I must thank him for the wishes and at the same time for triggering some thoughts in me. I am missing the Bhogi celebrations but I guess I can participate in the Lohri celebrations. But I would like to say something about this "wishing" business. While there is nothing wrong and in fact good that we use this opportunity to say hi (actually saying that I am alive and I remember you all), I have never experienced this wishing business till I moved to Hyderabad, a urban city. Similar to what famous poet Sri Sri says in the "Saapatu etu ledu paataina paadu brother" song of Aakali Raajyam movie, there is no difference between Sankranti or Dasara or Christmas in the Urban City, for the common man it is a day when he forcibly takes a day off and spend some his savings on food, clothes and other little luxuries.

And people like us with incomes in the 70 percentile and above range keep wishing each other - Happy Pongal, Happy Sankranthi etc etc, and take a day off to spend time in front of TV or watch a movie and spend time with family, which are our little luxuries. I think it is time for us to research into the roots of these festivals apart from the mythologies attached and understand the social aspect and we should try to reconstruct our culture in these urban jungles and make the festivals alive. Thanks to internet, we have all the information at our finger tips these days

It is time for us to take time off and indulge in activities like kite flying, making rangolis (men too can help), distribute some vegetables and rice (as is a custom in villages even today), have the pongali (a sweet dish made of late harvested rice and freshly made jaggery and milk) and other home made dishes, wear new clothes and meet friends and relatives and pray to god.

I would also like take this opportunity to mention that despite the fact that politicians are fighting over Telangana and Samikhya Andhra, this festival unites all the telugu speaking people in a unique way.

సంక్రాంతి బాగా జరుపుకోండి, ముగ్గులు బాగా వెయ్యండి వెయ్యలేకపొతే పక్క వారి గొబ్బెమ్మలు తోక్కండి, అరిసెలు, బూరెలు, చక్కిడాలు బాగా తినండి (వండటం రాక పొతే స్వగృహ స్వీట్స్ లో కొనుక్కోండి), పతంగులు లేదా గాలి పటాలు ఎగుర వెయ్యండి, ఉన్నదాంట్లో కొద్దిగా లేని వాడికి పంచండి, అందరూ సుఖంగా ఉండండి :)

Photo Courtesy: Chittaranjan's Photostream, Manavata.org

Who is the Third Idiot?

Media is all gung-ho that the Amir starrer is a mega mega grosser. But novelist Chetan Bhagat is crying that he has not been given enough credit and Amir is supposedly blasting him for asking more than what is agreed in the contract. If these two are thinking that people are idiots, they are two of the idiots in the title and the third would be those who believe these media nonsense.

Though I liked the novel and I'm sure that the movie would be gud, the hype is nothing but nonsense. I was originally planning to watch in a theater, now I have decided to watch in DTH. Even the previous Amir's movie Ghajini, which was a remake, was not as good as the first version in tamil and it no where is close to Memento. Memento is a puzzle from the beginning to the end, Ghajini managed to popularize the almost-forgotten Polaroid camera.

I have read all the four novels of Chetan Bhagat and two of them are based on his own life, which are the better of the lot. One night @ call center was a big flop while 3 mistakes of my life is ok. One can sympathize with his Mother that she couldn't find her son's name but Chetan trying to use it in media is a proof that he is trying to live up to the title.

All those who read his book would know that the movie is based on his novel and if it has really sold so many millions then there is no necessity for Vidhu or Amir to acknowledge it. But if Chetan and/or his Mother is feeling bad about not being able to see Chetan's name right after the movie title, then no one can help it.

Hope 2010 will not be full of such celebrity idiots and that they become sensible over time.

Wish you all a Very Happy New Year once again.

Adios 2009 --> Welcome 2010

Happy New Year Everyone

Avatar - My take

These days almost all the movie, novels, articles seem to be directed in the same direction - selfishness of human beings, how they have/are destroying Earth, and different kinds of possible endings and how forces of nature would stand united etc etc.

Right from Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Matrix, The Day After Tomorrow, 2012 and now Avatar. More or less all of them are saying that life will not be as what we are experiencing in future and the continuous digging into nature's resources and breaking the energy chain is gonna lead to some kind of disaster.

James Cameron, with Avatar, took this game to a different planet. So there is nothing great about the storyline. I can see so many parallels from which he must taken inspiration. What is more awe inspiring is the way he made the movie, it is amazing. I have watched in 2D and now decided to watch it again on 3D. I would say it is a must watch.



Every one of us, given a chance, would say will behave like the main character of the film. He made the hero so simple and relatable and he convinces that skills of a human can come handy in a distant planet.

Nothing in the movie comes out of the blue but the imagination and being able to bring it live on-screen is what Cameron managed to do successfully and he has done it in a fantastic way. One worrying thing that occurs to me from all the above message movies, books etc is that while the human species seem to be a harmonius one by nature but the kind of needs we have developed are building a artificial barrier.




I really don't know if I need this blog but I am using it and will keep using it as long as it is available. And that's the concern - I am doing something, which I am not really sure if I need it and at the same without understanding what is price I am paying for it.

Conscious Action

As a living being, we all keep doing so many things at a sun-conscious level. But as a species endowed with the advanced faculty of thinking, analysing and assimilating, we can further ourselves only through conscious action.

In so many situation we keep belittling ourselves and end up in a state of disappointment and distress. If you remember Newton's third law - Each action has an equal and opposite reaction; and if you understand that your action requires certain amount of energy and therefore it will have to result in another re-action equaling in energy to that of yours, you will understand the power of your conscious action. One should also keep in mind that focusing the energy on a specific action is critical as directionless energy gets scattered and one cannot see a visible re-action. Instead focus your energy on whatever action you decide to take and you would be able to clearly see the re-action. The re-action could be the result that you desire or something else but then if you direct your action correctly you can expect a correct re-action.

So next time you want a certain outcome, don't just sit there and think in scattered directions, think in a clear direction and focus your energy and action in that direction. That's the first step to achieve a successful result.

I have not discriminated good or bad here as energy has no such distinction, however I believe that life itself is a positive force and therefore trying to do something that one believes is bad would be against our nature and therefore will result in negative energy on us.