interim thoughts...

Thinking, Fast and Slow

2012-01-15T15:44:00.001+05:30

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahnemann. This is the book I have had in my hands for a few weeks. Now, dont get me wrong. The book is a great great read. Indeed I would wholeheartedly recommend it anybody who is interested in human nature and human behaviour. It is a power packed course in psychology. With the added bonus that it will show us, how we think. Think thats impossible? Try out some of the exercises in the book.

This book is no easy read. Well, you could skim through it, but that does no justice to the book or the topic. Daniel Kahnemann divides the brain into S1 and S2. S1 is the Quick-Gun-Murugan. S2 is the laid back arm chair Sherlock Holmes. Bad comparison, but this is written from S1 - so there! S1 is hasty, snappy and quick to make connections complete with all existing biases. S2, will, of course, give you the real whodunnit. Only if you choose to engage S2, because S2 is, well, lazy, among other things.

This book cannot read at S1 levels, has to be read at S2 levels. So, go for it.

And all you political analysts out there, do read this book. Very very instructive.

Lajja

2012-01-15T15:32:00.002+05:30

I picked up a copy of Taslima Nasrins book - Lajja - its English translation actually published by Penguin. I have not read the original in Bengali - and I suppose assuming that translations usually do not capture emotions as well as originals. The original must have been quite a dark novel.

Reading the novel was quite depressing. The book pulls no punches - it is in your face and quite unemotional in describing violence and the despondency of the situation the protagonists go through. Also, it offers none of the usual politically correct language which one sees in a novel with a theme like this.

Anyway, if you have the guts to read it, do it, but be sure it will stick in your mind. Read the book for the rest, I suppose!

Statues in Mayaland

2012-01-08T06:38:00.001+05:30

The Election Commission has decided to issue a notification asking for the numerous elephant statues and Mayawati statues to be covered as part of the Election Code in the run up to the UP elections. This is straight out of Alice in wonderland.

Does the EC really think those statues will affect the outcome of the elections? Does the EC really think that the electorate is so stupid and brainless as to be affected by the presence of the statues of a few leaders? And statues the only reason why people vote?So, overall, this is a laughable edict. By covering the elephant statues does the EC really think they are doing something to ensure free and fair elections? And by covering the statues as well? And what about real elephants?

What if Maya decides to show wildlife documentaries on TV all day long as part of a "conservation programme" never mind that there are no elephants in UP. And what if there are special screenings of "Haathi Mera Saathi" in theatres? Or if the radio blares "Chal Chal Chal Mere Haathi" all day long. But perhaps they are doing their job - or showing that they are doing their job. Like security theatre, this is election theatre.

Do see the absurdity in this proposal when taken to its logical conclusion. The Congress symbol is the "hand" - the human hand. Does this mean peoples hands will have to covered? I mean, they walk into the polling booth with two symbols of the Congress per person. This is subliminal advertising - is it not. I suspect the people will have to either cover their hands with gloves, but that would make it too obvious, or boxing gloves perhaps.

And then what about those numerous statues of Nehru, Indira and Rajeev? Will they be covered too? What about some of their pictures in government offices? And actually the picture of Mahatma Gandhi who Congress evokes not so subtly as part of their campaigns will also need to be covered. Especially in those currency notes - regardless of whether they are passed off as bribes for voters? May I propose Sodexho coupons? Or perhaps Credit Cards?

And by the way Bangalore and other cities have JNNURM printed all over its newer city buses. JN stands for the initials of Indias first Prime Minister who the Congress never fails to invoke. And there are the many roads named after quite a few Congress politicians - mostly first dynasty members. What of them? A temporary name change perhaps? And then there are a thousand schemes named after various members of the first family all over the country. Whitewash them perhaps? And there are some buildings, hospitals, bus stops, bridges which sport the dynasty names. Cover them all up in packing material perhaps?

And that is just the Congress. What about similar edicts in future elections? MNS Maharashtra, if I am not mistaken has the "Train" for its symbol. So, are we planning to shut down Mumbais local trains during the run up to the BMC elections? Or will trains run sans locomotives? And what of the lotuses? The Baha'i temple is a huge concrete lotus in the heart of the capital, dammit. And what does one do about the pesky sun - the damn thing rises each day. And I wonder what the EC did about it in the run up to the Tamil Nadu elections- given that it is a symbol of DMK? And then if I remember right, the bicycle is a party symbol too. Do bicycle riders keep them at home or cover it up and ride them? The AIADMK has two leaves as its symbol. I shudder to think of the implications.

A quick glance at the election symbols will tell you that the symbols are everyday objects by and large - designed for easy recollection across linguistic and cultural barriers. Parties can and will make bigger things out of them just as the Congress party has perfected the art of naming various government schemes across the country. So, the first thing to do is to perhaps reverse those naming conventions and move onto a more apolitical nomenclature.

Overall, the EC does have a point. But then, the ruling party should not be allowed to politicise names of buildings, bridges, roads, schemes - because needless to say all these have subliminal effects. Of course, no subliminal effect is as great as cash transfers during elections or fatwas issued by certain communities and the election commission would do well to focus on the real things that affect the outcome of elections than statues in Mayaland.

(This was published as an Op Ed in The Pioneer, here)

The emperors new clothes

2011-12-31T16:31:00.004+05:30

Got the idea of the title via a @doubtinggaurav tweet. Could be a meandering post, so, be warned!

The year 2011 in politics will go down in history as a great year of David versus Goliaths. The first David (with an organization propping him up) of course was Anna Hazare who took on the might of the Congress and the first family. And the second David of course is Subramaniam Swamy who has taken on the might of the Congress and various ministers single handedly and has proved that the Indian Legal System can be worked through. More power to both of them, though I dont necessarily agree that a Lokpal will solve the incessant corruption in the country. A government that can appoint puppets can appoint a puppet anywhere and destabilise any institution. Thank you Anna Hazare and Subramaniam Swamy for fighting. In the year of "ooth" and so called "oothful leaders oozing charm" not living up to the mark, thank you septuagenarians for fighting. And thank you Rahul Dravid too (as @saliltripathi pointed out).

2011 will also go down as a year in which the spectre of corruption has seen to be visibly corroding the country from inside and outside. We are probably being ruled by the "most corrupt government ever" and perhaps even by the most "incompetent leaders ever". Given this background, I have my own doubts that much of the bull run in the recent past in the market was fuelled by all this dirty money. So, while the small investor is now nursing his injuries the ultra rich enjoy their stay in tax havens.The middle class is well and truly screwed. Well, thank you for the LPG subsidy atleast. In any case you exist only to pay taxes.

The current ruckus around the Food Security Bill points in the same direction as NREGA to fuel our future towards a subsidy fuelled population that believes in being entitled. My recent visits to Kerala, TN and some interior parts of Karnataka only supplements this. In both places, labour for agriculture is not available since people to work in the REGA and take home free food grains. In Kerala, migrant labour is coming in from other states. Soon, even Maharashtra will need "UPites/Biharis". The only question is how long will "UPites/Biharis" need to find work given that soon food and work will come in free in any case.Thank you for democraticising corruption through nicely named schemes. Atleast somebody is making money. And some farmers in some other countries will soon make money in the name of FSB.

But the sad part of last year has been the blatant one sided reporting from the media. Look around yourself, on your television screens, print media and you will find very few reports castigating the government for its conduct. On the one hand, the media went hammer and tongs against BJP CMs but remains quiet against Congress CMs and ministers. And we are at this unique point in history when the opposition is blamed for all the crap that the government is spreading. Amazing no. I thought the whole point of life was to take responsibility, but it looks like spreading conspiracy theories and ascribing blame to someone else is what our so called leaders taught us over the past couple of years. Oh, well, thank you for the description of those non-existent robes of integrity and whatever else, media.

The more I see it the more the country is headed in the direction of the North Koreas. As an old joke used to go about USSR. "The newspaper is full of truths, half truths and lies.The sports news are the truth. The weather forecasts are half truths and the rest all are lies." Thank Evan Williams for Twitter. And thank you, Sibble for not blocking it. Yet.

A reading of the novel Animal Farm is highly recommended. Sort of the reflects the state of India at this point. So, is it all gloom, boom and doom? Hopefully not. I hope that our democracy (whatever that means) wakes up and elects the right leader and government and stops this rollercoaster ride to disaster. Till then, we have the time to do what it takes to ensure that it happens. How? Tweet more and create more awareness to begin with! Thank you, all those on my timeline to keep me sane...

Google Chrome advert on Tanjore paintings

2011-12-24T19:06:00.000+05:30

This particular advertisement (for Google Chrome) using the Tanjore paintings as an example is simply mindblowing. It made me sit up and take notice for one. It also made me curious enough to go to the particular website to see what is all about. I suspect this video will generate more hits the site than anything else. Also, very very inspiring. Indeed, the web is what you make of it. And why web, life as well.

Honda Brio

2011-12-17T11:23:00.002+05:30

I spotted the Honda Brio yesterday and me and the little one were stunned by the looks of the car.

The overall size, the punchy small look and the back. And the back of the car, oh the back of the car – is awesome. Not sure what makes it so, is it the large glass area or just the shape,whatever it is.

I think this is the best looking small car in the Indian auto world. I thought the Beat was good, but the Brio beats all the others by a mile. So, as far as my auto predictions go (despite my lack of enthusiasm for oil burners), this one seems to be a hit!

The app world

2011-12-11T21:41:00.001+05:30

It is a long and old debate on why there is no Google or Facebook originating out of India. The debate has never really been settled and I have usually lingered on the side of the fact that it is no big deal. And that the IT, ITES itself is an industry.

But look at the world of mobile apps. And ask that question to yourself. Why dont we see creative, breakthrough ideas originating from India? What we get to see is usually Hanuman Chalisa and apps for the normal media (like newspapers, TV channels) or B2C stuff (like ICICI on mobile). Sure, there are a few on bus schedules and a few on railways schedules as well, but none that stand out.

I asked the same question to @vishalgondal (CEO of Indiagames) on twitter and he named a few - including Prison Mayhem (produced by 99games online), Bruce Lee, Ra.one Genesis (by indiagames), Quarrel (UTV Ignition) and others. I have tried a couple of them and some of them were nice - but nothing out of the ordinary.

When I say out of the ordinary, let me qualify. I mean, look at the 2011 best apps (one of the zillions lists available on the net) or the best games of 2011 on the App Store and there is nothing that stands out of India.

Again, you might ask why is this a big deal or why should this be a big deal. I think that there is much more creativity waiting to be unleashed there than the current sets of apps coming out of India. Why? Because there is so much that India has - that can be derived out of its rich culture and heritage and there is much potential for some of them to be turned into apps! Are the game developers listening?

On Retail

2011-12-11T20:40:00.001+05:30

Swaminathan S Aiyar often has this knack of generating "Eureka" moments for readers. Well, I will speak for myself here. I used to a regular reader of his columns in the olden days of print only, but these days, I prefer to use twitter to pick and choose my readings - and I was pleasantly surprised to see another one in this column.

He argues that online shopping is the real threat to small shopkeepers, not necessarily big hypermarkets and he actually argues that nobody can actually stop it.

I am not sure about it in entirety, but then who can be "sure" about anything (usually 100% surety is surely wrong). But anyway, the Eureka moment was how he calls big box hypermarkers as 20th century and he uses the Thanksgiving data in the US to drive home his point.

And that part surely rings true. I am a big fan of online shopping. For one it allows me to shop in remote and get someone to deliver for one. It also gives one access to all ranges and sizes - which may or may not be available in that specific shop that you happen to reach. It also allows one to reach retailers and products you might otherwise find it difficult to reach. It saves time - so if or someone is on a short trip, all I need to order my stuff and await delivery. I have tried all of these and I totally love it. But most of that is in the US context.

In India, I am a big fan of Flipkart - and it is worth checking if all bookstores are reporting the kind of numbers they do. Also, Amar Chitra Katha which is not always available in all shops (for god knows what reason). We are still some distance away from getting to big online shopping like the US - though much of KSRTC and Indian Railways and other travel stuff is best done online.

But whatever it is, he is right on the fact that indeed online shopping is the future (rather present). Also, why should a retail chain invest in costly land and people when it can all be done with a smooth online experience. And why should we have to drive down someplace, search for parking, wait for billing - retail experience sucks in most places. So, more power to this idea and as long as the Maomatas of the world keep opposing FDI in retail and ignore online shopping, great for customers!

Dhara hila, gagan gunja

2011-12-03T18:08:00.001+05:30

An inspiring poem recited by the Big B. I like the poem and the way it is recited as well.

Aa Bail...

2011-11-08T09:04:00.001+05:30

Will the big politicians currently in lock up get bail? They ask us - with pictures that paint colours of misery and words that would make you think that they were arrested for no fault of theirs except that they somehow, unknowingly ended swindling the exchequers by a few hundred crores wilfully. Will they get bail, the media asks us?

The banks will get bailed out, because they have far too much money. As I read recently, some of the banks are "too big to fail." Whether that bail out will save my deposit is a different point altogether. If you are a smaller bank, tough luck, sc*** you. If there are no banks, who will give the sops to all the sectors that the politicians want them to be given?

Blue collar industries will get bailed out, because they provide jobs. And if they go belly up, the funding to the politicians will stop. And if there is no industry, where will they give quotas to?

Airline industry jobs got saved because some politician went and threatened them which resulted in a conscience attack. They even got a credit deferral for fuel.

Agriculture will get bailed out, even for rich, super rich farmers.

Politicians, criminals will all get bail.

I have not seen anybody root for the IT industry. Deve Gowda? Farmers have champions, will P Sainath bat for the IT industry when the IT industry commits suicide?

In the midst of all this bail out bail out brouhaha, I am left wondering, will anybody bail people like me - the common man out?

Nobody bailed us out when oil touched 120$ and then some - even as petrol costs go through the roof.

Nobody bailed us out when vegetable and food prices shot through the roof.

Nobody offered us a loan, soft or otherwise...

Previously on the woes of the salaried class...

On Honesty

2011-11-07T21:11:00.000+05:30

Here is a question I ask of people. If you led a team (either as part of your own enterprise or as part of your job), would you let you someone who reports to you steal? Cheat? Swindle your customers? Con your
stakeholders?

The answer I have always got is a clear no. The logic is that they are honest and they expect people who work with them to be equally honest. The honest people that they are, they cannot stand dishonest people who want to take a a cut out of every thing that their firm does.

And then I gently veer the conversation to our current leadership in the government and I ask. So, tell me, what sort of an honest leader would allow their "reportees" to loot hundreds and thousands of crores under known and unknown scams? Not only are they let go scotfree, they are often resurrected in fancy posts.

Clearly, if you are an honest person, you would not allow the dishonest to thrive under you - as your own personal example shows. Therefore, there is only one option left - that the leaders are dishonest?

Wait, there is another option, they say. "Perhaps they were not aware."

Maybe there is a possibility that leaders are not aware of what goes on under them. But then I ask, "Would you be aware of any such things in your organization? And if you gave the same excuse, would your organization buy it?" No way - I would be fired, they say. That seems to answer that question.

And second, if someone brought it to your notice what would you do? I would fire them they say and ensure that they are given a bad report so that no other organization would hire them. Exactly I say, unlike what
is happening today where the corrupt are resurrected in free for all posts.

Think about your own example, the next time you think about honesty in public posts...

The Legend of Shikandi

2011-11-06T07:44:00.003+05:30

The only form of leadership that man has recognized and appreciated is the leadership of fighting from the front and leading from the front. Leading from the back or backseat driving has never had too much appeal throughout history. The legend of Shikandi is a case in point. According to this legend, Arjuna hid behind Shikandi to kill Bheeshma. In order to defeat the Kaurvas, defeating Bheeshma was essential and he being invincible - the only way to do it was deceit. Shikandi came in handy - he was the face while all the action happened behind.

It is no wonder then that there is no legend of Shikandi - being a "Shikandi" is generally seen as distasteful, cowardly and then some (garnish with your choice of adjectives).

For the very same reason, the people whose leadership we appreciate - Churchill, Gandhi, Mandela - for example, are all people who have led from the front. These are real leaders - leader who have never shied away from leading and making a public appearance and not leading from their hideouts.

In todays day and age, we have our own share of Shikandi and legends. While what they gain out of being in such a of Shikandi is not known - the original Shikandi had personal vendetta. Thus, atleast in the original Shikandis case, it was evident why he wanted to be what he was.

Well, today we firmly believe that Shikandi was a great leader...and who knows, in a future day and age, we may very well anoint him with more decorations...

Building castles with the sky

2011-11-05T20:50:00.000+05:30

No, that is not a typo - while others build castles in the sky, we are now building castles with the sky. This is about Aakash - the tablet aptly named after the blue sky - which will go down as a dud.

The problem with offering tablet PC's and laptops to a population already underserviced in terms of education opportunity or power is the utility.

Many years back, a newspaper in Mumbai had a 100 page issue as part of some anniversary celebration or something. Needless to say, vendors thought it was smarter to sell it directly as used paper rather than go through the trouble of having to sell it. Why? Because the cost and effort of carting it around was not worth the trouble of the commission it would offer them.

Ditto with laptops and tablets. The immediate utility of something like that is not that high as much as the immediate utility of the cash that the beneficiaries might get by selling them.

Imagine that you live in a slum. Now with the pathetic electricity supply you have, you have to manage a laptop or a tablet. And as it is in a slum,the risk of something being stolen is quite high - either by a drunkard relative or someone else. If the risk for stealing is low, then surely there are demands for money from everybody concerned - in which case, it is smarter to sell the damn thing for some immediate cash. And then to top it, you perhaps go to a school where the teachers is more absent than present. And while you do so, you have to lug around a laptop or tablet on your back. Overall, if you ask me, a losing proposition. Unless I plan to use the battery to power the monitor to light up the house during a load shedding in the evening hours!

You get the point. My smallish brain tells me that it is a waste of time and taxpayers money. The only people happy with this are the manufacturers and the supply chain who will probably laugh all the way to the bank. And then again, some of those who manage to get a good price on the damn thing may also be happy with it.

On the other hand - giving bicycles to schoolchildren might have a totally different effect...

Fly by Yourself

2011-11-05T20:13:00.001+05:30

First we took the cat out of the bag - actually it was a assembly set for a wind up plane - the kind you get in a Hobby ideas store. I have always been sceptical of something that claims it can fly - but then this time, I gave into curiosity and picked it up.

And here were on a holiday morning trying to assemble it. Two curious pairs of eyes were looking as we opened the box, laid out the components and spread out the instruction sheet. One was pounding me with ideas and giving me suggestions even as I was trying to get it right. "Will it do this", "Will it do that" he asked. "Hey, the pack says, it can do a hover and come back to your hand" And here I was trying to get the plane
assembled right, without breaking any of the rather flimsy looking parts.

Finally, the assembly happened. The first trial flight was a miserable one with the plane not even taking off. A few more winds (about 200 of them) and tried - no change - the damn thing would not take off. Disappointment on the little faces around was perceptible. And then, one more shot of winding it and throwing it the air (who knows, it may not take off, but glide through the air on its own power) - and it flew very
well. The tiny, flimsy aeroplane that will go down in history as our first flying model flew.

And then he said, "I want to do it myself". "But how will I count to two hundred and keep winding? I seem to lose count"

"Keep winding till it looks like noodles and then it will all knot up"

And then I get a call in the afternoon, "Appa, I managed to fly all by myself..."

Yup, someday you will fly all by yourself...

(Postscript: The story is about a year old. The damn model broke after a few tries and the customer service experience after that from Pidilite/Hobby Ideas has been extremely pathetic - despite multiple conversations and visits to stores. I finally gave up on it after a few months. So, my advice to anybody reading this post is - dont buy those models - they are too fragile and are a waste of your money. You will spend more time consoling your child after the model is broken and irrecoverable than the momentary enjoyment of the flight!)

Kerala thoughts

2011-11-05T20:00:00.000+05:30

I visited Kerala recently - my association with Kerala goes a few decades back and it happens to be my native place too.

I recall my dad saying sometime in the 80s, that the single lane road to the village road was exactly the same in the 50s, when he went to school. And this is the second decade of the 21st century - that road is exactly the same. And that road is no exception, the situation is the same in most parts of Kerala - the roads are as bad they have always been.

Over the past 30 years, like much of India, traffic and prosperity of this money order economy have increased steadily. As the rupee fell and the population going outside for work rose, money has come in at a steady tick. And Kerala has steadily lapped up all the new car models and smothered itself in ever more copious quantities of gold and other precious metals. The real estate boom which the country saw has had its effect in Kerala too - once agricultural land has given way to gated communities and posh sea and lake and river facing apartments. Land value has gone up multiple times. A small amount of IT companies have finally found an opening in the IT park in Trivandrum, but that really is about the only industry that has opened in the state in recent times. There are other jobs that the literate locals do not want to do and that gap is being hungrily fed by immigration from other parts of India. So, while Kerala exports manual labour (or plumbers, fitters etc. among others) to Gelf countries, it imports manual labour from other states of India - read Hindi speaking states. (For the first ever time in my life, I saw a bus board in Hindi in Kerala.) What tensions (communal and otherwise) this will cause remains to be seen.

A generation ago, my relatives worked in banks and other state owned enterprises and a few of them worked in colleges and found jobs in the handful of private enterprises. Their next generation has precious little chance of getting any job in Kerala - since our state owned enterprises are in no great shape and there are hardly other jobs available unless one counts attendants in gold souks and mobile phone stores. Software jobs are happening, but are really, too few to count as compared to any of the other 4 Southern states.

The point that I am trying to make, is that one on the one hand, because of the money order economy, the states people have made themselves prosperous while the state itself has had little or no role to play in it and that the state remains in as pitiable a condition as ever. The swanky houses hide the bad power and infrastructure situation. They have their gensets and inverters. The cool cars hide the bad roads.

Infrastructure is poor. The single lane roads are killers - especially with the new vehicles on it. Why could the state not acquire land to build better roads and railways? While land has been acquired by private entities to build swanky apartments, the government has not found itself able to acquire land for enterprises. Private entrepreneurship has found sources of labour from outside the state. But the government has not been able to reduce the grip of unions - in this state which has a strike every couple of weeks. So, the service industry which could naturally fit in this semi urbanized state with its high education levels is still struggling to find its feet.

KSRTC still runs old broken down buses and is unable to churn a profit, while the KSRTC of neighbouring Karnataka has taken great strides forward. The irony is not lost on the fact that Kerala with its transport services has not been able to tap into the thousands of tourists that pour into the state while neighbouring states have. Infact private operators in Kerala are doing very well. Tourism will suffer on account of bad infrastructure. As it is, it is horrendously expensive for most people to set foot in Kerala (Singapore and SriLanka compare favourably). Given the lack of facilities and the zooming cost associated with it, Gods own country could very well remain a slogan.

The Sabarimala pilgrimage contributes crores to Keralas economy - yet the temple surroundings, roads and facilities around it remain in pitiable condition. These pilgrims of course, are another type of tourists who contribute to fill Keralas coffers, but their condition remains despicable, as this years tragedy (now lost in public memory) shows.

Thirdly, Islamic fundamentalism is rapidly gaining ground in many parts of Kerala. And the political parties are cosying up in bed with them.

Theres a lot more that can be covered, but all in all, in my view it is not a very rosy future for Kerala - the state once famous for 100% literacy and then as gods own country - might well become a basket case very soon. I may be more pessimistic than sanguine, but I would love to be proved wrong!

2 free schools a district

2011-10-30T20:58:00.000+05:30

The Azim Premji foundation is about to start an initiative that aims to start 2 free schools per district of India by 2025. Thats 1300 schools by 2025. This is the year 2011. In 15 odd years, each district of the country will be covered. This is a laudable initiative. Think about it. While the government is launching cheap tablets - the crying need is not tablets, but schools. In the 21st century.

Imagine that this is the year 1947 or even 1950. In 15 odd years - by 1965, all our districts would have been covered by a network of quality schools. And it is ironical that all these years of socialist talk have not managed to get us a basic school system that works.

So, somewhere in the 21st century, a many who runs a company in a much derided industry (the much reviled IT which has given affluence and dreams to many Indians) operating in many parts of the world opens his pockets to build schools for the nation. The same thing that our much highly held in esteem leaders could have ensured 50 years ago.

But pray how the man made his money? By the very forces our future prime minister opposes. Globalization. Yes. It is globalization that enabled Azim Premji to make money to spend for Indias future. Not socialism. Not selling soaps and oils in socialist India (which was what his company did before getting into IT.)

There is no greater force in nature than mans entrepreneurial nature. And let us not curb it. Let us make it easier for people to build companies, sell ideas and open up the country by de-licensing and less rules.

Let a thousand Wipros and a thousand more Premji foundations rule. They do much better than foundations launched in the name of politicians, dynastic or otherwise.Thank you Premji Sahab!

(Before we close - spend a moment on the linked report. A sentence in it pissed me off. "If the idea succeeds, it could shame India's dysfunctional public education system - and perhaps inspire other wealthy tycoons to look beyond their personal status-building." Sigh. Surely, many tycoons and politicians will be ready to open their pockets on reading it.)

Diwali memories

2011-10-26T10:01:00.001+05:30

Diwali is by far my favourite festival. And we celebrate it early in the morning (the majority of people celebrate it at night). So, today is our Diwali.

On this day, we wake up early in the morning (before sunrise), have an oil bath and burst crackers. The person who broke crackers first was the one who "heralded" Diwali and in the place where we lived, there were many claimants and sub claimants. Usually, the first cracker went off at about 4 am. Whenever that first cracker went off, it meant that Diwali had arrived. It also served the purpose of waking up those who thought they had overslept. One of the few days where there was an advantage of being a morning person.

And then the others would turn up - the kids brigade. Candles to light up sparklers for the crackers, agarbattis to light up the noise making crackers and spare candles and so on. After the kids brigade, the adults would turn up with their bombs and Taj Mahal crackers. All in all, a good couple of hours of bursting crackers.
And then we spent some more time searching for unbroken crackers and trying to extract some more light and sound out of it. This phase had experiments - like putting crackers in a dabba or a hole and hearing its echo or joining a bunch of crackers and watching them burst. This was followed by a visit to the temple, dressed in our best. And somewhere in between was a breakfast of idli and chutney (I asked my mother why this was always idli and chutney and she said, it is the easiest thing to do on a festival day and besides all other things we eat on that are rich). And then the exchange of sweets and savouries.

The preparations would start much earlier though. A few weeks earlier we would start preparations for the savouries. Each year, we would, depending on the mood, make pakodams or coconut barfis or Mysore paks or murukkus or mixture.

And the crackers. Dad would buy crackers from Essabhai in Md Ali road usually - and about a month before, so we would beat the Diwali rush. And we would spent the next few weeks lovingly drying the crackers in the sun. This hard work paid off since our crackers would burst better than those who did not go through this drying process - or so we felt - as we watched cracker after cracker of ours burst nicely.

And Diwalis in Mumbai had a vacation as well at school, so we spent quite a while playing chor-police with cap guns...

Such it was the festival which heralds the triumph of good over evil. May this festival literally symbolize the same in each of our lives. And of course, build newer meanings through it as well - as Seth Godin does today - Diwali and Digital lights!

The speech that wasn't

2011-10-25T07:13:00.001+05:30

Talking and writing on socialism while accepting payments in capitalist dollars, sustains many a socialist writer’s/anti globalisation activist’s capitalist lifestyle. Most of these writers hold fancy positions, usually in the US or Europe, and travel business class to make their anti-globalization ranks. Take any activist and writer and you will find this to be true.

Into this abyss falls Mr Rahul Gandhi. Half-Indian, half-Italian by parentage, he has studied abroad and lives in India. He travels frequently abroad to exotic destinations of the world and has arguably benefitted out of globalisation. He could very well be a poster child for globalisation — and you can read that in any way you like. And after benefiting out of all the things that globalisation has to offer, he now warns us that this comes with its own dangers. Ironically, all the problems that he mentioned India had could all have been solved by the rulers, by and large from his family, with, without or in spite of globalisation.

What are the dangers, is what we would like to know. His great-grandfather and grandmother ruled us with a socialist tune — a tune for that over 50 years has failed to ring — for most of us. And we have all seen the dangers of this so-called socialism. Rampant corruption, low rate of growth, poverty, lawlessness and lack of opportunity everywhere, all through those socialist decades.

Throughout the 50’s and the 60’s when other countries (our peers, who were decolonised at about the same time) climbed up the prosperity ladder, we were stuck with a Nehruvian rate of growth that saw us go nowhere. And this story continued throughout the 80’s and 90’s as well. As government after ‘socialist’ Government tried to throttle industry — corruption boomed and those with licenses operated licentiously. People thronged the employment exchanges waiting for jobs that were never theirs — except if you paid a bribe.

And many others opted to go out of India — the famous brain drain of the 80’s. The net result was that people went to either the US or Europe (if they were lucky) or to the Middle East. The former lived a good life and the latter, well, swallowed many an insult so that they saved enough money to come back home at some point and live prosperously. If life under socialism was so good, why were people running away to foreign shores for jobs and to make a decent living? For some reason, all this was supposed to be good for us. While we swung from queue to queue to shortage to shortage — we heard slogans of Garibi hatao on black and white televisions over the Government regulated channel. Sometimes vegetables were in short supply, sometimes it was LPG used for cooking. At other times it was scooters, or phones. Almost all the time, jobs were in short supply, as was opportunity and electricity. If this was socialism, then, well, I am willing to see what dangers capitalism brings.

And, we have tried that too — in small doses since the late 90’s. This has resulted in a good amount of growth — many people have climbed out of poverty in the past 20 odd years than in the previous 40 years. There are many data points that argue on a few decimal points here and there, but the directional indicators are very clear. People have moved out of poverty since the 90’s. Growth is the only thing that will bring people out of poverty — not aid, not doles, not compassionate words, not bromide, not anti-globalisation speeches in air-conditioned auditoriums. To growth, one might add equality of opportunity which socialism promises but rarely gives (read The Animal Farm) while true capitalism really does.

Ironically, for the past 60 years it is Mr Rahul Gandhi’s family that has ruled the country for the most part. It tried the bitter medicine of socialism on us and the result of it is there for everybody to see. When Narasimha Rao opened the doors of the world to India, metaphorically, many a door opened for Indians as a whole. Now, Mr Rahul Gandhi seeks to close the door once again. For starters, he could have invited a local anti-globalisation activist who travelled to deliver his speech via sleeper class having secured his tickets while standing in line three months in advance.

And to his point, having seen a bit of socialism and a bit of capitalism, I think we are ready to face the dangers of capitalism. Surely, North Korea as one of the last vestiges of socialism, is doing well — as well as East Germany did before the capitalist West merged it into itself, but we would rather try the growth route of capitalism to success in India.

And yes, people who live in capitalist homes and whose kin make good money out of globalisation are best advised to keep their socialist speeches to themselves.

(Published as an oped today in The Pioneer)

Dollar earning Socialists

2011-10-15T22:17:00.001+05:30

There is a popular saying in Hindi which goes on the lines of "Sau choohe khaakar billi Haj ko chali" which basically implies that after sinning a hundred times, people go on a pilgrimage - but loosely translated means that sinners suddenly take to god and then we are supposed to believe that is all is well.

Talking and writing socialism while pocketing capitalist dollars is a great way to make a living these days. Many a writer (alright, stringer) from India makes a living this way. The puncture Misras of the world, so many Senguptas and of course, the best known writer of small terrible prose Roys are among the poster children of those who make a living this way. They make their living raking in heady dollars of the greenest and capitalist kind, while lecturing the readers of their magazine articles (ironically, capitalists themselves - since socialists cannot afford those mags) on the virtues of socialism.

If they lived in North Korea and drove an imported East German Trabant I could believe them, but no these guys live a great life sipping the best capitalist champagne, while living on 24 hour electricity (capitalist) and using the most capitalist iPads and Mac Airs with bank accounts in the most capitalist of banks. And then they have the temerity to lecture us on the virtues of socialism.

Please, madames and gentlemen, keep this "benefits of socialism" lectures to yourselves. We dont need no education. And oh, please stop using those twitter accounts to write to us about the virtues of socialism. Twitter and Internet are decidedly capitalist tools - as well.

Let me know when you migrate to North Korea and live there for a few years before you lecture me on socialism...and yes, since I am capitalist, those dollars can be passed on to me!

The Internet Hindu Bogeyman

2011-10-15T21:57:00.000+05:30

Nowadays, one of the prime past times on Twitter is to denounce the so called Internet Hindu -an oxymoron as it were. In the absence of anything else, so called intellectuals (anonymous and otherwise) construct straw-men out of bogeymen and demolish them with a finesse that has to be seen to be believed.

If the Internet Hindus (term coined by secular journo) are a lunatic and fringe group, why bother engaging with them - like they do with most other fringe groups (actually are there any other fringe groups in their lingo)? And there in lies the answer. The whole problem with intellectuals is that these articulate set of writers, tweeters and bloggers are turning the debate on its head. In the good old days of socialism nobody had access to any media except the "intellectuals". The "intellectuals" wrote all the "right" things, people read them and slept, while, deep beneath, the Congress went hammer and tongs after secularism in its true sense. And replaced it with a malicious form of divide and rule - and called it secularism. And our so called "intellectuals" want us to believe the charade that goes on in the name of secularism.

Contrary to beliefs in intellectually popular circles, the whole idea of pluralism is inherent in Hindu society. You will find that inter caste and language marriages are common in Hindu society. And if you go back further in history, even kings have come from different castes. And India, unlike any other country has always welcomed different religions into its fold quite seamlessly. And the whole basis is not tolerance, but something far better - mutual respect. Sure, there have been exceptions, but they have been exceptions, not the rule. Hindus are a pluralistic society - and there is no debate on that front.

What the "Internet Hindus" do is take apart the carefully constructed facade of the Congress on secularism. The Congress brand of secularism is an oxymoron - it is all about divide and rule. By pandering to the worst of all radicals, the Congress wants the majority to believe that is the torchbearer of secularism. When was the last time the Congress spoke about any fundamentalism other than Hindu? Even at the recent UN speech, the Prime Minster made a passing mention of terrorism which would have passed off as bad punctuation. These chaps are influencers - and thanks to the internet are using it to ask questions - tough questions which our junket enjoying, politician lobbying media will not mention, much less ask. And, ask yourself what makes these people - unaffiliated with any media - do it? What is in it for them? And ask any of these chaps - they will argue for more reform, not less. They will argue about lesser government interference, not more. And they will ask for minimum government, maximum governance.

So, is there an alternative? There is. And this is what the "intellectuals" do not want us to see - which has been proved in Gujarat to a large extent. The alternative is a development led model. A model that does not distinguish between religions and their stupidities. A model that gives electricity to you regardless of whether you live in a minority dominated area (an oxymoron as it were) or otherwise. A model that provides you access to good schools and clean water regardless of whether you wear a hat upside down or shave your head. A model that works on providing equality of opportunity, not outcome. Needless to say, the champion of this alternative model is Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

And that model exists - as proved in Gujarat. But of course, I forget that for these "intellectuals", time stopped in Gujarat, somewhere in 2002.

(X Posted in FBJP)

Variety versus Standard

2011-10-08T12:08:00.000+05:30

I was in the US some weeks back on a jetlagged trip and I visited two artists fairs in the Boston area. One of those fairs had a couple of farms, food products being sold and stuff like that.

What i liked about the fair was that it gave me an insight into a different sort of US.

The US I am used to is the "uniform across cities" US - malls which look the same, streets that are indistinguishable from each other. Even in restaurants which look the same across cities are servers who incredibly alike and serve uninspiring food which tastes the same.

These fairs showed me the hidden side of US - I mean, I saw stuff I had never seen in my life - husk cherries for example, purple potatoes, varieties of apple and tomatoes, desert honey and other types of local honey, different types of vegetables. The amount of people doing their own thing was inspiring. There was person who was showcasing "stone clocks" - yes clocks made of stone. There was another person who was pursuing his hobby of glass blowing - and the range of creativity I saw was inspiring. There were ranges of gourmet sauces - and none of them were the kind of "manufactured" food that we are used to.

And as I see it around me we see variety reducing all around in India - it gives me a thought. We need to figure out a way to keep those varieties preserved - in those sari weavers, in those temples, those instruments, those dances, artisans, paintings and other art and craft forms before it gets lost for ever.

And even the exhibitions I have seen in India - the Chitrakala Parishat variety - all cater to a rather narrow dimension. And I know there is scope to do more here...

The Steve Jobs effect

2011-10-07T12:19:00.000+05:30

There is nothing that out there that is not already written about the man and his products.

The transcript of the same, here...

Here is my few thoughts on the man. I feel he inspired people the most. What he contributed the most to the vast majority of us - was an incredible amount of self belief.

Many people would like to be the Steve Jobs of their field - be it the kitchen or work or garage or art. And there in lies his biggest inspiration. More than the products that obviously inspired people and companies. More than his genius - which undoubtedly was. More than his various comebacks. More than his sheer vision. More than his confidence.

Thank you Steve, for making us believe in ourselves! We all would want to put a ding in the universe!

The Ripple Effect

2011-09-23T09:06:00.001+05:30

In the process of reading a rather awesome book on one of my favourite topics other than terrorism - water. The Ripple Effect is a nicely written book on the history and the state of water in the US. It makes for some intriguing reading - on how water supply works in the US.

I have only reached till about half way through the book, but the state of affairs in the US - makes me think about India in general and Bangalore in particular. The impunity with which the lakes in Bangalore are being destroyed (for a while now), both by pouring untreated sewage and by filling up dried lakes with real estate is appalling.

The book makes for some scary reading. The next wars could very well on water - watch China as it moves to dry up the Brahmaputra (Link from Chinas national newspaper and hence written with a footnote to India assuaging that the dam will not cause any problems to India). And when you read the book, you will realize that damming dries up supplies downstream - so India will be screwed up sooner or later - the question is not if but when...

A longer review when I finish reading the book, but for now, suffice it to say that a big part of our own eco friendly efforts has to be on water - reducing consumption, trying to use greywater and recycling wherever possible!

Modi-fiction

2011-09-20T22:15:00.003+05:30

Came across this rather curious piece in the Economic Times. Modi-fiction seems to be the rage. A rather perfectly written opinion piece in the style and standard that is the staple these days - should make the Congress warm in the cockles of their heart. Savour this sentence. “of security for the minorities as patronage conditional on good behaviour rather than the fundamental political right the Constitution promises”.

I suspect this is true for everybody or does it mean that we offer security to gangsters and rowdy elements and terrorists just because they are minority? Or rich? Or whatever. AFAI remember – bad behavior will invite punishment – simple – regardless of my name - the law is supposedly equal to all.

Think about this:

1: Nobody denies that under NaMo Guj is making progress.

2: And that the progress is being delivered without resorting to caste division or quotas.

3: If the situation is so bad as claimed – that minorities live in fear - why is there not a migration out of Gujarat? Do note that something that is rarely spoken about in the TVs in the drawing rooms of secular India - In Kashmir, the situation was/is bad for Pandits – there was an exodus from Kashmir in the 90s to the extent that the Pandit population went down from 15% then to 0.1% now. And for all these years, they have not been able to return to their homes - because of fear. So, do see what fear does.

All 3 of the above cannot true can it? Or is Modi doing something (or many things) right that is the antithesis of what our Central government is doing?

Given all these, don’t you think that something is burning somewhere?Or as part of Modi-fiction, this is their poetic licence?

Vayu Vajra

2011-09-20T22:04:00.000+05:30

Lovely article this one in Moneylife - analyzing the need for an airport shuttle service in Mumbai.

The Bangalore airport is a good one – in general. Except for the part that is located a good 30-70 kms from various parts of Bangalore city – depending on where you start from. The airport is spacious, taxis are available,good food options, lots of counters – no fleecing and all that – which you pretty much expect – given that is a spanking new airport. But the BMTC has gone ahead and provided a great shuttle service – almost round the clock – from airport to various parts ofthe city. The shuttle service has put out of business many smaller cab based similar services. And except for the corporate types who book a cab or for those whom public transport is only a traffic obstruction for their cars – many people use it - and I haveseen it run full at some really odd hours.

The bus service has a superb dedicated parking bay – neatly demarcated and the conductors and drivers are really helpful – so the newbie in Bangalore has to just take the bus and by and large you get a drop that is veryclose to the last mile of your destination.

But when you go to a Mumbai you realize how this is sorely lacking – especially if you live relatively far from the airport – the only way to get there is a taxi or by rickshaws The bus is not even a real option there. So yes, this is one more point where Bangalore really scores over Mumbai.

And at the rate at which BMTC is offering services – there are many lessons in it for BEST to learn. In its handling of the working IT class crowd, the running of Volvo buses and their ability to convert a part of the populationfrom own vehicles to buses, and to some extent their use of technology!

Book Review: My Friend, The Fanatic

2011-09-09T07:35:00.003+05:30

My Friend, the Fanatic is a book I have wanted to read for long. And finally, I was able to lay my hands on it - and it did not disappoint. Before you guess why, if you are looking for a book that bares fangs for Islamic fundamentalism or fanaticism and its status in Indonesia - well, this is not the book for you. On the other hand, if you think that Sadanand Dhume, a reputed columnist for many journals and magazines - handles them with the naive sort of pink glassed optimism that often passes off as writing, you are wrong there too.

And that, in my view is what makes this book so good to read. It is really a travelogue across Indonesia - over a couple of years or thereabouts - that attempts to take a look at how the country is faring in the face of steady Islamization and projects how it could look at 10 or 20 years down the line. It starts off at the point of the Bali bombings in 2002.

As one of the most populous Muslim countries and a democracy to boot - the country has a Hindu-Buddhist past that it was not shy about (unlike India, if I may add). A country where Ganesha adorns currency notes and the national airline is (still) known as Garuda is actually the worlds most populous Muslim nation. As he notes in the Prologue (a beautiful one), “this was the only place in the world where you might call yourself Muslim yet name your children Vishnu and Sita”.

The book takes a realistic look at the society and its transformation - is not afraid to call a spade a spade or point out the hypocrisies that exist. As he travels through almost the length and breadth of Indonesia, including villages that have adopted Sharia law in parts, the observations add to the appeal of the book. The exchanges with a professor, the food on the way, street level notes make it feel like a travelogue across the country. But make no mistake - the book is quite serious in its treatment of the main topic. And except for a couple of places - the mandatory comparison with India is missing.

Sadanands book takes you across the country and its provinces - as he and his companion, Herry - an editor of a fundamentalist mag (tempted to say rag) - Sabili - and hence the title - meet many Muslims and non Muslims across the country. They also meet many of the influential Islamic voices in the country - preachers, teachers, principals, schools - and a few non Islamic influential voices - dancing stars, publishers, mystics et al. They hear the conspiracy theories (surprisngly similar), the frustrations, optimisms and the dualities of many voices. Which way the country will tip is hard to say - and the epilogue does well to give a muted warning of the future.

The book starts off with a quick reading on Indonesian history (which to me was foreign) and a walk down the various stratas of society (mostly political and religious strata - which by and large maps to the economic strata) while going to Islamic schools, meeting preachers, evangelists and beaches alike to explore the confusion that the country faces.

Yet, in the systematic transformation (or indoctrination) of the nation by virtue of politics and schools and petrodollars is a lesson. And it makes interesting reading - especially from an Indian context. One can almost feel the anguish the author (and some others who he meets) feel as many in the country want to disregard their past. They are those who want to desperately believe that Indonesian Muslims have an Arab past life, if you will and live in a state of denial of its rich ancient Hindu-Buddhist history.

Overall, a great read for anybody who wants to read about democracy and Islam. I wish a similar book came out on India. Anybody game to take it up?

(Posted in Centerright India, yday)

Fluffy, Crisp or Stuffed?

2011-08-31T10:07:00.000+05:30

I am of course, talking about the Dosai which can be eaten Fluffy (as in an Uttappam or Set Dosai), Crispy (as in a sada or masala dosai) or Stuffed (onions for the simple minded - and then you can explore your imagination).

I for one, can eat dosai 24/7 and I dont think there is a better meal than a dosai atleast for breakfast and a snack.

The dosai kall as we call it is usually made of iron - but going by the name, perhaps at some point, it was probably made of stone. Non stick griddles are for amateurs - and are no fun IMO. Dosai mixes dont even count. If you want the real thing go for iron griddles and iron or steel ladles (or whatever they are called) and ground batter (not cut in a mixer). Hoping you get the basics right, lets go right into the actual mechanics of the three types.

The fluffy dosai is simpler to make - if you get your tava and batter right. Get the stone hot, spread a bit of oil and sprinkle a little water - hear it the sizzle and spread the oil water mixture gently or with some violence (and a broom if you want to replicate the hotel dosa chef). How to spread the dosai? Use a ladle (chattuvam) or for added effect, use a small kinnam (Tamil) or wati (Maharashtrian) or bowl. And spread the batter, not so thin, but to medium thickness (5mm?). The flame should not be too hot or it will singe and not cook - if too low, it will not cook soon enough. This is more of intuition and may take a couple of tries. Pour a bit of oil around and over the dosai, turn it over after a minute or two and cook again for a minute or two. Your fluffy dosai is ready.

The crisp one is tough to crack. Spread the batter as thin as you can over a medium flame. Pour a bit of oil (or if you were a Bangalore hotel chef, douse it in so much oil that it almost deep fries itself) and wait patiently till the brown of the dosai shows up on the other side (the side facing you). The dosai has to be thin so that it needs to be cooked only on one side - and the flame just right or the dosai will be a black carbon mess very soon. And you will know when it is done. A gentle push under the dosai and the dosai pretty much lifts itself up and when you fold, it wil be as crisp as a fresh newspaper. Some places roll it up like a newspaper - some places make a cone - some as a semi circle - some triple folded with the masala hidden inside - and some cut it into longitudinal pieces after making it a semi circle or a triple fold.

The stuffed one - well, it is thinner than the fluffy but thicker than the crispy-and it can be stuffed with anything in your imagination. Onion, coconut or tomato (or a combination of the three with chillies). Spread some chutney over it while cooking itself. Put cheese inside. Well, you get it, you can stuff with your imagination (not literally). Or if you dont want to stuff it - try it with anything. Cholle, Masala, Rajma, Morkootan and Rasam, any spicy vegetable - kurma, or pav bhaji (my favourite). The Dosai is one of the most versatile things to eat! Go ahead, bite into one!

Chotta Bheem

2011-08-28T18:18:00.000+05:30

When I grew up, there was one TV channel and one phone company. There were many cooking gas suppliers and many banks, each of which was indistinguishable from the other. Similarly, there were foreign cartoons (like He-man, Spiderman, Disney) that played for half an hour or so each week on DD and there were a few Indian cartoons (Ek Chidiya types) that did not really qualify as cartoons.

And so it was. Even the animation that we have seen recently in movies made in India was anything but pathbreaking - nothing that is of super high quality or high recall. And while a few of them made ripples in childrens mind like Hanuman - none of them has captured the kids imagination like Chotta Bheem.

Chotta Bheem (like the Mahrabharatas Bhima he is super strong, but the similarity ends there) is the improbable story of a little boy who lives in the fictitious village of Dholakpur. Each episode he fights the bad guys - that ranges from evil circus owners to not so evil scientists to aliens playing cricket - and saves Dholakpur from imminent ruin. The children are mad about him and if they catch him on TV - then our world comes to a standstill. Though, Chotta Bheem has helped many a mealtime go into fast forward mode.

It is encouraging to see the series become popular and it looks like the company has spun off its success into books and other merchandise as well.

What makes him so lovable is the simple plot lines, catchy music, some high recall ideas (he eats laddoos for strength). There are a bunch of sidekicks too - each with their own minor role. Adults might not find them very interesting - the plots are not entirely predictable - except for the part of Bheem winning - they are a super hit with children.

Whatever it is, it is nice to see the animation character give the phoren cartoons a run for their money.

Is this the tipping point for tolerating corruption?

2011-08-28T10:14:00.001+05:30

Anna Hazares cause has found a voice in many ordinary Indians - mostly urban. Very much like Baba Ramdevs agitation resonated in the minds of middle India. Between the two of them, they have galvanized the imagination of India like never before. Corruption has always been big in India - it is almost taken for granted at many levels. It is accepted that people in power will misuse it and each time a corruption allegation has been raised against a politician - the politician has taken refuge in conspiracy theories. It would have been the same this time too - with Raja and Kalmadi accused in the 2G and CWG scam respectively (among other people who are getting pulled in) - resorting to time tested and brazen defence of backward class, dementia and what not. Except that this time, the citizenry is frustrated.

On the one hand, rising inflation and an inability to control food prices - by an economist prime minister at the helm whose marked skill seems to be inability to do anything. On the other hand, terror attacks, Maoism seem almost taken for granted. Sedition seems to be a rewarding occupation. On top of this comes corruption - while India struggles for progress, the ministers seem to be busy making retirement nests for themselves and for others. What an irony that both the corrupt and the agitators against corruption were jailed in the same prison - even if for a few days.

In all this come Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev with their clarion call to root out corruption. While one is not sure of their prescription of a super clean body that will sit to cleanse the ills of Indian society - their diagnosis is correct. Corruption as an evil has to be rooted out of Indian society - and one way for that is to ensure that the corrupt are punished. A government like the UPA which has laid bare its penchant and desire to subvert the many independent bodies the constitution provides - like the CVC and others - can very well subvert the Lok Pal with a pal of its own. In a land of puppet Prime Ministers, finding a few pals who want to hold a high office with little spine is not very difficult.

Be that as it may - there are signs of change. Today across the country, there are states which run clean administrations - Gujarat, Bihar and perhaps MP to a certain extent. The recently corrupt government of TN was booted out ignominiously and the incumbent seems well on track to provide a clean administration. The transformation of Bihar from corrupt hellhole to a clean administration makes one believe that the same happen across the country as well.

The question to be asked of these agitators and supporters is - who will they vote for in the next elections? Will they reward Congress with a third term? If they do, this entire agitation is a waste of time. Because there is no incentive for good behaviour - after looting thousands of crores, if a party comes to power again - there is no incentive for it to change. That is the logical conclusion of this endeavour - of voting and booting the corrupt out.

Therefore, perhaps this is a tipping point in the history of India. There have been many tipping points at State levels. Bihar, Gujarat have both gone through tipping points before becoming clean administrations. This agitation could very well us to a path where the corrupt are not tolerated - both by the voting populace and the party in power. Is this that tipping point?

Note to myself: This piece I thought was pretty well written and was quite pleased with it. But two editors thought it to nowhere near worth publishing! So much for my writing skills or getting to the core of the idea.

Outsourcing the fight for azadi

2011-08-24T20:07:00.000+05:30

Once upon a time not too long ago, there was a freedom struggle between the colonized Indian natives and the ruling British. In the end the good guys won and the bad guys lost. But it was not that simple. The story saw innumerable twists and turns – the British often fired on the freedom fighters, killed quite a few common citizens and frequently arrested or caned the leaders as well. The more unfortunate leaders were sent to Andamans to a prison colloquially known as Kaala Paani. We have read about it in our history books – and then, if we were so inclined, in the many books that are available on the subject. Freedom struggle was not an easy thing to be a part of. After all you could not own fancy clothes nor buy British - among other things – if you really believed in it.

Those were the days. These days freedom fighting is an industry. And some part of it is outsourced to India - to fight India. It helps that we have elected a government that is suspiciously soft on seditious tendencies. Over the past 64 odd years (which is almost since a day after Independence), Pakistan nurses the fond hope that its unfinished task will be completed. Kashmir will return to Pakistan. And in this arduous task, they have enlisted useful idiots from the Indian society, who like most useful idiots are available for a price and they think they are fighting for a cause.

For some of these things, we have to hand it over to the ISI. While India has no covert operations active in Pakistan at all, except for some fake dossier printers – its spy agency has got its finger in every imaginable pie in India. It hosts Indian gangsters, prints fake Indian notes and even bankrolls Indian “intellectuals” for foreign trips. Clearly, it is more active in India than many other Indian agencies. While the world has outsourced work to India, the ISI has outsourced its useful idiots to India. Atleast one of the I's in ISI probably refers to India. But I digress.

These so called intellectuals who, for the price of a business class ticket and free stay at star hotels in US and Europe, fight freedom – against their own government. By doing so, they play right into the hands of the spy agency by giving legitimacy to the fake conferences that the spy agency has funded.

Unlike the earlier leaders who faced bullets, these useful idiots go and give seditious speeches in air conditioned halls while sipping champagne – all funded – by, hold your breath, the neighbours spy agency. Now, that would make you wonder if the government would arrest them like the British or send them to Kaala Pani or lathi charge them. But no, the government, actually appoints some of them as “interlocutors” and gives them an official voice. If that is not a successful Trojan horse strategy, I don’t know what is.

The list of useful idiots includes former editors of once respected newspapers, eminent personalities in the bureaucracy and people who have fairly high level of leverage with the current government. Luckily, for us, the US indicted a couple of such worthies on charges of receiving funding from ISI, and some of our intellectuals are now gasping for breath in the maelstrom.

Not that they are giving up without fighting. After all, what is at stake is free foreign trips, a bit of shopping and good accommodation. Aren't these causes worth fighting for?

(Was published in The Pioneer as an Op Ed yesterday)

Gokulashtami

2011-08-21T14:21:00.001+05:30

Q: What is the similarity between Gokulashtami and Communism?
A: Karl Marx

If you did not "get" this joke, you are best advised to not proceed reading this post steeped as it is in Tam-Mumbai sub culture.

Today is Gokulashtami 2011. And helmets have just been introduced into the kitchen after some cheedais decided to self explode in oil. And that took me back in time.

Gokulashtami to us, as youngsters, living in Tamland transplanted in Mumbai was a simple festival. Like most festivals, it meant good things to eat and sometimes wear.

Except that in Gokulashtami, the entire household would get its share of cheedai batter which they needed to convert into smallish round balls - the size of a marble (goti). Lets roll, amma would say and then thats it, we spent a good part of the afternoon rolling cheedais and often, sizing and resizing them till amma thought we got it right. It was worth it, in the end - the cheedais were a once in a year preparation - and they were an amazing snack. The salt cheedais were mostly harmless though there have been instances in our family tree when the cheedais decided to burst while they were being fried - at which point, we took evasive action and mothers used helmets to get the cheedais and themselves out of trouble.

The jaggery cheedais were more troublesome. They would split or dissolve in oil and what not. Every maami worth her ~~salt~~ jaggery had her own tweaks to get it right. Some advised adding banana, some reducing the jaggery and what not. But it was a sense of achievement amma had when she cracked the cheedais to her satisfaction.

No more cheedais until the next Gokulashtami. Post that all the maamis we knew exchanged their cheedais with each other - so each year we got to eat cheedais of a variety of quality levels.

Around evening, was when we got around to making footmarks of little Krishna who it is said makes his way into homes to have his share of butter, cheedai and neyappam. This was the second most exciting part - after the eating.

And since it was Mumbai, we also got to witness Dahi-Handi (it usually fell the next day) on the streets. And then for the next few days, we would take cheedais in our dabbas to school and eat it during snack time as well.

How to make: Salt Cheedai and Jaggery Cheedai

Business ideas for Bangalore Traffic

2011-08-18T21:05:00.000+05:30

Going by the past trends, this is becoming an almost exclusive blog on Bangalore traffic. That being said, I promise that this is not the case and that I am working on other posts too (promise).

The last couple of weeks have seen an almost exponential increase in Bangalore traffic and a subsequent exponential difficulty in reaching home after work. There are areas where a kilometer takes a good hour on a bad day - the same roads which a few years back there were people out watching aeroplanes take off. Or roads that were used for drag racing at nights are choc-a-bloc with traffic.

But despair not, there are many ideas in this traffic that are waiting to be implemented. First to my mind are the fast food restaurants. They could very well get volunteers to stand where the jam begins, take orders from cars and deliver them towards the middle of the jam so that people can have their dinner/lunch/breakfast and proceed onwards. And I mean, the good stuff like McDonalds and Pizza Hut and so on.

A concept of traffic valets can be implemented. Shops can offer valet drivers who will sit in your vehicle and drive it along slowly while you shop to your hearts content. There is no hassle of parking at all - the valet drives your car for the one odd kilometer for the 30 minutes that it will take you to shop using the same concept as the fast food idea above. If not shops, perhaps traffic valets can also be used like river pilots -they help you navigate through bad traffic and give you your car back when the signal is cleared. Indeed, if there are car travelators at signals cars will self drive through traffic and give control back to the driver at the end of the jam!

I know they are all stupid ideas, but today was an especially bad day - or someone put it on twitter - it was traffucked! But I am sure there are more such ideas out there...

Where the mind is with fear

2011-08-15T08:06:00.000+05:30

Rabindranath Tagore penned those beautiful lines - Where the mind is without fear

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Today 64 odd years later, I feel a little pessimistic this I-day for the day we get independence from corrupt rulers is when we will truly be independent.

The mind lives in fear - we may even have a thought police soon. Heads may be held high - but only of those who have looted mercilessly.
Knowledge is not free - it may be censored- our world has indeed been broken up into fragments, by narrow domestic walls - raised to heights each year by our friends, our rulers
Words are construed to give many hues - any hues other than the truth
Tireless striving seems to happen to garner as many entitlements as possible
The clear stream of reason seems to be funded by the friendly neighbours spy agency
And the mind is led forward by billions earning mediapersons...

Anyway there is hope...and we are all part of that hope. Happy I-day. Not a day to be despondent, but a day to be hopeful. After all, if the English could be thrown out, so can the corrupt?

The rains in Bangalore

2011-08-06T18:28:00.000+05:30

There are three certainties to what happens to Bangalore when it rains. One, electricity will be shut down. Second, the weather will become noticeably cooler. Third, traffic goes for a toss.

There are multiple uncertainties as well - such as falling trees, stopping of traffic signals and sometimes the disappearance of traffic police as well...

The weather part is easy to guess. The electricity shutdown part is partly done from a safety perspective because Bangalore unlike Mumbai has very little underground electric lines - most lines are overhead which become a hazard with water and winds and falling trees. The third part is what I dont have an answer to.

When it rains - and this is at time of the day or any day of the week - traffic increases at a furious pace. The rate at which roads get clogged is exponentially proportional to the rains. And I have really never been able to figure out why that is the case.

Initially I used to think that the bikers who take shelter under any covered place available on the road caused it - but they are far too few in number to make traffic disrupt to such a large extent. Then my theory was that people who would normally walk or take the bus - decide to take rickshaws and taxis. (To some extent that is true - since it is my own experience that taxis are difficult to get when it rains.) But when with this as a combination, it is not enough to throw traffic out of gear so instantaneously. Especially considering that Bangalore rains, unlike Mumbai rains are nice and polite and stay like a well behaved guest in the city. Showers generally do not last beyond half an hour whereas in Mumbai the rain can last a week or more. Bangalore also experiences wild pouring rain not more than 15 minutes at a time - after which it becomes more like a nice tamed dog that you can take for a walk while singing romantic rain songs and enjoy chilli bhajji and tea somewhere.

One crazy hypothesis is that as soon it begins to rain, people, in a lemming like mentality take their cars and begin to drive in all possible directions and clog up all the roads.

But this is an amazing thing about rain - and I am writing this at the fag end of a weekend shower that lasted for exactly 15 minutes - and has predictably thrown traffic out of gear, the weather has grown noticeably more pleasant and the electricity has gone off to take a short break at work.The traffic as I see it is a mess - almost a standstill and it will be like this for a couple of hours. How a 15 minute rain can stop the city and electricity and traffic each time, every time intrigues me. I dont have an answer. Do you?

(The post will finally be up when either the power supply or backup kicks in...)

The price of fruits

2011-08-06T17:28:00.000+05:30

This is more of my own self discovery - my own personal, minor Eureka moment, if you will. It is just that I did not realize it myself.

A packet of biscuits - costs about 10 Rs for 100 grams (give or take a few). That translates into about 100 rupees a kilo. Premium biscuits cost even more- so you can do the math yourself.

But fruits - at Bangalore prices - fruits start from anywhere at 20 rupees a kilo (Robusta Bananas) to about 100 rupees a kilo (Apples, Pomegranates) for the most part. There are super premium fruits which cost more like Washington Apples and exotic fruits like Kiwi and whatchamicallit - which are more expensive.

But think about it, this is the level of "value add" that food processing brings. Whether it is beneficial or not etc is a bigger question.

But what it means in general is that, one is better off buying fruits, even if they are more expensive rather than buying other "processed" "artificial" items. It may or may not apply to you, but it does to me - since I believe that eating natural is better than eating artificial. Separate story that at this point, it does seem impossible to go to a completely natural diet - but if I achieve it, you can be sure it will be part of a blog post!

Why fruits and biscuits - because I tend to buy both as part our groceries - and I have been trying to cut down on the latter and buy more of the former.

MICE - proposal for a new ministry

2011-07-20T09:22:00.000+05:30

A new ministry will be formed shortly when the future prime minister of India takes office. This ministry will have the largest manpower under it. Obviously, since this ministry will presumably do most of the work in the new future cabinet of the future prime minister.

The future prime minister of India will have no time for thinking or thinking through. Therefore, this ministry will take care of everything thats left behind in the trail of verbal destruction that could potentially accompany the FPM. As soon as any impromptu press conference or off the cuff remark is found, it will be traced, erased and rebuilt to the correct specifications of the day. This ministy, apart from impromptu press conferences (which will be rarer than white crows) and remarks will also work on soundbytes taken from here and there. It will also, if necessary, edit historical material which has been references in such quotes.

The motto of the ministry will be to "prevent distortions just because FPM said something."

Thus the ministry's large staff will be dedicated to telling us, the unwashed masses, something on the lines of "what FPM said was this, what he was meant was this, but he used the wrong words for saying so "

For every such conferene, expect newer books to be published around the lines of the new meaning of words and the new twist in the and some such. For now, the private sector is doing the job.

You obviously guessed what MICE is, did you not? Ministry of Instant Correction and Edits.

Manmohan Singham

2011-07-20T09:07:00.001+05:30

Link via Ramesh Srivats

Superb video Singham spoofed with the man thinks he is charge, but she who is in charge shall go unnamed. Watch it, if you havent already.

While it is obviously satire, it is a sad state that we live in today - governance deficit, leadership deficit and all that. But dont let that spoil your day. Do watch it...

The situation today is precisely like the well known scene of "The Emperors new clothes". We all know how the emperor is clothed, but the media is not telling us - so we have to depend on little children, alternative media to tell us as it is...Chalo, koi to hai

On spiriting the spirit

2011-07-15T20:22:00.000+05:30

I really do salute your spirit - and no I am not referring to the Mumbaikars spirit. I am referring to the terrorists spirit and resilience. If we are glorifying the city which has been attacked multiple times we really must glorify the spirit of those terrorists also no?

Those who despite being threat of being killed in encounters (add fake if you like), despite the governments eyes and ears on them watching their every move still continue to plot hate and slaughter innocents -surely they have spirit too? Awesome spirit no?

Sarcastic? In bad taste? Offended? Thats exactly how I feel when all these stupid people write about Mumbais spirit and use it as a cover for poor policing, poor intelligence and general incompetence year on year for each year since 1993.

All of you idiots who wrote about Mumbais undying spirit, remember that it is not spirit - it is helplessness (as I have argued more than once before). People helping fellow people happens in all types of tragedies - check tsunami, earthquake or any other. Let us not glorify the spirit of the people behind it at the cost of their lives. Spirit my foot. When I am dead, what use is my f*king spirit? I would rather have a spirited fight with those terrorists - their trainers, their funders, those who harbour them and those who feed them - and win. Thats spirit. Losing and losing my and my loved ones lives aint no spirit for me. Sorry folks. You can shove those candles into you know where and light them up for good measure.

Frankly the Mumbai spirit is no losing spirit. It is the spirit that gives back in good measure what it gets. If the Mumbaikar gets slaughtered, you can be sure that he will get his revenge in the end. True Mumbaikars are no losers - those who talk about the cities spirit please remember - it is a winning spirit. The same sportsmanlike spirit we see in Tendulkar, but behind that sportsman spirit is the winning spirit. The Mumbaikar spirit is a winning spirit. Tell me about the Mumbaikar spirit when we bust those bastard terror modules in Mumbai and wanting to attack Mumbai.

Please get the encounter specialists back. In my books, they kill far less innocents (if at all they do) than these blasts and terrorists.

Intelligence or what?

2011-07-15T19:12:00.001+05:30

Could the Mumbai terror attack have been averted? Surely yes, if you ask me, if the government wanted it to be halted. (I assume here that our intelligence is clued into the nefarious activities going on - I could be wrong).

When I say, if the government wanted to halt it, I dont mean that the government sanctions the wanton slaughter of its citizens, even though on the face of it thats how it seems. But step into the shoes of an "intelligence officer" and think from his perspective. If you were in a job like his, like all human beings, you will act on the incentives that are given to you.

The last time the police had actionable intelligence which resulted in the death of an officer and a couple of terrorists - the entire set of people responsible for it have been hauled over the coals for it. (Remember it or forgot it already - in any case there is a wikipedia page for it) Clearly, proactiveness in intelligence is a CLM.

So, as an intelligence officer what would you do supposing you hear chatter about an upcoming terror attack - in general you would do nothing. Because if you did, the media and the civil society would come down on you with all their might and nobody wants to be on the receiving side of their wrath no, given that the government is on their side?

Therefore, in the current situation, no intelligence officer unless he is well provided for, will make the mistake of putting his family at stake - clearly the government is not incentivising the collection of intelligence and stopping an attack. On the other hand, if a bomb blast does happen, there is no loss of career nor any danger to anbody.

So, unless there is some form of incentive to stop terror attacks, these are likely to continue notwithstanding the pronouncements of the articulate and the savvy. On the other hand, your future prime minister has already said that terrorist attacks cannot be prevented. As a career savvy officer, this would be music to my ears and sounds like the direction of the incentive I mentioned...

Selling the family silver

2011-06-18T19:37:00.000+05:30

In the 1930s, in what is now known as the ‘Great American Streetcar Scandal’, newly established automobile companies started gobbling up electric streetcar companies with a view to replacing the electric streetcars across cities with oil powered buses. Systematically, they went about destroying the streetcar companies in city after city till about the 1970s by which time their mission was accomplished.

By then the American transportation landscape became what is today — almost no public transport in most cities other than the very big ones and heavy dependency on cars. In order to benefit their core business, they systematically went about buying and then deliberately destroying their competitors.

The UPA Government today is involved in multifarious scams. The scams range from an assortment of selling telecom licences cheaply to overspending on sports extravaganzas. Apart from these, there are other scams under the guise of poverty alleviation schemes. All of these are direct scams where the exchequer is getting looted one way or the other.

While this is happening, there is another category of scams that is not getting the attention it should. This is the type of scams perpetuated like the ‘Great American Streetcar Scandal’ — where there is no misappropriation of money — hence ‘Type B’ scams. These scams are the deliberate and systematic destruction of value across Public Sector Units so that their competitors in the private sector benefit.

Two immediate examples come to mind — BSNL and Air India. Not too long ago BSNL was Number 2 in mobile subscribers’ market share; since then it has seen a steady decline to Number 4 today. It has not been allowed to buy equipment nor enhance capacity. A tender floated in 2007 to procure equipment was cancelled by the then Telecom Minister (a certain A Raja).

As a result, BSNL lost crucial time until it was finally allowed to buy equipment for about half the number of lines it wanted. After that one more equipment tender was cancelled with the result that BSNL has been steadily losing subscribers while the others have merrily added capacity. What could have been a great PSU is now reduced to an ‘also ran’ and will soon be a dead unit, unless someone with foresight revives it.

Air India is of course hit by a double whammy. On the one hand it has invested in brand new planes (68 of them) and on the other it is not allowed to bid for newer routes so that it can fly those planes and recover the money. Net result? A debt burden of about `40,000 crore and losses of about `7,000 crore. And guess who is flying on many of the newer routes?

No prizes for guessing who benefits in both these cases. The private sector, in both airlines and telecom, has gone from strength to strength in the same timeframe. Coincidentally, both BSNL and Air India are not listed — which prevents their close scrutiny.

Whether the beneficiary companies in this regard channel the benefits in cash or kind to those in power who enable this is a separate investigation. And in those murky cross-holdings and money paid to consultants and stakes given to various people may lie a story. But regardless of whether that has happened, this is a new type of scam — where the Government deliberately kills its own enterprises so that private companies can benefit.

(Published in The Pioneer Today as an Op Ed)

Convenience Fees

2011-06-14T10:56:00.000+05:30

Login to the Indian Railways site and book a ticket. Pay a "convenience fee" of 20 rupees per ticket. Ditto for almost any other site. Whether it is online movie ticket booking or online e- transfers, online users in India are being ripped and milked.

In any other country web users get a discount - for taking a load off the physical infrastructure required to run either a bank or a ticketing booth. Not in India. In India online users pay a "convenience fee" over and above the actual transaction. There is no real reason except that those who book are the "upper crust" mostly taxpaying and used to being looted by all and sundry including the government. The companies use these users to subsidize their other non-productive assets.

Take the case of the railways. When was the last time you saw an army of ticket bookers for Jet Airways or any other airline? Why is that the railways need a humungous infrastructure to book tickets staffed by their own when airlines have depended on agents and suchlike for almost a similar timeframe? And while the railways and road transport services have their own e-infrastructure for ticket booking that supports both agents and individual customers, the answer atleast for the railways lies in politcs. The railway minister(s) job is to create jobs for their constituency. And thus it happens that we recruit ever more people into an already bloated railways - and many of them end up looking forward to a career in ticket booking. And you, the ignoramus who wants to travel by train, instead of standing in the long queue to worship the deity who will hand over your ticket chooses to book online. Shit. That means the more people book online or at agents, the less the job creation engine of the Indian railways will run. Therefore, you idiot, you will be penalized - with what shall we call it - convenience fee each time you book a ticket sitting in your home. All this for travelling toilet class. (More on IR here.)

The story of banks is exactly the same. When there is an army of clerks waiting to do slowly and inefficiently, the same thing that can be done flawlessly and at lightning speed - those who want to use it will be charged - otherwise their inefficiencies will be exposed and they will have to let go off people. So, you, the smart internet banking user are subsidizing them.

Ditto for the RTCs. APSRTC and Karnatakas RTC are light years ahead in the game - thought I suspect it was the former which was the lead thanks to Chandrababu Naidu. APSRTC had counters all over Bangalore for its Tirupati trips while KSRTC counters were hard to find in the capital city of its state. Now KSRTC has caught up and has a great network of both good buses and ticket counters. Needless to say it is making money as well. There are a few RTCs still do not have an e-ticketing infrastructure because I suspect their ticketing employees could be unemployed. Keralas run down RTC is one such example. While every private bus operator in Kerala and to Kerala is making money Keralas RTC somehow survives with old buses and striking employees. Whatever. Well, nobody is dying to buy Kerala RTC tickets - they book online with KSRTC and APSRTC and pay the convenience fees too.

The reason is similar for most others - except the answer is not in politics, the answer is in milking the class which is willing to pay.

So, thats for you the smart consumer. Who says you need to give charity? Each time you pay convenience fees, you are donating to the health of yet another unhealthy organizations. The government deems that is their right to milk you - one who is contributing to their efficiency.

You are staring at an industry dammit

2011-06-14T10:15:00.001+05:30

Yet another day, yet again we have to hear "Why cannot India produce a Google or an Apple or a Facebook". There is a very simple reason for that.

The next time somebody asks you this question, ask them back. "Why has Europe or America not produced a Nano?" Get the connection?

Yes, the answer is very simple. In any country what you will build or make or sell depends on whether there is a market available for the same.

In India there is no real market for Microsoft. If Windows is prevalent in India it is because of piracy. Google happens to be in India because it makes money in the US. Ditto Apple. The few thousands who buy Apple products in India are not enough for a company to sustain itself - with newer products, RnD and so on.

In India there is a market for the Nano. If the Nano does well in India, Tata will sell the Nano in other parts of the world. Like Bajaj sells its bikes in the Far East.

That is as far as the market is concerned.

The second is the practicality. Can you sitting in India start a company that will offer Americans an amazing internet shopping experience? Or ticket booking experience? Unlikely. Firstly, you will realize (as I did) that starting a company is not a joke and many give up (I gave up even before I started). Unlike in Silicon valley, where you can walk into one office and walk out in the space of a day with your company registration certificate, here it is an obstacle race. And thats when you just begin. After that running it is an altogether different story. Importing stuff is not easy - considering you dont have hi-tech computers and servers being manufactured here - it swallows tremendous amounts of money. All in all, a lot of things need to fall in place for a company to start.

Infosys is an exception - started by first time entrepreneurs. Wipro and TCS come from reasonably established business houses. And having said that - even then - they are all exceptions and thankfully we have a system that lets such new businesses survive - even if there are a few chokepoints prior to that.

And all said and done, the ITES industry is an industry - an entire industry. An industry the likes of which do not exist anywhere in the world. Yes, anywhere in the world. Yes, neither Philipines nor China nor any other country have any ITES company worth its name - despite the so called prevalence of such industries there. That gives you the second question to ask, "Does Infosys have any competitors from Philipines or China?"

If that doesn't silence your ignoramus questioner, let me know...

Of washing machines, socialism, environmentalism and Bangalore

2011-06-12T12:51:00.001+05:30

Do see this video, by the incomparable Hans Rosling - where he talks about the magic washing machine. Yes, I personally love the washing machine - saves a ton of time and as he says, helps us read and do many other things - hopefully productive.

But what he brings out really, is the common thing across washing machines, socialism, environmentalism and Bangalore - hypocrisy. Let me explain.

Many people - who work in highly paid jobs or have made their money working in highly paid jobs or businesses - all decidedly capitalist - suddenly adopt a socialist approach. Take any "successful" politician who talks socialism and you will find that the actions taken by the politician in his or her own personal life is decidedly not socialist. They talk socialist and ensure that they loot the money of the socialist people. They float socialist schemes (NREGA) and their own cadre loot the money in between. They fly in on the chartered planes of capitalist entrepreneurs and leave you with vacuous words of socialism.

Many of us who work in the corporate world have similar idiotic notions. Anybody who talks of socialism while taking a capitalist salary is a hypocrite at best and an ignoramus at worst. All it means as Hans puts it is that you want the "other" to be deprived of what you got.

Many years back, in the verdant landscape of Munnar - there was talk of a power project being built. And I, all of some 10 odd years old argued with a local resident - another 10 year old - on the proposed dam that would submerge many acres of forest land. He replied without batting an eyelid - that the dam would give them electricity and I was shellshocked. Many years later, I realized that I, living in the city had access to 24 hour electricity while they barely had electricity for 8 and the realization hit home - as Hans says that the whole idea is that people like us - try to live more sustainable lives - is more environmentalism than about opposing dams or power plants.

Which brings me to the final point. Bangaloreans love trees on roads and each time a tree is cut, some publication somewhere will write a couple of stories about the same - ironically on cut trees. But do check out Bangalore from the air - no trees at homes or in apartment complexes - the trees are either on roads or on public property. Here too, if you care about the city, please let charity begin at home - your own. Build rainwater harvesting systems, conserve water, use public transport, use solar water heaters (if at all), grow trees (or vegetables) wherever you can.

Either way Hans Rosling makes you think. Do watch the video. And btw, do check if A Roy has a washing machine in her jungle retreat...

They want you to be addicted

2011-06-07T10:49:00.001+05:30

Lovely report this from the Green Auto Blog. The report quotes a Saudi prince who is worried about increasing fuel efficiency standards and increasing oil prices.

As oil prices increase, other technologies become more and more affordable. Not necessarily in a direct way, but as oil prices go up, it becomes more worthwhile to invest in newer technologies and figure out an alternative means of fuel. Dependency on oil is bad for all us in more ways than one - except for the producers since they can hold the world ransom to their oil. The sooner we get rid of this dependency, the sooner we can work towards a more peaceful world.

No prizes for guessing why the Saudis (and obviously the other producers) want you to be addicted to their oil. That way the money keeps rolling into their coffers and we, the stupid lemmings, invest in our own suicide. They dont want you to be free - they want your dependency. Quite a situation for us humans who claim to be free eh?

And which is why, we must all be happy that oil prices continue to keep going up.

But while we wait for alternative technologies, what can we do? Perhaps try to reduce usage of plastics, oil and try to get to a more sustainable way of living - including use bicycles for transportation or public transport.

11 years

2011-06-05T09:00:00.005+05:30

Yes, its been 11 years since I rolled into Bangalore - on a Sunday like this - at about 9 am in the Udyan Express from Mumbai - sleeper class. June 5th it was and I was surprised at about 12 noon, when the weather did not really feel like June in Mumbai. Mumbai was hot, Bangalore was pleasant. And what weather glorious weather it was. Yet, 11 years ago, I was not sure if this city was good. The weather was nice, but little else otherwise. Roads were sad. Electricity was not great. The city was not professional like Mumbai. There was little else to do unlike Mumbai. Public transport sucked big time.

But in 11 years, the city has come a long way. Yes, we had to live through the construction of the Silk Board flyover and the market flyover. We had to live through a million traffic jams (and continue to do so - but the difference is that there is hope now). A zillion electricity cuts - which have become a million now. But none was as great as the great attempt to drag Bangalore into a "halli"ness by the fumble harmer (deliberate spoonerism) and his family (it still continues with a certain chaprasis help). Roads were dug up, development stopped and we had to hear pontifications on poverty from those who drove SUV's and owned government allotted petrol pumps.

In the last 3 odd years, infrastructure construction has been going at a great pace, public transport (BMTC is probably Indias best or second to BEST) rocks, Metro construction has been going at a fast clip and Bangalore is developing. Rickshaws are still not professional, traffic cops can fine more motorists and surely the educated motorists of this city can have more traffic sense, but yes, the city feels like a city more and more.

Yet 11 years ago, I had no inkling of how this city would be my home...

Bangalore has advantages very few other places have. With its weather, it is a great place to create cycling tracks on roads. It is a great place to walk - even to work. There are many lakes here which are dying and can be rejuvenated. With its size, it offers a great quality of life that large cities cannot provide. Did I mention it has great food options? And yes, it has the potential to be Singapore and more. Hopefully this vision will be realized...

Petrol powered everything

2011-06-03T18:57:00.000+05:30

Electric vehicles are facing some bit of a resistance - both in mindshare and in actual adaption. And perhaps in countries like India a definite delay in introduction - except for the brave Reva. Imagine a world where petrol powered everything. Cannot? Take a look at these two videos. One by Nissan:

And one by Renault

Link via Autoblog Green.

Peaceful nation

2011-06-03T18:31:00.000+05:30

Heard about the peaceful nation in our neighbourhood? Yes, yes, the country of the pure. Very peaceful nation it is, except when it is provoked.

What happens when it is provoked?

Oh, then its largely peaceful politicians make blustery speeches threatening entire humanity with the worst.

Ah, but its politicians are peaceful arent they?

Oh, they are largely peaceful, except when their army gets provoked - at which point the army kills a few of those peaceful politicians.

Ah, the army right? Must be a disciplined sort of army right?

Yes, yes, very disciplined army they are - except that there a few rogues in their army who often get out and start wars.

Ah, peaceful wars right? Yes, yes, very peaceful wars. So peaceful that they dont think that the other side will attack at all. Or defend for that matter. Their wars are meant to be one-sided wars where they expect to walk in with guns and the like and walk out with land. But sometimes the other side grinds them to dust and they become very angry.

Sometimes eh?

No, all the times actually.

So, is the army perpetually angry?

Well, you can say that. And then again, not all of the army. Just a fraction of it who are radical.

Ah, so then they must be very easy to subdue and control right? I mean, if the majority is peaceful and the small tiny minority is rabid, it is easy right?

Not when they are controlled by their largely peaceful intelligence agency.

Oh, so they have a peaceful intelligence agency as well eh?

Yes, very peaceful intelligence agency - except that it too has its share of rogues who influences the rogue part of the army.

Is that all they do?

No, they also sometimes, engage with largely peaceful charitable organizations who have their rogues - you know the kinds who dont follow the code of the charitable organizations. They engage with these rogues who often take the law into their own hands and encourage them to kill a few while they are at charity.

Oh, so there are these charity organization that terrorise and kill people?

No, not all of them. Just the rogues.

So where are the silent majority?

Oh there are the ones who garland those rogues, sometimes. Otherwise they are very peaceful too.

Very interesting. I hear that their army has nuclear bombs too?

Yes, just about a hundred of them.

But does a peace seeking army need nukes?

Sure, why not?

But just putting two and two together, if those fraction of rogues in the army meet a fraction of rogues who inturn meet a fraction of the rogues of the charitable organizations who manage a recruit a rogue into their airforce and get their hands on a rogue plane and a rogue nuclear device?

It still remains a peaceful nuke?

Hows that?

It will be dropped on some peaceloving part of the world...

And then?

Dont ask...

(Tried to put something together, not sure if it came out the way I intended it to...)

Of IT companies and schools...

2011-05-29T16:50:00.000+05:30

Heres a simple exercise. Look carefully around you. Pick about 10 schools around your locality. Actually colleges are a better choice. Now go over the list of owners or trustees. Sooner or later you will find a politician. Indeed the chances you dont know an educational institution that has the association of a politician is quite low.

Now, do a similar survey of IT companies you know. The chances you know an IT company that has the association of a politician is quite low.

Yet, all around the clamour by politicians is that the salaries of IT professionals is high. There is no similar clamour to increase the salaries of teachers - which really is an issue - but we will come to this later.

Every alternate article that laments the state of industry in India points to the fact that the IT industry (together with its much derided cousin, the BPO) is sucking talent from where it is really needed. Yet, the number of articles that similarly lament the fate of lowly paid teachers and its effect on schools and education are quite less.

IT companies are said to have it easy and it is the sign of the commentators astuteness if you agree with such a stupid and uninformed statement. The next time sometime tells you this, heres what you got to tell them. "If IT money were easy money, politicians would be starting IT companies and not schools and colleges."

And then will ask you, what is the connection? The connection is obvious, you will say.

"Starting a school is all about knowing the right persons in power. They allot you land - often at a throwaway price. No, make that, always at a throwaway price. In most places, getting land for a school in the name of a trust is the easiest and most hassle free - not for you and me, but for the politicians kith and kin who often have very little else to do anyway."

"But", they counter, "getting land for companies is easy too. Anybody who flashes his card as an industrialist and lobbies a bit can buy land. What makes you think that companies are not a favoured lot."

Thats when you shoot for the kill. "Then", you ask, "Why aren't politicians opening IT companies in droves, if IT companies are that easy to open and make money out of?"

"Thats because," they tell you, very informatively, "there are enough IT companies out there, but there arent enough schools"

"Assuming you point is right", you ask, "why arent there enough schools? or Colleges? If there were equality in opportunity, why would anybody need reservations?" The answer is here that the government severely restricts the opening of schools and colleges - leading to a supply crunch. It is only now that foreign and local universities have been permitted to set up shop - leading to a few private universities being set up. Till now, we have had private colleges mostly - but now there are more private universities too - but the rules do not make very easy. But then not too many people are opening private universities - why is that?

The reason is that it is far far easier to set up a school or college under an established university and wait for the donations in the name of "management quota", "donation", "infrastructure", "capitation fees". Creating an entirely new university is tough work. Same as setting and running a company - setting a company, getting business, managing employees is not quite the same as getting land on the cheap, hiring teachers at throwaway salaries and waiting for the money to roll in.

And for the technical educated person, strange as it may sound, it is far far easier to start an IT company and go out on his own than for a person passionate about education and wanting to start a school on her own. And heres Tavleen Singhs piece today which elaborates on this point at length.

Do remember this the next time you hear a holier than thou politician (or any uninformed person) talk about how IT companies have it easy.

PS: Why are salaries of IT companies high? Most companies have a margin of 20-30 odd percent. IT companies have a slightly higher profit range because their overall investment in equipment is lower. Salaries are among their major expenses - since they hire professionals and not workers. However, it is the IT companies which started the trend of sharing their profits better with their employees by paying them better - unlike other industries before them.

So, the next time you hear this, ensure that you educate your audience. "IT salaries are high because IT companies share their profits better - not because making money is easy - either for the owner or for the employee." A longer post on this required - coming soon.

Colgone flavoured gum

2011-05-15T13:57:00.000+05:30

Chanced upon a pack of Fevigum - the USP of it seems to be that the gum is cologne flavoured. Clearly the whole world is going great guns - Imagine making a bunch of things at home that involves cutting, pasting and cutting and pasting. And still smelling of cologne! Hooray.

I thought a few days back that the only thing that is not invented in the world with chocolate flavour is detergents. I now add gum to that list! And perhaps hair oil and toothpaste and shoe polish. Okay forget it...

Petrol prices go up once again

2011-05-15T13:47:00.000+05:30

Petrol prices go up once again - its now 70 bucks. This is great news - thought in the short run it is a fair amount of pain. But look at the brighter side, diesel prices are still there - where they were a few months back - because the government does not want to hurt the common man - by causing a hike in transportation (public, goods) and precipitating yet another hike in inflation. But then, unfortunately the aam aadmi will get hurt either way. Hike petrol prices and those two wheelers which are used by the common man and many small businesses will be hit. And the non hike of diesel prices goes on to cross subside the khaas aadmi - actually the smart guys who bought a diesel vehicle instead of buying a petrol vehicle.

Anyway, all this a side story, really. The real story is that oil prices are going up and hopefully going up in flames. The sooner the oil prices go up, the better it is for alternative technology to become more affordable. In the meantime, I think (actually hope) that all those shiny, swanky oil and petrol burners are lemons. And this really (again, more hope than anything else) is the last hurrah of those oil burning shiny cars.

When is Mahindra Reva launching a better electric car...I am waiting!

The next few years are dangerous for India

2011-05-05T06:55:00.000+05:30

Osama Bin Laden is all over the place. And like many had predicted, he was living bang in the middle of Pakistan - and look at the cheek of this - a kilometre or so away from their Military Academy or some such. Amazing country you would think - that they did not know that the worlds most wanted terrorist was living bang in the middle of their country - and a stray bullet from their military academy could actually have got him without him knowing it.

Somehow, this reminds me of a Panchatantra story of two travellers - one of whom is a thief. Each of three nights they cross a forest to reach their destination, the thief rifles through the others luggage and fails to find any booty. And as their travel ends, he confesses to the other, "I am a thief".
"I knew that" says the other
"I knew you were carrying something precious, but what stumps me is that I was unable to find it in your luggage each night. Tell me where did you hide it?"
"Simple, in your luggage, each night."

No, it is not a direct analogy, but there is some vague resemblance.

But what I like about the OBL story is that the message is clear. The US will get anybody who harms them - one day or other, one way or other. Whether they are led by left leaning Obama or right leaning Bush. Unlike in India - where whether we are led by so called right leaners or confirmed left leaners - our spine refuses to grow.

We have not managed to harm a hair on that fellow Dawood Ibrahim who lives a life of luxury in Pakistan - the whole world and their brothers in law know that he lives in Karachi. And the other great man Mullah Omar who we fed biryani and released and in return he has killed so many more. Would that be a great return on investment? I guess so. And of course, Hafiz Saeed and co who organized the 26/11 massacre, something that is becoming a hot potato to mention.

But why worry about fugitives in a foreign country when our own country is rampant with them, both in prison and out of them - I need not give you names.

Just thinking, if OBL was in India (and that would have been one smart move by Pakistan) somehow and he was killed this way, the officers would have been tried and arrested for a fake encounter.

Anyway, whatever it is, the world just got unsafe for India in general - since the messages to fugitives holed up in Pakistan is very clear. Attack US and we cannot protect you. Attack India and nobody can harm you.

B Raman, sums it up very well...

Beware of Election Freebies

2011-04-12T20:55:00.000+05:30

It is the silly season of election time once again in India. Election times have tended to lean towards freebies promised by all parties concerned over the past few years. About five years back, Mr M Karunanidhi’s DMK went a step forward and promised free colour television sets for the poor of Tamil Nadu if they came to power. Sure enough, when they came to power, they set out to fulfil their promise. They did not plan or promise the electricity required to run them, but they squandered taxpayers’ money on television sets, pressing as the need was for them for the poor.

Each party comes up with more and innovative means of squandering taxpayers’ money, Today, there is even a term for it, ‘competitive populism’.

This is a very dangerous trend. A few years back, while driving through the rural areas of Tamil Nadu, I came across a PDS shop distributing the 25 kg of rice per month per ration card-holding family. The person who was with me mentioned that the 25 kg rice scheme has destroyed any incentive to work among many families with the result that it is difficult to get labour in Tamil Nadu. After all, why indulge in back breaking manual labour when the food is available for free? The upcoming election has seen a rash of such promises — laptops, mixers, grinders were on the list among other things.

On the one hand the middle class is taxed heavily and that money is used, not for infrastructure building, but for freebies such as these which apart from being a leaky bucket also remove the incentive to work and get ahead in life. These freebies effectively emasculate a population which cannot take the rough and tumble of the jungle once they are used to being given stuff for free. What makes it even worse is that once something like this is set in motion, it is very difficult to reverse the trend and this becomes a show of one upmanship between political parties. And Kerala is poised to go the same way too.

The long-term effects of this are not hard to see — on the one hand, the middle class will work hard and get taxed heavily by the Government to fund its castle-in-the-air dreams. On the other hand, the poor will get used to a culture of entitlements and continue to remain dependent on Government doles and election freebies — which will work very well for the party since they are effectively a captive vote-bank.

It is a perfect recipe for political parties to form corrupt Governments while distributing a few small freebies to the ignorant populace and keep them happy while looting the exchequer, secure that their votes will come for a TV set or a grinder. Instead of focusing on pressing problems of their States and country like better infrastructure and quality of life, political parties are busy offering palliatives to real issues in order to buy votes.

(This was published in the Pioneer as an Op Ed titled, The culture of buying votes with freebies, yesterday.)

Porters against Progress

2011-04-06T10:43:00.000+05:30

The last time you went to the airport, who lugged your trolley around? Yourself. Then why have porters at railway stations to lug your trolley around? So, here is a story about how the Bangalore railway station is introducing trolleys, which, will be pulled by the porters and not by the passengers themselves. Hooray.

The article is worth reading. Firstly porters complaining that wheeled suitcases pushed away their business and that these trolleys are here to take away their livelihood. So, you can be sure that many of these trolleys will be sabotaged soon. Now you will see an article lamenting smooth floors at railway stations.

But think about it for a moment. Are these porters any different from the industrialists who opposed (and still oppose) liberalisation? Are they any different from the Bombay Taxi drivers who still supposedly want to drive their antiquated vehicles? Are they any different from the municipal sweepers who resist the introduction of sweeping machines? Surely, if bullocks could talk, we would have some sort of a protest against the withdrawal of bullock carts too...

The porters are not really railway employees, but in the so called 21st century India the fact that these guys are fighting for jobs such as these speaks volumes of the opportunities missed by our rulers. These guys are an able workforce who would happily work in any factory or industry if they got such jobs. But since such jobs are not around as much as they should be, here they are. Think about it. 65 odd years after a so called independence, things are exactly as they were under colonial rule. Each station of India supports about 10-20 porters on an average. The total railway stations in India are well in excess of 1000 which means a substantial workforce is here waiting for the next train, literally and figuratively. The train that will never arrive to deliver them a simple, stable livelihood.

As for the railways, almost everything that can be wrong is wrong with the railways. The damn thing is stuck somewhere in the late 18th century and with a minister who cannot think beyond her nose, it will soon become the worlds largest museum in running condition.

Corporate Jungle Strategies

2011-03-20T16:21:00.000+05:30

A few corporate truths that will help you survive the big bad jungle of corporate life.

You wont win as the lone ranger. There are no lone rangers. The ones who think they are lone rangers are stupid or incompetent. This may seem contrarian, but if you are a person who cannot take people along either through your ideas or other qualities, then you wont survive for long. You can try your luck elsewhere, but ultimately the answer is the same, sooner or later. Being a lone ranger is good in the movies, but bad in business,
Second related truth. Your team wont win as the lone ranger either. Nothing can get done as one person or one team. Different people, different strengths, different skills - all come together to create a team. Unless you have a great team with you or you put in conscious effort to create a great team, not only will you not win, your team will lose too. The effort spent in creating a team and calibrating their strengths and allocating work as per their strengths is worth it.
The jungle is all about thriving - not survival. This might seem obvious or counterintuitive depending on whom you ask. But if you focus on survival, your strategies will be limiting, close minded and even detrimental to the company. The moment you think of thriving - you will open your mind, take risks and think about the good of the company overall. Think about it - you head a new team that might get shut down - it is well known. Think how you will go about it in a survival mode or a thriving mode. Yes, the latter has more risk. But without risk, can you get anywhere?
Which brings us to the next related truth. Take Risk. Because, not everybody can. Or wants to. Everybody out there is busy playing the survival game, playing by the rules, kissing up, pleasing people. Get out, take risk. Be that square peg in the round hole - bend the rules, stretch the boundaries, but don't break the rules or scale the boundary. There is a lot of space there, I assure you.
Your work wont talk for itself - not in the way you expect to - unless it fits in with the objectives of the firm. Your work is required for you to showcase your manager. Your managers work will showcase for his manager and so on. Each of you better add "deltas" to the others output so that the final product is impressive, but every persons effort has to be a segue into the next persons effort. If you are working in different directions, it is diffused effort and wont get you anywhere. But everything you do gets noticed. Everything you don't do gets noticed. Every work you do is a stamp of you at work - it may not be a Michaelangelo sculpture, but it will bears your stamp. And if your work is anywhere as collectible as his sculptures, it better have that stamp.
Reputation travels fast. Real fast. But if you focus on building a reputation it wont work. Whichever way your work heads, success or failure, one thing it will keep adding to is your reputation. Reputation is a byproduct of the work you do. Each piece of work you do, builds your reputation or takes a brick down from it. Either way, it will, in general, be relflective of those patterns we spoke about in a recent column.
That other thing is Perception. Reputation and Perception are what gets created out of your work. Your Perception and Reputation can go hand in hand if you are lucky, but it can be at loggerheads to each other too. For instance, you reputation may be that of a tough task master, but people may perceive you as being pushy. How will it work? You will find resistance while working with people and they may not share their best output with you.
Play to your strengths - not to someone elses strengths. Figure out what your strengths are and build them. A stronger strength is always more useful than a patched up weakness.
Unlike the real jungle, you can make mistakes. You are allowed to make mistakes. Provided you don't repeat the same mistake. And admit it right away and put in processes to ensure that it doesn't happen again. If you lucky to be in a place where you get a second chance to succeed, then take it with both hands and give it all you have.
Last but not the least, stick to your values. This might seem obvious, but you will realize that many of us don't know what our values are and if at all we have any. Whatever are those values, stick to your values and they will stick to you. And expect your team to stick only to those values they see you enact - not preach. Hopefully you wont have to preach - nobody likes it anyway. Walk the talk or better still, walk the walk. Whatever else you do, don't do, mistakes or no mistakes - your values are what you will be known by.
Finally, burn a few bridges if you want to, but don't burn all of them. No man is an island and you will need bridges to take you where you want to be.

(Published in Advancedge March 2011, slightly edited)

The six blinding men in Hindoostan

2011-03-16T21:43:00.001+05:30

This is really a redux of the Six blind men of Hindoostan, a poem by John Godfrey Saxe - a poem most of us know either by rote or are definitely familiar with. In the poem, 6 blind men argue about how the elephant is something else, depending on what part of the elephant they touch etc etc.

Today, the elephant is a scam and heres how the six blinding actors help the "thieves" hide the elephant in the room. They shine the light in all the wrong places, including their audiences eyes so that they miss the elephant in the room, unless it belongs to the BJP.

First blinding man is the media. First it denies that the elephant exists and then when confronted states that it knew that the elephant was in the room all along and they were telling you this.While this is happening, another channel calls it vile propoganda. And if there is somebody in the media who is hell bent on unearthing the truth, they just ignore it while focusing solely on wardrobe malfunctions and such like.

Second blinding man is the government itself. First they get extremely verbose old men into the room to state their argument aided and abetted by the first blinding man above where they agree vociferously and vehemently that this entire elephant is a notional elephant.

Here is where the third actors come in. They are useful idiots - mostly not star journalists turned CEOs - but genuinely good writers, who by virtue of various qualifications or with the necessity of impressing the powers that be come to the aid of one and two by writing Op-eds and what not to further cloud reality.

While all this happening, the fourth actor - the Chamcha Bureau of Investigation - also known as the School of Magic, aids in the disappearance of files, peoples and on occasion - entire histories. Sometimes, they bare their fangs and get incredibly efficient, including getting courts to open on holidays and rapidly arrest office bearers - mostly from enemy territory within the country.

While the four bright lights are shining in one direction, the fifth, a so called honest integrated puppet actor known for minor roles in the Bureaucracywood swings into action clouding perfectly organized loots as error of judgement, coalition drama (I meant, Dharma), claims amnesia and manages to get into the front pages of newspapers.

That leaves the honest citizen wondering if he should vote an alternative government - for which the media provides us mug shots of the most charismatic person ever born who shall ever remain youthful at middle age and reminds us of the bad things 4 years of non Congress rule did for us while conveniently ignoring the 60 years of the millstone around our neck. There are other reminders of frequently repeated speeches on the dual sided nature of the country.

And here is where the last actor comes in. Time. In the great country that is India, anybody can have the watches, but the scamsters have the time. The elephant is neatly sliced into smallish pieces while all the above 5 actors are at work. The elephant is divided across generations, ferried across countries, into cold storages to accumulate interest so that the generations ahead can enjoy the fruits of hard labour...

First draft - will clean this up a little more...

2011-03-15T10:48:00.001+05:30

Dont know if the EC (Seshan) mandated rules against graffiti apply or are being followed in Kerala. Spotted a bunch of these signs all over - mostly CPI booked. The election in Kerala is due sometime in April 2011.

A tree

2011-03-14T10:48:00.000+05:30

Spotted at Kannur (or Cannanore), a tree in memory of some of our Kargil martyrs. I spotted a circle at Trichy too in memory of a local martyr there. While our politicians get countless stadiums, bridges and what not named after them, our martyrs get a few isolated things named after them.

And I still dont know if Kargil is counted in official records as a war or as a peacetime negotiation that happened to involve guns.

Pulpy Arabian Grape juice

2011-03-02T11:13:00.000+05:30

For those in Bangalore, stalls advertising "Puply Arabian Grape Juice" are a common sight. They are either stalls or boards on existing shops where they advertise that such a product is available. This made me curious. For one, I did not know that grapes grew in Saudi Arabia - and second, even more surprising that India imported grapes from Saudi Arabia. That got me thinking about whether it is really feasible for someone to import grapes from Saudi and sell it in so many stores at a common mans level.

So, like a true internet fan, I googled for "grapes cultivation in Saudi Arabia" and sure enough I found an FAO link - this one. I was surprised to see that grapes did grow in KSA - apart from the obvious dates, figs and such like. So, my first myth was demolished.

Here is a wikipedia entry on Grapes - India is among the top 10 producers of grapes.

Now the question was how much did India produce. I found an FAO link again which detailed Grapes cultivation in India.

The difference is 467 percent - about 6000 ha in SA and 34000 ha in India - it is presumably a little different now since those pages are slightly older. So, my question is a very simple. Why and how are we importing grapes into India from KSA - especially considering that as per FAO data in the second link, we consume nearly 85% fresh within the country itself? Are we really importing or is this a marketing gimmick?

Seems to be the latter - since a 2009 report shows that India does import grapes - one importer imported about a 100 odd tonnes of grapes (production is about 10,000 tonnes) which is a drop in the ocean of grapes here and those grapes came from California and not KSA. And if we indeed import grapes, clearly, these are super premium grapes the likes of which cannot be pulped and sold on the streets of Bangalore. In a gourmet setting, I can understand.

Therefore, I think that the said Arabian pulpy grape juice is Indian pulpy grape juice. Either way, grapes are good, but dont let people charge you a premium with a phoren name tag and lots of local sugar.

Petrol Arbitrage

2011-02-21T21:07:00.000+05:30

Just off the border off Karnataka, in Tamil Nadu where petrol prices are a tad lower. A whiteboard makes it clear - while you are here, fill up and go...

Gscionitis

2011-02-20T16:55:00.001+05:30

Gscionitis (pronounced, scionitis, silent G) – is an affliction of certain persons of "noble" descent to procrastinate their ascent to power. Usually found in combination with a propensity to obsessively compulsively seek photo ops .

Symptoms

Accompanied by severe occurrence of foot in the mouth disease, especially in front of foreigners or outsiders and a severe occurrenc of "Speakers block" (like writers block) in front of homegrown audiences

Demonstrates an Inability to answer or comprehend questions and conversations (and when doing so, usually necessitates strong backpedal treatment by a large team.)

combined with: An ability to stick to rehearsed dialogues and when confronted later, amnesia

Tests

Facing the crowds test – Put the subject in front of a random set of educated people and ask questions. The test will generate negative scores. Do note that this test is very very difficult to perform considering subjects legendary ability to procrastinate and run (but the running away is never procrastinated).

History test – Select a random historic issue and ask the subject if he has any idea of the same. Again, very difficult to test since the subject is extremely difficult to pin down for a test. Same test with Chinese manufactured Talking parrot is often known to give better results.

Deja Vu: Subject is known to answer the same questions with slightly different answers each time in an extremely controlled environment. Subject is also known to have propensity to meet uneducated or gullible people like students (many students suffer a condition known as charismatis - now known to be almost eliminated except in journalists). Multiple negative experiences with said audiences can aggravate slipperiness index of subject:

Slipperiness index: The tendency of the subject to slip away either before arrival due to rain or snow in summer of extreme heat in winter. Or on arrival, a tendency to slip away on observing someones watch. Usually accelerated by a question that is not on list.

Treatment

No known treatments - its an extremely rare condition, not usually running in families

Forceful administration of "official" responsibilities

Prognosis

Hyperactive mute button

A Tendency to repeat certain statements

A goldfish like memory

Complications

Acute Amnesia as the condition worsens

Prevention

Currently the only known cure for this is a the application of a puppet or runner or playback singer (like seen in Padosan). There is no direct cure available for scionitis. Though sisters are often known to save the dynasty. Mothers with extreme silence are known to complicate matters leading to wrong diagnosis.

Completely, Totally and Comprehensively inspired by the Blue Turbanitis.

Smart Branding

2011-02-19T18:36:00.000+05:30

Spotted on an "Airavat" Club Class bus. Among the first times I have seen an ad utilizing existing props like wheels to communicate something.

Very creative, I thought!

Egypt in my backyard

2011-02-13T15:10:00.001+05:30

Egypt is a country somewhere between Middle East and Africa and till recently known for Pyramids, heiroglyphics and baklava and as a "tourist destination" beyond the usual Singapore and Far East. For most Indians, the knowledge of Egypt started and ended there, notwithstanding the fact they would have seen the movie "Mummy".

Last week a revolution in Egypt consumed a fair amount of face time on Twitter. What was the fuss about, I dont know, but everybody had their 25 cents to add on Egypt. Which is fine, because on an instant medium like Twitter, you make your opinion on developing issues as you go along. The revolution ended with their dictator taking away large sums of money as his retirement fund and settling down at a resort somewhere.

But it is funny how our politicians are now talking about Egypt. Everybody wants an Egypt here. I dont get it why? First, we wanted our Obama, now we wanted our Egypt. For gods sake, decide what you want. Obama or Egypt.

Now theres a Mulayam Singh Yadav who wants an Egypt style revolution in UP to his benefit. Theres is the parasitic PDP which wants an Egypt style revolution in Kashmir to which Omar Abdullah asked the worthies of PDP if they want Army to take over - for which they obviously had no answer. Congress wants an Egypt in Karnataka and the BJP wants an Egypt in India. Sigh.

And this when most of India cannot place Egypt on a map or have any clue of a difference between Mubarak and Musharraf. And out of that for how many would Egypt have mattered is anybodys guess.

And how many realized that it all ended in the military taking over?

Twitter as a political tool

2011-02-10T21:00:00.000+05:30

The recent revolution in Tunisia gave followers of the internet yet another cause to cheer. Twitter was supposed to have played a major part in the revolution which ousted the country's ruler. Whether that was good or bad is a different matter altogether which only time will tell.

People are asking, will Twitter have the same effect in India? Are we ready for a Twitter revolution? The answer to that is a clear no - with low levels of internet penetration, barriers to English and lower levels of mobile internet penetration. However, it is growing up as a political tool more than anything else.

For a while Twitter was thought to be useful only for celebrities to tweet their breakfasts and holiday destinations. But over the past few years, it has gained currency as the go to place for the latest happenings. This is obvious because anybody with a mobile internet connection and a Twitter account at the spot of any happening (terror attacks like Mumbai 26/11 where many of those trapped in the mayhem were active on Twitter) can report far better than any news channel. That being said, its importance has just begun to be seen and will not go down anytime soon.

The big idea about Twitter is that one can follow anybody who is on it - be it journalists or news tycoons or celebrities or sportspersons. The advantage is that you get to read them, unfiltered and in real time. That, for a fan is as good as it gets. And if the Big B replies to your tweets, your day is made. For politicians this is an important medium - they get to connect with their constituencies, bounce ideas and more importantly get a dipstick feel of what people think about them. And being what they are - busy people - it is easy to create news out of Twitter. So, it is smart to follow someone who is a newsmaker. Yet another reason why it is here to stay. And its the best bet for lazy journalism as well, follow, a celeb on twitter, quote them and create your own news...

But in India, it is the BJP politicians who have been quick on the draw in the twitter battle. Overall the English language media (with a few honorable exceptions) has an anti-BJP bias. Twitter is an excellent way for the BJP to bypass traditional media outlets and reach their constituency directly. And whats better - it is interactive, unlike a boisterous television host. Thus twitter gives them great reach within their constituency - and many of them being media savvy exchange thoughts with their followers on Twitter.

Congress has been relatively slower to catch up on Twitter - except for Shashi Tharoor who is a favourite of many. It can be argued that they don't need it what with channels competing to report Rahul Gandhi's breakfast each day. But after him, there are barely anybody - Abhishek Singhvi is one who is on it. And NC has Omar Abdullah on it.

Narendra Modi is on twitter - he has always been internet savvy. Yeddyurappa is a new entrant. Varun Gandhi was on twitter, but he seems to have disappeared. The latest one to join the Twitter bandwagon was Sushma Swaraj - she practically live tweeted her arrest in Jammu while her many followers on Twitter relayed it further. She was an instant heroine - a leader in the middle of the Tiranga yatra arrested fighting for a cause she believed in.

Twitter is a great tool - it forces our politicians to reach out, communicate and be answerable while enjoying celebrity status, but these are early days yet. As time goes, politicians will be expected to be active on Twitter and engage real time with people. It would of course be a mistake to assume tweeters to be great politicians, but very soon the reverse will be true with tweeter politicians getting first mover advantage.

Shifting Goalposts in the Telecom Scam

2011-01-28T08:40:00.000+05:30

What are the types of scam that a person in an influential position can perpetuate?

One type of scam is to sell something that belongs to the Government at a cheaper than market rate. That buyer then sells the asset at prevailing market price and pockets a profit. Typically, discretionary land allotments fall in this category. Such benefits often accrue to ‘people who are close to power’ or ‘loyal’.

The second type of scam is the opposite of this one. Where the influential person enters into a contract to buy something (Guns, Submarines) for the forces or Government or infrastructure at an inflated price. A variation of this is to buy substandard or outdated technology or non standard items. In either of these cases, the cost is inflated.

Now, in buying and selling assets — it is entirely possible that the official in question is naive or stupid. But to expect in these times that any politician can be so stupid as to not see his (or his backers) self interest is a little bit of a stretch. So we can assume that people at influential positions make transactions based on self interest as much as national interest (the former may trump the latter as we have seen).

Leaving stupidity aside, benefits from both the above transactions (in the former case, the profit is often a reward for loyalty) can flow back to the “person of influence”. This is known as a kickback. Kickbacks can be in cash and kind. Kickbacks in kind varying from a simple job or jobs to a stake in business to real estate. Kickbacks in cash may be to varying non persons, benami friends and Swiss accounts.

The reason why this elucidation is required is because there is attempt in some quarters to shift the goalposts on the spectrum scam that the loss is notional.

The loss is not notional because some other entities made money on the spectrum almost overnight — since the spectrum was sold on 2001 valuations in 2007. The loss would have been notional, had the holders of the spectrum made no money on it.

This argument assumes that the Government does not need that extra money or that the extra money would have made the Government spend more on pork barrel schemes.

But that argument is simply stating a known fact that the Government is corrupt. If the mug does not leak, the bucket will. That is no basis to justify the underpricing of an asset and selling it off to favoured bidders.

In fact, the argument could be equally strong on the other side that the extra money would have helped the Government lower taxes or invest in defence and infrastructure and in many other much needed areas.

The second shifting is to say that customers benefited because of lower tariff on account of the low cost of spectrum sale.

On this count, if the Government was so concerned about offering low cost to customers, it should have taken a very nominal licence fee and opened the floodgates to multiple operators with a profit sharing clause. Clearly, the reason of the low cost of sale was not about benefiting customers. This is now being added to the argument — perhaps by the operators who benefited. If this was true, why did people lobby for a particular man to head the Ministry? And as far as I know, customers did not lobby for him to be there.

The fact is that the money that should have gone to the exchequer went into private hands. Whether it went into politicians hands is a matter of investigation which as we all know will run into millions of years and zillions of dead ends — by which time it will fade from public memory and the beneficiaries will enjoy the high life. The money, in the meantime, will be invested in real estate, gold or in tax havens and may even come back as FII investment in the stock markets.

But for now, it is important that we let the focus remain on the fact that the exchequer was robbed.

(This piece was published as an Op Ed in Pioneer on 26th Jan 2011)

Hindi in Kerala

2011-01-15T13:36:00.000+05:30

In my many visits to Kerala over the past many years, the one thing that I have found resilient in the state is the unstinting love for its language. The language is Malayalam. If you speak Malayalam, stuff happens. If you speak other languages, things wont move. They will, but at a slighty different pace. And while English would grudgingly win you a few brownie points for being a tourist - not too many other languages would - perhaps in the corridors of 5 star hotels, but on the street - no way. And Hindi - well, the less said the better. I was amazed at the reluctance of the state to learn Hindi.

But a few months back, on a routine visit I was amazed to see quite a few people converse in Hindi. It turns out that along with the emergence of Yadav Bhelpuri Centers there are quite a few north Indians and east Indians working in Kerala. They are there to supplement the labour pool. After all you don't want a post graduate waiter do you? So, in a hundred percent literate state, there are either no takers for certain jobs or the pay is too less - so they migrate to other states in search of jobs. And who comes in their place? People who are willing to do those jobs. Thus it has happened that there are quite a few "Northies" in Kerala and this time I heard people converse in Hindi with them. That's quite a change.

But now, as a certain Raj Thackeray asks and soon a Raj or Reji or Rehman in Kerala will ask - why arent they learning Malayalam?

Interestingly, it will also result in better North Indian food in Kerala apart from Yadav Bhelpuri centers and hopefully better phulkas and rotis...

Big B Gujarat Tourism Video

2011-01-15T09:35:00.000+05:30

This entire GTDC video series nothing less than awesome. Its radio ads (that are playing now in the Big Bs voice) are pretty cool too.

Note the choice of words in this Somnath ad though - Foreign invaders or Videshi Hamlavar, but as the history will tell you, it was not always foreign invaders - we had local, homegrown iconoclasts too...but do enjoy the videos - they are really good and the Big Bs persuasive voice makes it awesome.

Yadav Bhelpuri Centre

2011-01-14T09:22:00.000+05:30

This is no ordinary Yadav Bhelpuri Centre. This is a Yadav Bhelpuri centre in Kerala - more precisely, at MG road, Cochin.

Many moons ago, on our annual vacations to Kerala - we would maintain that is only the availability of Bhelpuri that makes Bombay a better place to live than Kerala and all my relatives maintained that Bhelpuri had no place in a place like Kerala.

But it looks like the Yadavs have done what the BJP has not - bought a slice of North India into Kerala. More on this later - a longer post coming up on how while once upon a time Mallus helped the middle east, today it is the Biharis and UP-ites who are heading to Kerala - for work!

Go to Antartica

2011-01-14T09:18:00.000+05:30

On a recent visit to Kerala - we were stuck in a longish traffic jam at Kadavanthara junction - which really has to be among the top ten destinations to visit in India as far as a traffic jam is concerned.

While waiting there with, quite obviously, nothing else to do, we chanced upon this ad. I did not know for the life of me that Antartica was a tourist destination, but clearly I am missing something. Perhaps hordes of Malayalis have already descended there and declared an agitation of some sort - perhaps against tourism.

Whoever hit upon this spot to place a nice tourist destination ad is a genius. Imagine being stuck there in a vehicle at some 3 pm in the afternoon and you see this nice enticing billboard that advertises a really cool (literally) destination. And in that moment, if you are stuck in the same kind of traffic jam we were stuck in, the temptation to call and make a booking to Antartica then and there is very high.

I would like to how many Malayalis descended on Antartica in this fashion!

Riding an evil tiger

2011-01-13T08:09:00.000+05:30

Every recent comment on Pakistan never forgets to include that it was the Senior Bhutto who first got into bed with the Islamists. Which resulted in him appointing Zia Ul Haq as his military head - for which he was duly repaid by the latter. Zia continued the path of encouraging Islamists and Islamism - as did successive governments" and the result today is there for all to see. A "pious" man who was the bodyguard of a "liberal" gunned him down - for no great offense except that he attempted to save the life of a "blasphemer". That was enough for the "pious" man to take his life. Those who claim to be shocked by this should realise by now that this was the writing on the wall all along.

As the Pakistani society is discovering, riding a tiger has its pitfalls. As the character of Bhaloo says in Jungle Book while holding a tiger by its tail - how can I let go - it has teeth at the other end. Riding a tiger or holding its tail is a nice ride until its teeth bite - and bite it will. Nobody who has ridden a tiger has got off safe and sound - either the tiger has to die or the rider. There are no two ways about it. And if the tiger in question is a nuclear teethed tiger, you can safely assume that it not go down quietly.

Today Pakistan civil society (if something like that exists) is hiding from a tiger - the same tiger that they encouraged either by denial or fear or plain ignorance or even a dash of arrogance - "it will bite others, but won't bite me". And the same tiger is out to get them.

The same applies to the US - it rode the Islamic tiger from Arabia to Afghanistan to Pakistan so that it could defeat the Soviets. "Defeat" it did, but today the same tiger is out to get the US and its interests. It has done considerable damage to the US already - something that the Soviets could never do. And the US is attempting to de-fang the tiger smoothly. Which is a historical impossibility. No evil has ever gone down silently.

What the US is learning China refuses to learn. China is in bed with various evils - North Korea, Pakistan and if it doesnt actively encourage them - it surely does not discourage them. Very soon, the tigers will come home to roost - even for China.

2010, a requiem

2010-12-30T14:30:00.000+05:30

The year 2010 has been a momentous year has it not? Let us take a look back at the year and thank a few of those who made it memorable.

First up, Gopikrishna (Pioneer - the man who felled a King) and Manu Joseph (Open Magazine) for breaking the spectrum scam and Radia tapes - they are intimately connected to each other. Gopikrishna, incidentally should receive a thanks from the year 2008 onwards since the spectrum scam was reported by him that long ago. 2010 will be remembered thanks to these guys as the year that the media came to known like it was always suspected the proverbial emperors new clothes came off thanks to these two gentlemen.

While on the tapes, a great thanks to Twitter for doing what most Indian media could never do - pressurize media into reporting about themselves - and acting as a watchdog for the media in general. Twitter will continue to be happening for a while now - much to the chagrin of traditional media.

A mention of Radia tapes without a thanks to Radia herself would be blasphemy. Thank you Nira Radia for all the hard work you put in while lobbying for your clients. Clearly, you were doing your job better than our government. I wish you were granted special entry into our cabinet of ministers. That itself would make it about 100% more efficient. Your tapes have showed how the government actually works and it ain't pleasant. Thanks for bring it out in the open.

While on women, thanks to Saina Nehwal for keeping the Indian flag aloft in the badminton sphere. Alongwith the womens relay team that got us medals in both Asiad and CWG.

A mention of CWG cannot happen without the mention of the ubiquitous Suresh Kalmadi. A big thanks to Suresh Kalmadi for pushing up the market price of rented treadmills, sports equipment and what not - if CWG shares were listed, investors would have got a few crumbs from the estimated 1575% appreciation. Also, a big thanks for creating world records in spending money for construction. Who said there is no money in sports? Those who say that are probably out there playing.

And there's another record in a sport that is not recognized - not legally atleast. It is surely a local record though world records may be challenged too. The government that currently rules us has been dubbed the "most corrupt government yet to rule India". Thank you government for squandering the aam tax payers hard earned money.Given that there is another couple of years of glorious misrule left, this record might leave Sachin Tendulkar gasping.

Speaking of the great man himself, thanks to Sachin Tendulkar for being the Duracell battery of Indian sports - a double hundred in one dayers and fifty centuries in test cricket. The man does not have a mid life crisis for sure!

Another person who does not seem to have a mid life crisis or does - depending on who you ask is our future prime minister Rahul G. We have to thank him for all the poverty tours he made, for the questions he dodged, jumped, evaded - surely he would do well as a sports person, if not prime minister. For many questions however, his mouth was zipped.

And speaking of zips - wikileaks opened quite a few by releasing some secrets. Many of these were already "open secrets" but the one that intrigued us most was the one on Rahul G - who bared his mind to an American Diplomat over lunch where he almost got the nation listed as a terrorist state. He has, however, not bared his mind to the nation which he could rule. For that one thing, thank you Julius Assange.

Thank you Lalit Modi - not for anything else but for proving to the media that the surname is the root cause of all ills in India. Thanks to Nitish Kumar for winning an election on a good governance plank and keeping Bihar scam free while the nation is neck deep in scams of all kinds.

Thanks to Rajani Saar for Robot and Munni and Sheila for keeping us entertained through this rather busy year.

Priceless

2010-12-29T15:58:00.000+05:30

Cost for school to run a Secret Santa program: Zero
Cost of parents to search for Secret Santa program: A few headaches
Actual cost of gift: 25 bucks

As part of this event, the little fella comes home with a cheap Chinese made wooden butterfly that needs to be assembled. The instructions on the pack are the best I have ever seen "Get an general idea of the parts and assemble" it says in a Zen like statement. Using our knowledge of Entomology, which is about as vast as a pinhead on a needle, we manage to assemble it in a way that it resembles a dinosaurial ancestor of a butterfly.

Time taken to assemble said wooden butterfly: 20 minutes
Time taken for smile to become frown because said wooden butterfly a) does not stand on its own b) keeps falling apart: 0.00000000054 seconds
Time taken for parent to pacify little fella with a "brilliant" alternate solution: 2 seconds
Time taken for frown to settle down: 1 second
Time taken for frown to return - to implement said alternate solution: 0.0000023 seconds
Time taken for parent to really implement alternate solution: 1 week

Each time the little fellas eyes went onto the dissembled butterfly, his eyes would well up with tears as to how we were not able to assemble his gift. Finally, in a moment of brilliance, we figure out a way that the alternate solution can be implemented.

Cost of Feviquick glue: 10 bucks
Time taken for assembling said butterfly again: 20 minutes (after various permutations and combinations)
Time taken for glue to stick: Instant
Time taken for the glue on the fingers to be removed: Still to be established

Joy of seeing smile on the little fellas face on seeing the assembled butterfly: Priceless!!

Our FPM

2010-12-26T07:14:00.000+05:30

Mr. Rahul G - you are our future Prime Minister - one way or other. Either you will rule directly or you will rule through a regent like Mr. Manmohan Singh. Somehow, spineless regents- like spineless reporters- are never in short supply are they? Especially after one Mr. PV Narasimha Rao (you really do not remember him do you?) grew too big for his boots. But talking about him and other regents would be missing the point altogether. But as future prime minister, your present timeline looks rather uninspiring.

Mr. Rahul G - you seem to have the record of using the same speech for the maximum number of times - atleast as this blog notes. Even actors (who are given their lines) have a new line each time - the least you could do is to have a few speeches which you use by rotation. That there are no two Indias is nobodys guess - all of the country is equally badly governed. In case you forget, your party has ruled it for the maximum part since we won independence way back in 1947. Perhaps taking blame for the creation of a substandard India might be a good beginning?

Mr. Rahul G, you have a penchant from walking away from uncomfortable questions dont you? Atleast on two ocassions and with relatively lightweight opponents (one was a student and one was a rookie reporter - since no names were given) you have chosen to run away than stand by your comments.

Mr. Rahul G, you also spoke to the US ambassador about a rather existential threat to the world from the Hindu radicals (or militants or equivalent) did you not? Heres a priceless piece in a phoren publication on the same. Taken at face value, it means something very simple - we harbour terror groups. And that in turn means, that we really should declare ourselves a terrorist state - without waiting for Uncle Same confirmation eh? And why are we exchanging those dossiers with the western neighbour. Your own party general secretary attended a function where a book was released on how Indias worst terror attack was an RSS creation. Do you also believe that the Parliament attack was an insider job too? (And by the way someone quite famous who I wont link, but who is given to protecting tribals rights after usurping a bit of their land has written a reader on it too.)

You bared your mind to a diplomat of a foreign nation - can your bare your mind to us? Would you let us know what exactly you think - beyond what your mentor(s) teach you to parrot? It would really help us to know what our future prime minister thinks! Thanks!

Thank You Nira Radia

2010-12-12T20:58:00.000+05:30

Till yesterday (or whenever the Radia tapes came out) the general public really believed a few truths you helped get out in the open.

That the leader of the "most corrupt government ever" could be an honest man. Perhaps personally he is, but in not preventing the corrupt from becoming ministers or looting from under his leadership, he is ineffective as a leader. In the private sector, I am responsible for anything my reportees do - I am accountable for everything they do. So too is MMS and his Supreme Leader. Then the question arises as to why is corruption acceptable to the Supreme Leader. The simple answer usually is, because there is some benefit in that to them. Unless your tap(e)s came out, the media made us believe that poor Mr. MMS was trying his best. Now we know he was not.

That, our journos are truly neutral. There were those who believed otherwise but were given the title of "Right wing loonies". Unless your tap(e)s came out, they supposedly passionately argued on every side of the issue. Their columns and programmes were the result of immense research into the Indian psyche and everything they did was purely selfless - like those spiritually enlightened folks, you know. Now we know that they lobby rather fearlessly so that the cause of good is maintained and the truly evil are kept out of power. And even amongst the good, they fight and lobby so that the creme de la creme of the good comes to power. And in fighting for their causes, they write so as to sway public opinion. And of course, they are not neutral. Thank for an attempt to neuter them.

That there were corrupt business houses and non corrupt business houses. Perhaps there are, perhaps there arent. I admire Reliance as much as I admire Tatas, but in playing the game of business you have to wrestle with the pigs and get mud on yourself in that process. And almost all of it is due to our arbitrary licentious Raj.

Thanks to your tapes we know that there are magazines and newspapers like Open, Pioneer and Outlook we know that there are atleast some sections of the Indian media who are still fiercely independent.

And for those who came in late, the new installment of the Radia tapes are here via Saikat Datta

Thank you Nira Radia for all your hard work. Clearly you were working hard for those who had paid for your services - I wish our government worked as hard as you did. True, you were working for Reliance and Tata (both the business I admire for various reasons - but more on that later), but in reality you were working for the people. The same mango people who the Congress claimed to work for and the same mango people for whom Rahul baba claims to work as a soldier (or did he say solder?).

All the nights and days you spent lobbying (you were doing your job and doing it rather well) over telephone has helped us like Wikeleaks. Wikileaks did a great job of bringing "open secrets" in the open.

Your tap(e)s did it for India. So kudos to that.

On Complexity

2010-12-11T13:27:00.001+05:30

There are always arguments on how or why a process cannot be made simple. Ask anybody who handles a complex process if it can be simplified and the answer (almost) always is an incredulous no. And if it is left to them, it will always be like that. But get a fresh pair of eyes, unconnected to the field, not bound by the "what should be" and you will come up with better answers.

Who would deny that photography was complex - it still remains for that 1% of photographers who are deep into that art. But that does not mean, it should be out of reach for the rest. And that's exactly what happened with the Digital camera boom.

At a wedding recently, I was amused that amidst the phalanx of photographers were two 5 year olds. The professionals had arrived with the flash bulbs (and repeaters) and camera and equipment. And it was all digital - I barely spotted one analog camera in there. But the kids were there, right upfront with their digital cameras (of their parents presumably) competing with the pros and some adults with mobile phones in getting a good shot. That's what digital has done to photography - made it accessible for 99% and more and thus increased the size of the market for all concerned.

Whats keeping your process complex? Why cant it be simplified? Why cant it be more accessible? Ask this question at your day jobs and you will get interesting answers.

The Tweeples are here

2010-12-04T21:31:00.001+05:30

Big media first missed the blog bus. Then it missed the internet bus - by and large. But then along came twitter. But more than twitter, what has enabled the adrenalin fuelled expansion of twitter and its role as a reflector of a social trends is ironically, the 2G revolution that has been scammed by the Raja under the benevolent eyes of the Queen and her Regent. Blogs and the earlier internet "revolution" were really, no more than a half turn or smaller in India since both teledensity and broadband reach were not that great. But with people increasingly accessing the internet over their cellphones and blackberries - the early adopters and even many of the later adopters are highly clued in today. (And many of these are your normal customers of ELM by and large.)

And twitter is an easy medium to reach - just 140 characters and you don't need any degree in journalism or a licence (that's an idea) to put out your opinions. So, while celebrities and journalists and others made a beeline to twitter, guess who was with them? The common man - the aam insaan armed with her broadband or mobile internet - waiting for them.

So all Bachchan fans have to do is to follow the big man on twitter with the click of a button and you get to read what he says - unadulterated, without anybody putting words in his mouth or an editor using her scissors like a barber. What could be better for fans? Ditto for Tendulkar. And while Tendulkar is not exactly known for the his writing skills, he is still Tendlya - and his opinion is his opinion.

Before Twitter, there was no such medium. Sure you can watch Tendulkar play in a stadium or Bachchan peform in a show and they may wave to you while you seat in the audience, but hell, that's nothing like twitter - in case they reply to your queries. And that's the USP of twitter. You talk with real people and if your question or opinion was merit (and some timing), you might even get a response. Even in blogs or the old internet, there was no direct connect.

So, if your friendly neighbourhood big journo is on twitter, ask him or her questions - they may or may not respond to you, but when names are a trend on twitter - somebody who they have to answer will ask them the same question and force an answer out. And that's how it works. The same thing can happen in politics - Mr. Prime Minister will first see a wave on twitter. And regardless of how big media protects him and his Queen like Govardhana protected the denizens of Brindavan from Indra, they will have to answer them - clearly this not a dumb audience like those that sit in front of the idiot box.

The Tweeples are here - all 8 million of them and they are spreading like a virus on steroids. The most serious challenge to Mainstream media is here. Are you a part of it, yet?

Conspiracy it is

2010-11-24T10:31:00.001+05:30

The recent media scam named #Barkhagate on twitter and trending for nearly a week now is a conspiracy for sure. Allow me to explain.

Who in the world would benefit by the leak of the tapes? Think about it. The only person who can benefit out of this is Narendra Modi - the famous journalists and Tv channels sworn enemy. According to this blog, Narendra Modi had tested Radia in his Vibrant Gujarat summit and she had possibly played a role in getting the Nano plant set up at Gujarat.

Awesome aint it? Narendra Modi is the one glue thats holds all conspiracies together.

Now think of it. Perhaps, Mr. Modi wanted to get back at the ethical journalists consortium of India who were working with the ethical newspapers, television association of India for ethically exposing his unethical minister who was arrested by the ethical CBI for completely non political purposes? Therefore, he used the lobbyist (who is a Gujarati, no less - those evil people) to get her to trap these ethical journalists into reading out long emails which was already sent to them by her. And then, in one fell swoop, as these tapes leaked by themselves (like those pesky water pipes), the credibility of the entire Indian media has gone for a toss as has the credibility of the Congress party and many others. All names are in the list except Mr. Modi. Therefore, it has to be him or those Gujjus.

I tell you, all of this is a conspiracy. But then why would the CBI and the home ministry tap these phone calls. When the details surface, you will find that nobody had ordered her phones to be tapped -it was engineered by someone who was paid, by you know who.

But jokes apart, most media has tried its best to blackout this news. The same media which has no qualms airing doctored "sting" operations or airing bedroom romps shot surreptitiously cannot air these tapes as Breaking news or even on the 3 am news. Think of it. So much for probity, the triumph of truth and what not. I leave it for you, the intelligent reader to guess if our media is truly independent or interdependent.

Anyway the entire media links of this can be found here...

Railroaded

2010-11-23T09:59:00.000+05:30

I have mentioned the insidious quota system that the Indian Railways seems to operate. Internet booking passengers have the first look at the toilet ends of the train. There is nothing wrong with that - perhaps, as I mentioned earlier, internet booking travellers are more likely to suffer from incontinence - considering they don't have the ability to stand in one of the longish lines of the Indian Railways for booking. That's a rant, I admit.

But think of it. Those who book their tickets on the internet are doing Indian railways a great service - by not crowding at their counters, by reducing the load on their infrastructure and by contributing extra revenue (25 to 50 odd rupees extra on every ticket booked). They are, by and large people who can pay. So, why not make them pay? Let them chose their seats and pay a premium for that as well - instead of this insidious quota system. (Earlier, when internet bookings were made the seats always used to be in the middle of the bogie - but of late, it has always been towards the ends - something that cannot happen randomly - not when there are 700 odd seats available. For the record, a regular bogie seats about 72 passengers. So, for sure there is some sort of a "quota".)

Why would an organization have an army worth of people to help people book tickets? When there are others who can do it - or self service as well. Why would an organization keep on accumulating people to do work like this, when by eliminating all the ticket booking clerks (or
outsourcing it) you can save tons of money.

But that would be missing the point would it not. Indian railways is not an organization that exists to transport people and goods from one part of the country to another. It exists to satisfy the whims and fancies of the constituencies of whichever railways minister rules. So, it will keep adding more employees, never make them work hard. With The passengers and the goods are incidental. Which is why it operates out of gross inefficiencies with little or no regard to what the passengers want.

With the number of people Indian Railways has, it can get all the railways of the world to outsource all its work to Indian Railways. But no, thats not a priority, atleast not until the current railway minister realizes her ambition of becoming Chief Minister.

If you measured the growth difference between China and India in terms of improvements in railways, it would pretty much reflect the way the countries have grown too. We are still stuck at the steam loco stage while China has entered the future.

Shoulder Ache

2010-11-20T19:00:00.003+05:30

My eyes open. It is early morning and it is a Sunday. I stretch and wake up, not reluctantly - since I am a morning person. Suddenly, I sense a pain in my shoulder. And the analysis begins. Physically, did I do anything wrong? Lifted something? Slept in an awkward position? Nothing seems to come to mind. Psychologically, I wonder, did I do something wrong? Am I stressed? (One of the theories states that many physical ailments like sprains are manifestations of stress.) Again, I cannot think of a reason. I just dont get why I should have this shoulder ache.

As I sit there wondering what caused the shoulder ache, in comes the little one, "Appa, my shoulder is paining."

And then the mystery resolves itself. The previous night, the two of us were up playing some lusty shots on our new Wii with the result, the next morning, we are here, on the sofa, clutching our right shoulders.

Express Lane

2010-11-09T07:23:00.001+05:30

Spotted a sign for the Express Lane ( a counter for customers with items less than 10 numbers) in a mall - that is frequented by PLUs - not really triple PhDs, but not those unwashed ignorant masses who crowd into reserved bogies on railways. But it was not operational, even at peak hour. And it might have crossed your mind that despite having a million malls, very few malls in India (I havent seen one across 4 cities) have an express counter.

You know why. It just wont work in India.

* First people will feign ignorance of the sign.
* Having feigned ignorance, they will say, since I walked up here, service me anyway.
* They will read the sign and disregard it anyway
* They will read the sign and argue with the biller
* They will read the sign and argue with the biller that they have just 22 items - which, really is a just around the corner from 10, is it not?
* They will shout and demand better service
* They will remind you whose father or son or mother or sister they are

And then it no longer makes sense to shop for small items at the mall if you have to be behind 32 people who have all shopped for 459 items while all you wanted is a packet of cheese.Yes, we are just that. Privately smart and publicty dumb - stupid or worse.

Can it be made to work. Yes. If there is a security guard who counts the items and directs the customers authoritatively to the other counters, it will. But otherwise, you can bet your ass that even triple PhDs wont follow the rules.

Here comes electric

2010-11-05T18:25:00.001+05:30

The electric car is closer than we think it is!

GM - the much derided "Government" Motors in the US plans to bring an electric car to India. More power to them I say. And perhaps 2011/2012 could very well be an inflexion point in Indian and world automobile industry from this perspective. Today the companies are pulling out all the stops to sell their oil burners to Indians - because once the reliability of an electric engine is proved, oil burners will take a backseat very soon. This is a real cost conscious market. The more oil burners that can be sold in the next 1-2 years, the greater number of buyers that can be locked in for the next 2-5 years and that in turn can delay the potential inflexion point. Once there is a good market for electric cars, the overall cost of petrol could go down (and considering that oil prices are largely controlled by not so virtuous cartel) making it that much difficult for electric cars to make a dent - take my word for it.

But, fortunately, this time around, e-cars does seem like a big mass movement and technology advances are getting better by the day. The Nissan Leaf and GM Volt are closer to the market - they are there. And even in India, theres the Reva now powered by the Mahindras waiting in the wings to launch their next gen vehicle. There is the Nano with its super duper light platform waiting for its electric avatar - and one can be sure that the Tatas are working on it. And there are the likes of GM who could bring their own based on the experience from the Volt. Who will be first off the starting block here?

Escooters

2010-11-04T06:21:00.000+05:30

I have spotted quite a few e-scooters on Bangalore roads over the past few months. I have also not seen them on dense traffic roads, but on bylanes where people seem to be using it for running errands. The customers, by the look of it, are people who would have ordinarily gone in for mopeds, but probably wanted something cheaper and cooler.

I am a little surprised, because I did think that electric scooters may not pick up steam all that soon because the impact it has on the pockets of people is quite less.I mean, a moped can run for almost 100 km with a liter of petrol - how much lower can it get? It looks like I am pleasantly wrong!

And while access to electricity in Bangalore is not too bad, it is not great either. So, the convenience aspect is questionable too. But perhaps for those whose movement is a few kms around the house with long periods of rest, perhaps it works.

Success Patterns

2010-11-02T21:08:00.001+05:30

In one of my previous columns, we spoke about building a career like a Rahul Dravid or a Virender Sehwag. But, who identifies a potential Rahul Dravid from a Virender Sehwag. How does one figure out what one is? How does one ensure that a Dravid is not forced to become a Sehwag or vice versa?

There are two methods here. One is a coach method and one is a self analysis method.

Without a Ramakant Achrekar, it is tough to say whether a Tendulkar would have been spotted so early. And without those Ramakant Achrekars, it is tough to say how many Tendulkars we lost. Coaches, mentors are difficult people to get. Good coaches and mentors, are even more difficult to come by. Especially when your career is just starting off.

Here is a second option. The self analysis method. There is a Marcus Buckingham book available in the market, Now Discover your Strengths (and an upgraded version as well). Buy it and attempt the test that the book has - this will give you a small idea of your strengths. Keep it aside.

Now look back at your life and define what are the successful moments in your life as defined by you. So, if you helped organize a volunteer effort and felt happy about it - count it. If you were the president of the college cultural academy count it. If you ran a small business and worked on something that made you feel good, count it. Do not define success by money or fame or any one thing - unless you are entirely sure that is all there to success.

Define success by your own means - it in general could mean that you were willing to explore some aspect of your capability. The end result could very well mean that you fall flat while trying, but even this counts. It means you did not try hard enough or it means simply that you are not cut out to doing that kind of work.

Write down all your successes and failures. Write down what you did well there and what you did not. Write down what in that success and failure made you feel good. What would you change about them? What would you not?

For example, if you were the cultural secretary of your college - what was the achievement you are proud of? Proud of getting your team to work? Proud of getting your team to deliver? Or were you part of the team that a great job? Each of these three things tells you that you were a good leader, a person with good execution capability or that you were a good team player.

Do this for every single one of your achievements. You will find what I call as a success pattern. These are things “that you like to do”. In many cases this will also be “what you are good at”. It is important to look beyond the obvious here. Organizing a college festival may or may not mean you want to organize college fests or other fests for the rest of your life. It could shine light on your organizational capabilities. Or it could throw light on your ability to network. Or it could tell you that you are not a good team player. There will be environmental variables in this - especially in the way that you get returns on your successes - be sure to take them with a pinch of salt. Focus on your individual characters and traits and what you enjoyed doing.

When you are finally done, it will give you some sort of insight into what I call as “Success patterns”. And perhaps, even “Failure patterns”. When you do this a few years into your career, it will tell you exactly what you are good at and what you tend to succeed at. This does not mean you should not try new things - but sometimes, it helps avoid situations where you might find yourself being set up for failure. If you are a team player, there is no point trying to create a career for yourself as an individual contributor - or vice versa. If you are a technical person and love the technical challenges, your best bet is to leave the marketing to others. If your best bet is to be a cog in the wheel dont burn yourself trying to become an entrepreneur. And so on.

How to make your success patterns work? Sometimes, you can mould a challenge in a way that it is closer to you are good at. Lets say, you have an extremely challenging project to handle. But you love the technical bits and do not enjoy the finance bit. Then, perhaps you might want to handle the technical bit yourself while you leave the number crunching to someone else in your team or recruit somebody into your team with the requisite skill. If you are building a specialized skill, you can offer yourself as the go-to person for all things technical and assist somebody while they are working on a project.

Couple of caveats. This is not as easy as it sounds. There is a strong element of confirmation bias here. It does mean you do not try anything new - if that is the case, you are setting yourself up for failure right away. It also does mean just because you succeeded in a few things with a certain environment variable (say in one firm) you will repeat the success in another firm. For instance, corporate cultures may be different. And then again, hindsight is always 20-20. Also, this will help once you are a few years into your career - it will have limited impact for a fresher just out of college.

There are important lessons to be learnt from Failure patterns as well, but thats for another day.

(A slightly edited version of this made was printed in Advancedge Nov 2010)

How to tackle Malaria

2010-11-02T20:58:00.000+05:30

There are a few options on how to tackle malaria - neutralize every single of the mosquitoes that can potentially carry the parasite so that they don't carry the parasite, but thats a stupid idea. Or neutralize the parasite itself. Or vaccinate (btw, Malaria does not have a vaccine) everybody who can possibly be affected by it. Perhaps the best solution is to go the swamps where the mosquitoes breed and clear them out.

Which one would you use to tackle malaria?

And if it is terrorism, how about cleaning the swamps?

Song in my head

2010-10-28T07:13:00.000+05:30

From the movie Swades, a lovely song

Mann se raavan jo nikaaley raam uske maan mein hain...

Oily oily politics

2010-10-24T15:49:00.000+05:30

The Son of the oil is an amazing personality. And his son is an honourable man too. A few years back, he gave us an example of how governments either run by him or supported by him can give us great governance. They took extreme care of the city and Bangalore was on the verge of being Singapore. Did I say Singapore - I meant Singapore of the 1940s or earlier - one could have shot a period movie effortlessly. He kept his promises with his partners - and promptly pulled the carpet from under them. And then the electorate, stupid as always, voted him out. Other than that one small stupidity, he has been in power always.

Every now and then, he has professed his love for rural Karnataka - all the while living in the big bad city whose residents he so dearly hates. He really does, see this.

And now, he comes out the woodwork hoping that the BJP government will collapse under the weight of money and the people will vote for him. Well, Bangalore will never vote for their party - anyway not much of it exists today. Even if the BJP does collapse (well, every political party is entitled to its survival instincts), the JDS wont benefit.

And then again, does anybody think that corruption originated with this government? Let us not kid ourselves to think that everybody other than the BJP are bathed in milk. Actually they could very well be, given their assets. And what was that saying about glass houses and stones?

A year for a flyover

2010-10-21T10:24:00.001+05:30

An average flyover in India takes a year to make - give or take a few months. I am pretty sure that the time required to build a flyover can be crunched to a few months.

Now, I am no construction expert, but commonsense suggests that in any activity there are parallel activities and sequential activities. In the case of the flyovers, it appears that much of the work is being done in a sequential manner. Take for example, the pile drilling rig. The
flyover builders have exactly one per flyover. Commonsense suggests that having 2 or 4 of these machines will help them drill piles 2-4 times faster. Then post that the pillars are constructed; again, there is no reason the pillars have to be constructed one after the other - they can all be done simultaneously - or atleast 50% of them - so that time required for the concrete to harden/settle is better utilized. And then the actual bridge which rests on these pillars - can be constructed - since they consist of pre-cast elements that are mounted on the pillars. Easily all this can reduce construction time by half at the very least.

What I have written is purely from observation. No doubt flyover construction in India has progressed in the last decade or so - from the kerosene powered pile diggers to pile digging rigs, but the way the companies handle flyover construction shows a problem of a lack of
scale. The companies can bid for more flyovers if they have the scale, but they don't want to build scale and wait for projects. So, because of this chicken and egg situation they understaff their projects and it results in everybody bidding for about a year for each flyover. Infact nearly 10 years ago, Mumbai (with the traffic constraints) showed that flyovers can get done faster with the right incentives - and the Delhi and Bangalore metro (essentially a flyover with larger capacity) also shows that this type of construction can be done much faster.

So, why do our flyovers take ages to construct?

Outsourcing security

2010-10-07T20:23:00.001+05:30

Rajesh jain nails it in his post on security.What started off as a comment there is a post here.

The Indian government cannot build enough power stations to power the entire country 24/7. Forget the country, they cannot even power the main cities 24/7. So, we all invest in generators that will provide us back up while the power plants undergo what is known as load shedding. I am sure in the developed world or wannabe superpower world, there is no load to be shedded. We are the powerless superpower.

In the same way, the government has outsourced security to offices, malls, hotels so that they take care of themselves. Because our government, intelligence networks typically never can avert a terror strike (even if they did, there are far too many human rights wallahs to make the officers lives miserable), they have outsourced security to us. So, that if the terrorist enters via our porous borders, manages to put together a bom, the onus is on the malls and the hotels to prevent it.

We are underpoliced, our police are badly trained, handle outdated equipment (we saw it all during 26/11, did we not, the chilling footage at the CST) and the government is not very keen to pursuse modernization or police reforms. Thus it is that we need to secure ourselves, because the government cannot do it for us.

Take any example, you will find pretty much the same answer.

A case of exploding bonhomie

2010-10-06T21:02:00.001+05:30

The guy who wrote A case of Exploding Mangoes, Mohammed Hanif recently exploded the myth that the peepul of our westerly neighbour are like us. And that too at a literary fest. No the chap is not being rude. He is right on the button.

So much for people to people contact. Even the writers on the side of the friendly neighbours are not friendly. Hows that? Till now we thought that all except those who cross the border on rubber dinghies are our friends, did we not?

Thanks Mohd Hanif for exploding this myth like your rather enjoyable novel, a case of exploding mangoes - I hope our jholawallahs, candle wasters, peace award hopeful leaders, newspaper owners with an eye on the neighbourly market and TV channel owners with an eye on rating and adverts learn it and internalize it.

Agriculture thought

2010-10-06T20:58:00.000+05:30

This article in Forbes is a lovely article.

I am not sure about the yields though, since what I have heard is that organic farming traditionally reduces yield. Be that as it may - imagine if the cities created compost and sent it back to the farms instead of letting them rot in landfill sites? We don't need no fertilizer then, right? Considering the amount of consumption that our cities have? The more I think about it, the more it seems feasible. If you havent already started composting, please do. It is about doing your two cents to save the earth. And if you need compost, drop me a note - my next batch should be ready in a couple of months.

Where good ideas come from!

2010-10-01T20:23:00.000+05:30

Lovely video!

The boondocks of Krishnarajapuram

2010-09-26T13:36:00.000+05:30

I had written about the great railway station of Krishnarajapuram sometime back. And yesterday I got a chance to revisit this great railway station once again in all its glory. My hunch is that currently there is some secret project in Krishnarajapuram to reduce the operating cost of the railways. If this is true, then the railways have hit on a splendid model to have a low operating cost. If that is not the case, a certain Kalmuddy must have used KR Puram as a trial balloon.

The entire station is powered by "Human Intuition Guidance System". This system requires no electricity and incredibly people were able to find their allotted seats in the trains at 10 pm in the night like they were guided missiles (or literate owls) but without the jhingbang hi-tech lasers. With this system in place, there is no need for any announcement (and obviously, there were none) and people just had to ask passengers in the train as to which train it was. There is exactly one toilet in the station which is hard to find or locked or dirty - I did not explore all the options, but clearly the system ensures that people never have an urge to pee as well - Smart. The ticket counters were shut - as were announcements - again, there was no need since the system takes care of everything. Indeed the single shop open at the station seemed to be the only surviving relic of ancient railway history. The digital displays that display train numbers and coach positions in other old railways stations seemed to exist, but they were not working. Like I said, they do not need to work - since we have the "Advanced Verbal Communication System with Fellow Lost Passenger" in place. Everybody was right in position of their coach to the accuracy of a micron. In one instance, the lights came on about 30 seconds before the train arrived and shut down about 10 seconds after the train arrived with people switching to the "Advanced Visual Display Mode with Cellphone Display Light Enable Option".

Truly an amazing railway station right in the heart of Bangalore!!

Super segmentation

2010-09-24T21:20:00.000+05:30

Not satisfied with Junior Horlicks and normal Horlicks and a few other variants, there is now a super segmentation in the junior Horlicks segment with Horlicks 1, 2 and 3.

Not sure whose great idea this is, but Complan has followed suit too (or perhaps it is the other way round) with super segmentation variants in its range too.

Perhaps a way to capture the market in 2 kids households - by making them buy different (and hence more) packs?

Whatever the trick, not sure how many will fall for their tricks? Will it make a difference? One pack will get over faster, 2 packs will take twice the time, so will it really help? Is this just a me-too syndrome for both these drinks? Or will people end up getting more confused and buy Boost?

The market in bus tickets

2010-09-23T21:00:00.000+05:30

Recently while we were on our way back from Udupi, we scouted for KSRTC bus tickets. The internet reservation showed an availability of 10 tickets, but there were none available to book. So, we decided to go there and find out if there are any agents selling tickets.

Sure enough, there were. They were selling KSRTC tickets at cost price. There seemed to be no KSRTC Counter at Udupi, so the agents are helping the corporation sell their tickets. But that doesnt explain the software glitch - I am pretty sure it is no glitch because it shows the right numbers for other routes.

What happens to these tickets if the agents do not manage to sell them? Does the corporation buy them back? But then they are also shown as booked tickets in the system, unless there is some other way to account for them? Cancellations mean only a 50% odd refund depending on when it is cancelled.

And as such there is no control at what price they sell them. So, theoretically they can sell them at a higher price - but they dont - atleast not that I know of. The more we thought about it, the less we got anwers...

So, how do these agents make money on these tickets? Apart from the commission perhaps (is there one)? And is there some sort of buy back arrangement? How does this market work?

Raj Thackeray and Geelani

2010-09-17T17:33:00.000+05:30

Or why I like Raj Thackeray.

Imagine MNS wins the assembly elections in Maharashtra the next time around - with a landslide margin. That gives them absolute majority in the house. And on the day Raj Thackeray is sworn in as Chief Minister, he declares that Maharashtra will secede from the rest of India. Alright, constitutionally that is not possible, so he settles for silver. The Maharashtra government declares that you will need a permit to enter and work in Mumbai if you are not already domiciled in the state. (For the time being they let you work in other parts of the state, but Mumbai is a no-go.)

As a next step, they ask, politely at first, for a little more autonomy to Mumbai in particular and Maharashtra in general, failing which, they say, Mumbai will not pay its share of taxes to the Central Government. Considering that Mumbai does pay a lot of tax and buys a lot of tickets in the railways and generally pays all its bills standing in an orderly Q - that means a lot of trouble for India. Our fiscal deficit, horrendous as it is, will now become the equivalent of staring down the barrel of a very powerful gun. Maharashtra will become a rich state though, thanks to the financial muscle of Mumbai.

And they also pass a resolution that nobody from any other part of India can buy property in Mumbai. Let us also say, theoretically that he will drive out non Maharashtrians - if not by force, by frustration. (Actually he wont - he actually loves guys like me who can speak Marathi despite being born in another part of India). He would also want to wipe out every bit of non Marathi history of Mumbai - and that means that the Udupi restaurants, the Gujarati businesses, the Tamil markets, the Sindhi colony will all be given "secular" makeovers. And he wants to change the name of each and every town in Maharashtra. Or every street in Mumbai.

Let us take this a little further. Assume that he assembles an army of stonepelters and brings the city to a stop as per a pre-distributed schedule. Which is possible, once he arranges the funds to encourage his army of stonepelters who take aim and break every glass façade in Mumbai. And specifically target non Maharashtrian assets? And blockade the JNPT port? And the Mumbai airport? And let industry suffer losses worth hundreds of crores. What would happen?

Would the government sit silently and wait for it to happen? Would it send in the army to Mumbai - to protect its other citizens who are not in favour of seceding from India? And what if the army kills a few stonepelters? All of this is hypothetical. For all the negative publicity he gets, one thing Raj Thackeray is, he is a patriot and supports the idea of the Indian nation.

But would our media which is currently screaming and supporting the stonepelters in the valley through broadcasts and on twitter and various social communities, rise in support of Raj Thackeray?

The answer is that they would not. Obviously, that is where the twitterati and glitterati live and make money, for one. For another, we all believe every Indian has equal right over Mumbai. If it is true for Mumbai it is true for any other part of India. If Mumbai cannot secede and Raj Thackeray does not have support, why can Kashmir secede and Mr. Geelani and his band of stonepelters have any support? If article 370 is the bone of contention, this is the time for the Indian state to grow a spine and give it some rigidity as well. Both Mumbai and the valley are as much a part of India as Mizoram and Krishnagiri. And if that is so, I would like to know how right it is for the media to support and air the demands of a few paid stonepelters and their leaders who are holding a state and its citizens to ransom?

Remember this - if Kashmir can get Azadi, Mumbai definitely can. And if you encourage one, remember that you encourage the other as well.

Which is why I like Raj Thackeray. And which is why I think that every state of India should have a Raj Thackeray or more. People like him are the perfect antidote for people like one Mr. Geelani who encourages the creation of a nation of stone pelters while silent chief ministers and passive central governments allow him to.

Failed salesman

2010-09-17T17:29:00.001+05:30

India has failed to sell the idea of India to Kashmiris (In the valley, to be specific. Jammu, Leh/Ladakh seem to have no such issue).

What is the idea of India? As per our constitution, India stands for a plural democratic country where seven fundamental rights are guaranteed. The Right to Equality, Freedom, Freedom from Exploitation, Freedom of Religion, Cultural and Educational rights, Constitutional Remedies and the recently added Right to Education. As rights go, they are the fundamental freedoms that are essential for both individual and community. These are the rights that are enforceable in a court of law. That's what our constitution says.

At a practical level, what has India meant to us? India, the country is an ancient country that has shaped itself on a pluralistic platform. It is a country which has seen the birth of more than a few important religions and movements. It has welcomed numerous religions, races and peoples into its folds. In the land of a million gods, a few more were more than welcome and this tradition has continued in the general tolerance and adopting belief systems in its populace The country has seen off numerous invasions and murderous invaders apart from diseases and natural and man made calamities throughout its history.India has been a melting pot of cultures, each entity providing a distinct nuance to what India is today.

What else does it mean? Media is free in India (if they chose to be), women have equal rights as men (in general), there are a multitude of schools and colleges available, property rights are relatively well enforced and yes, while we are not perfect as a country we are a relatively free nation. We have progressed ever since the economy was opened in 1991 by the venerable Narasimha Rao. And from then on, with the strength of our GDP, we have created a decent name for us in Information Technology and Services. India is also home to a good number of private companies that have created a name and space for themselves in the world space. It is a country where there is no thought police or religious police and in general, your god can go with you. You can worship anything, almost anywhere. So, that's India for you in a nutshell, a quilt woven across the centuries, religions, cultures, languages and people.

Yet, think about it, did we give Kashmiris a fighting chance to join this idea of India? To be honest, we did not. We failed to sell the idea that Kashmir would survive and thrive in its own identity as much as a Rajasthan or a Kerala does. Article 370 ensured that Kashmir would be trapped in a limbo - never independent, yet not completely sold onto the idea of India. We failed in selling the idea of India to Kashmiris despite sending in crores worth of development every year. Despite building railways at tremendous cost and risk. And then again our salesmen were not the best. They were corrupt or inept or both. The whole idea was to integrate it into the Indian Union at some point of time - that can happen even now, but given that we have constantly selected invertebrates as our leaders, this is not likely to happen anytime soon. And so with Article 370, we left the doors open for persuasion of another kind - a persuasion that will literally create a desert in paradise.

Sure, as a country we are not perfect. Is it worth fighting for? Clearly yes, because given all the imperfections, the opposite of this is quite unimaginable. And this is exactly what will become of Kashmir under the leaders they so religiously follow because of the strings that their masters have religiously (pun intended) attached to these leaders. I can imagine fighting for freedom, but fighting for the opposite of it and claiming it is a fight for freedom?

A case for roads in Bangalore

2010-09-17T17:26:00.000+05:30

When you visit Mumbai, yes, Mumbai after a few years in Bangalore, something strikes you about the width of the roads there. The roads in Mumbai seem like you are abroad. And then those old Fiat cabs remind you where you are.

Bangalores roads are narrow. These roads served their purpose well when there were few cars and fewer buses. But today that is not the case. Bangalore registers nearly a thousand new vehicles each day. And considering that this is the case for the past few years (as has been the case for most of India), that is a lot of vehicles. The result is very clear. During peak hours, the Outer Ring Road - a road that was so empty when it was built about 10 years ago that people used it for drag races - is now chock-a-block with vehicles. The road is pockmarked with intersections and during peak hours you will spend a good 15 minutes at each intersection. The road leading to Majestic (or Kempegowda Bus Station) is another example. Getting there on time to get your outstation bus or train has always been a nightmare. Pick any road in Bangalore and you will get the same reaction.

Under the earlier (Congress, JD et al) governments blessings, there was little or no road upgradation work - ostensibly because that would cost them rural votes. Cost them it did - both rural and urban votes. And a BJP government came into power about 2 years ago. And since then road upgradation work has happened in full swing. Quite a few underpasses, flyovers have been built and roads are being widended. Under the newly elected corporation, this work has been going on at a pace that would do Bangalore proud. And the public transport system today is unrecognizable from what it was about 10 years back.

But of course there are issues. People are not happy parting with their property for widening roads. Which is understandable. Road widening means trees on the sides (and Banglores narrow roads were beautiful) and that means they need to go too. The greens are upset. But then Bangalores greens need to look closely at where the trees are. See Bangalore from the air and trees are either in large public spaces or in the cantonment or on the roads. Few Bangalore houses have trees - real estate is far too pricey to support trees today. Trees have to be saved, but it is not just from the Metro or widening roads.

But the real problem is not about widening roads. Given that vehicle numbers are increasing, narrow roads will result in more pollution. Pollutions levels will go up as vehicles stall for longer periods of time waiting for signals to turn green or for intersections to clear up. And living in a property along a narrow congested polluted road is a health hazard in itself. It will also result in those very trees falling in even very light rains. And this is a common problem in Bangalore. And then there is parking. Many houses have no parking facilities for cars - so they park on the roads. Ditto for business establishments. And that results in one lane of most roads being lost for actual usage leaving just one odd lane for traffic. Traffic enforcement in Bangalore is poor. It is getting better now, but it is a long away from the enforcement (or harassment - depending on who you ask) levels in Mumbai or Delhi.

Bangalores problem has to be solved at many levels. Roads need to be widened - public transport needs to be beefed up - car usage needs to be discouraged with high parking fees or road taxes. Both these are equally important. Given the weather of the city, walking paths need to be created alongwith cycling paths and these are ideal given the size of the city. Overall environment awareness needs to go up. Traffic enforcement needs to be sharper. People need to follow traffic, parking rules diligently. The gentle Bangalorean is capable of doing all this - just opposing road widening will not get the city anywhere. And the Metro rail is the future of the city that should have been here 20 years ago. The Metro is one of the cleanest solutions that will result in reducing pollution via transport for Bangalore.

Without wide roads, the problems will continue. With increased levels of both public transport and private vehicles these very roads will be choked beyond imagination. Even for efficient public transport, one dedicated lane is required - which is all that most roads are today for all forms of traffic. Every city has to transform and it is now Bangalores turn.

Where are the videos?

2010-09-17T17:23:00.001+05:30

A few weeks ago, a so called aid convoy from Turkey set sail to break Israel's naval blockade of Gaza. The flotilla did not break the blockade and ended up with a few causalities. As usual, the world media lapped up the story that those who were killed were peaceful protesters. And then the IDF released videos which called their bluff. These were videos shot from the helicopter which was monitoring the Mavi Marmara. The footage showed activists attacking soldiers with weapons. These videos may or may not make Israel's position in the world any more or any less credible, which is a different story in itself, but remember they are fighting a war with proof, not bromide.

This is not new to IDF. In the last "war" with Hamas, IDF videos clearly showed rocket launchers positioned amongst civilians and in schools; it showed how civilians were being used as cover as well. These videos were presumably shot from planes. Indeed, IDF has a youtube channel where it puts up its videos for the world to see and decide for themselves whether they are merciless killers or they try and do an as clean job as possible given the state they are in.

Sure, videos can be doctored and photos can be doctored (as we saw in the Mavi Marmara case), but not any more or less than statements from so called sources can be genuine. War, as we all know by now, is just not a war fought with weapons. It is also a war about propaganda.

How is this of interest to us? Every summer there is an uprising in Kashmir. This is a clear pattern emerging in the past few years. I don't know why it is summer rather than winter, but there must be something. Perhaps it is the weather. This summer is seeing cycles of street violence yet again. But the question that begs answering is that, despite a clear pattern emerging there, why are our troops not prepared? Not with guns, not with soldiers, weapons, but with hi-resolution cameras? Why are the streets of towns most liable to violence not dotted with cameras? (Again, same holds good for places susceptible to terror recces and attacks.)

News reports originating from Kashmir would have us believe that it is the CRPF that is out killing people - civilians as they claim. The home secretary on the other hand, has said that anybody who breaks a curfew and indulges in violence is not a civilian by length of imagination. On the web there are file pictures of troops being harassed by the crowds, pelted stones on, bloodied in battle, being hit by many people while having just a lathi in their hands. Why are these pictures not in newspapers? Why are these videos not on breaking news on our ever fulminating channels? Why is there no big picture like site in India where we put up pictures? Why are these videos not on youtube? Why are the troops unable to counter this propaganda attack?

One standard argument has been that our troops are meant to fight real wars, but please, they have been in Kashmir for a few years now. And they have been called out in our cities many a time to counter mob violence. So, by now, they should have been experts in fighting mobs in cities and organizing guerilla attacks.

Heres how the CRPF could counter it - without guns. Given that breaking a curfew is illegal, can they not videoshoot it using hi-res cameras from their vans? And send it neatly packaged to the Chief Ministers office (apart from media houses)? How difficult is this today given the prevalence of easily available technology? Even a ten year old can upload videos on youtube today - why cant our troops? This will ensure 3 things. One, it will call the bluff of helpful "sources" who would like us to believe that the troops go berserk when all they are possibly doing is doing a thankless job and saving their lives while they are at it. It would also, take away the anonymity of these stone pelters - who go out pelt stones, collect their money and go back to pretending that they are peaceful normal guys like you and me who can type as well on a laptop as well as throw stones. When hi-res pictures are available, those who indulge in violence will have hell to pay, unlike the anonymity that they revel in today. Third, it will force the government to take action on these so called peaceful protesters.

And don't think this is a recipe for Kashmir only. It is not. Each place that the army or the police are called to battle mob violence, they will need cameras more than guns. And the sooner our troops learn to fight the propaganda war, the better it is for us. And enabling vehicles with camers and software is far less complicated and daunting than manufacturing the LCA or buying a howitzer or submarine or a vintage aircraft carrier.

The videos will kill two birds with one stone - it will keep the forces themselves in check while taking away the anonymity cloak the mobsters take shelter under.

A Bangalore Volvo lesson

2010-09-10T16:37:00.000+05:30

When I came to Bangalore about a decade back, public transport in this city was a mess and continued to be so until about a year or so back.

It is partly an attitude issue - people here don't use much of public transport - and prefer the convenience of their bikes and cars - and partly an issue of poor service as well. So, it was a vicious circle. Bad public transport, low usage and hence there was no reason to increase or improve the public transport services. Roads were in a sad state too but that's a different story. About 4 years back or so, BMTC introduced Volvos as an experiment on some routes. And for a while, they weren't making money. Buses ran empty - those who got into them were happy to have an entire bus to themselves, but for the corporation, I am sure, it was not a pretty sight.

And in the last couple of years, BMTC has taken a some more initiatives to ensure that Volvos are appreciated and accepted. This, in a city, that loves its bikes and cars is no mean feat.

First, they flooded the roads with Volvos so one did not have to wait forever for a bus to come by their way. Second, they targetted the high density routes - the routes that service the IT sector areas in Bangalore. These are the people who don't mind paying for good quality transport. And these are also the people who don't mind using public transport - most IT companies have their own transport routes too. They came up initiatives like Bus-day working with IT companies to publicise the usage of buses. They introduced new routes - there are routes that originate from large apartment complexes. There are private public partnerships where organizations work with the BMTC to introduce new routes and many of them are successful too.

There are a few lessons from this. First, you remove waiting time and hence improve predictability of reaching work and back. Second, you promise a comfortable ride each way. Third, it is way better than a bike and sunburns and traffic. Fourth, there are no arguments with rickshaw drivers to endure. And then again, it is a green way to work too. Once these issues are tackled there are no excuses left for not using public transport.

Most transport corporations fail because they don't give enough bus services for people to use them. If somebody has to wait 20 minutes for a bus to come their way, that is a long time in a commute time of possibly of an hour. And this is where it is a great story for Bangalore. On some peak routes, there is a bus every few minutes - timings even a metro railway service would be proud of.

And all their efforts have been rewarded with those great buses turning in a profit!

Bangalores volvos are turning in a profit, ridership is increasing and this gives rise to a positive vicious circle. More ridership means more money which in turns means better bus services. But the trick is to get to the tipping point and ride over it.

All this augurs very well for the upcoming Metro service. Now can somebody increase parking fees and road taxes for private vehicles, create bike lanes and walking paths too?

Tomato Sauce 1 Rupee

2010-08-31T09:19:00.002+05:30

Which marketing wizard would come up with this brilliant idea?

For a pizza that costs you about 250 bucks - you cannot throw in a ketchup sachet free. Please pay me a rupee for that. How pathetic can you get Dominoes? I rarely eat pizza - I believe it is a health hazard - but this is the pits. Maybe you should charge the tissue, the loo and, and for washing the plate too, eh?

The two trick pony

2010-08-30T22:38:00.000+05:30

I woke up a little late to this, but a great post by Churumuri

And speaking of which I am reminded of this