Celebrating Silence.

Keep money in the banks and not in your Mind..*

Says Sri Sri in his book Celebrating Silence. I am really celebrating silence as I am writing this blog, and more so celebrating Silence in T.Nagar !! I have been reading this book of Sri Sri for some time now. And this is a topic which I wanted to write about since some time, but Sri Sri helped me get a nice intro through his one liner.

How true,*

And how false this world has been transpiring through Ages. Our ancestors never gave value for anything, material. They only valued Humans. Materials were only traded on barter in those days. Only geography of few kms made things precious. For someone in the North Rice was slightly precious and for someone in south rice was in bounty and Wheat was slightly valuable. So equity in stock was maintained through exchange and nothing seemed precious those days. Arguably, how often have we seen our grandparents get weirdly surprised when we said a kilo of rice today costs 25 rupees, a kilo of wheat costs 30 rupees and so on and so forth. That’s purely because those were materials which had no value those days. For that matter even bullion was not valued so high relatively in spite of the demand being high in all times!!

But today it’s not surprisingly, a weird world. Almost everyone values only material possessions and believe anything can be acquired if you have that valuable currency. The currency again related to our needs, is dollars or rupees or euros!

Now let us start sailing in the tributaries :).

I have heard almost everyone say this these days. “I am very absent minded. I forget things in a blip” or “I am just flooded with thoughts and the pressure makes me forget almost everything!”

But how many of us, or those who keep saying any of the above sentences, on the 31st of the month or the 1st of the next month forget to check if our salary has been credited? How many of us in pressure, don’t care to step into that AT M and check if the money is in? and in case it hasn’t call up that banker, call up tom dick and harry and get it sorted out in a jiffy, in spite of not having the need for that money in such urgency? I am sure all of us including me have that urge to ensure that our money is in our account. Interestingly, I have seen so many people out of the ATM on the 1st of a month come to the ATM and take just that account balance statement and walk away smiling!

Honestly you, me or anyone who has a need for Money would have experienced what I wrote above. For someone that money coming in is a few rupees, for someone else it’s a few lakhs and for the third it’s a few crores. But that urge and excitement is almost the same!

Now I want to take this further. For someone who is in that excitement for a few rupees I am sure it’s quite justifiable. After all he can’t live the next day without that but imagine the other two for whom the money is either like water in the well or the water in the ocean. Both are never empty and can never be full!!

Will stop here. This particular article so far, has lesser relevance to what Sri Sri implicitly meant. I would talk about that more. Meanwhile,

Keep Thinking :)

Brutally Frank!

Brutally Frank, is one the most sparkling criticisms I have heard someone say about someone in the recent past. Few minutes before I heard Anu hasan comment on Y.G Mahendra with that one. A nice few hours at work, a nice evening Tea from my grandma, a nice Balaji darshan, a nice Idly Sambhar at Rathna Café, and few nice programs in Vijay TV matched with a fitting Venthaya Mor kozhambu by my MOM for dinner. A very satisfied evening was in fact a worthy motivation to start blogging again after a gap!

Now getting to some serious stuff. It’s been a long time and a much felt gap in writing for me. The reason convincingly being that I had been with my nephew for almost a month. And to justify my laziness, the days I spent with him, I renewed myself with a lot of sumptuous energy. Frankly I never felt a need for creativity and expression while I was with him. I was speaking to him as if I was speaking to my soul, Brutally frank I must say :). Knowing very well that at an age of 1 he wouldn’t understand or even realize what I was talking to him. But both at mind and soul I did a lot of formatting and disk defragmentation of my HDD, my brain!.

I saw a lot of innocence around me in different forms. I wanted to write about them and make my readers think regressively!

Read this,

Innocence is the primary felt evidence of childhood ness. And Innocence for me at childhood is definitely a form of ignorance. If a child sees a dog it doesn’t realize it’s a creature which may bite it, and hence goes and catches its tail. This is in one angle is innocence and indirectly ignorance.

Now as this child grows it grows to realize that a dog may bite it when it holds the Dog with its tail. Hence it goes and gently touches the dog’s body and smiles innocently at its father. This is the transformation of the child’s ignorance to intelligence with the innocence being intact!

Now the child grows further and interacts with the environment. It intuitively thinks and envisages so many instances that happen around it. That’s when the child starts to shed its skin of innocence. The child or now called as a matured individual starts to analyze everything that happens around him/her and develops a syndrome or stigma of thoughts.

Until the innocence was intact the child saw no difference. The world was same for the child who was born to a billionaire and the same to someone who was born to a begger. But once the child shed its innocence or started analysing the interactions outside to him there is a sharp change in his actions..

Hardly we(both as parents and our self) realize that these are the few thoughts that determine our life ahead. After all thought is an interwoven binary of life!

I want to leave it here and want to continue in more detail in my next post! And for those who read until here and thought my first para was quite irrelevant to the post read it again. I have a reason behind annoying you with my satisfaction in life! :)

Unsustainable-Part 2

I picked this topic because I would like to put forward my views on the huge public debt this country(through banks) is forcefully creating. More succinctly, the government no longer needs money from banks and hence the banks are flush with funds. Now the prime role of the banks is to lend to various sectors of the economy and foster growth thereby also ensure that the economy is well insulated and healthy. Now RBI has to make sure the latter is ensured since the banking sector has been well privatized. The banks are not as cautious as the RBI since keeping funds idle is a sin for banks. The government insists that banks lend to the agriculture sector which is limping. Also welcome is lending to real estate sector which will indirectly aid development is so many interdependent industries. But now the banks are lending home loans enormously and what I would call unsustainably in the long run. Lending to agriculture sector always happens forcefully and rarely voluntarily!

The RBI has recently tried to curb risky loans to the commercial real estate sector with indication to banks of a possible threat that looms around home loans too! The repo rate hence has been slightly raised by .25. Dayanidhi maran a few days back had warned the realtors of falsely rising valuations in areas like coimbatore, madurai after Chennai! .

So going forward all these will definitely have impact on the inflation and cause an increase in domestic products. It’s very important that in a Globalised economy falsely hiking prices is prevented in all products so that for the public various essential commodities don’t become too costly. Such situations will drive towards a possible alarm and demand an immediate action from the regulator and perhaps force him to take strict measures. And will possibly induce a passive recession.

After all one might even travel in a highway but will have to slow down when there is an accident that’s happened before him!! :)

Unsustainable

Unsustainable

I want to start this article with information I heard from my father. Few years ago in the pre 90’s India had a considerable shortage for foreign exchange (dollars primarily). During that time people who went to study in US had to get foreign exchange approved by the RBI for them to travel abroad. One such candidate with pretty ordinary academic merits applied for proceeding to study in US and was rejected with reasons being stated that his credentials were far below the acceptable ones and, more so relatively with other candidates. But later this guy managed to politicise the issue and finally did finish his studies and come back to India and is now none other than Mr. Chidambaram himself, the finance minister of India :)

Until the twentieth century the Indian economy operated quiet predictably and to some extent even sluggishly! The government invited savings from people which went to banks and the bank lent to the government, convertible into securities and got a good interest for it as well which it shared with the public. And heights, for some period of time , even the government forced banks to invest a percentage of the savings raised from public in securities. The money was used in capital expenditure and the economy kept following the snail without overtaking it.

But globalisation started changing things, and luckily for India population turned to be an advantage. For two reasons, services industry could operate well here and hence came outsourcing and the other reason was the huge market beckoning. The two ways of taking advantage of people namely, employability and opportunity. Again both are interdependent. The opportunity can be created only when money permeates down the economy and hence increases affordability among the masses.

Now keeping this short period of history in our mind let us analyse Globalised India in the first 6 years of the twenty first century. As more and more services (jobs) started coming in technology started to get more close to people and liquidity also grew. It grew all levels. Every house started buying a TV, Fridge and more ubiquitous was a mobile phone :).

Now in 2006 the same finance minister who faced a forex crunch now has a deluge of forex to manage the economy. The result, there is no dependence on the banks or indirectly the people to save. Saving is seen both by the individual and the government as a sin in a country which once had huge revenue expenditure sizeable portions of which was by paying interest for securities created out of Poepl's savings! Interestingly now liquidity with the people is high and they inevitably keep there money with banks. The reason being (http://syncwithjayaram.blogspot.com/2006/09/rising-salaries-vanishing-workers.html) . The banks now have all time high capital with no borrowers.

I want to temporarily end the article here for two reasons, I don’t like to write lengthy in one go and I want my reader to think. Before ending I want every reader who has reached this point to think what could be the reasoning behind me titling this blog Unsustainable …

Correct guesses will get no prizes, but means the reader is fit to write a blog of his own!

SNIOP

SNIOP

Like many writers I am not going to keep the abbreviation a suspense for long. SNIOP stands for

‘Susceptible to negative influences of people’

I am just recapitulating a training I had attended a year back while @Wipro. The training was all about a video, in which a Man faces a brutal accident. For the doctors in a leading hospital in US his survival seemed impossible, until few days after, he recovers from his coma, and realizes that this was his rebirth. For all the doctors around his survival was a miracle. Even one doctor proclaims that it would have been better had he died, because his life is going to be painful hereon!

This Man could hardly walk,talk,eat,sleep,breathe,move,drink and to sum up he was a dead man alive. But wonder the God’s creation, he could talk to himself. Meaning he could think. He realized from whatever was happening around him that he had a miraculous escape. When the doctor saw tears rolling down his eyes he came up to him and said Be Confident!

This man thought only this. He should not let God down. He believed that God gave him rebirth and he should not waste this attempt of His!

He went on to Motivate himself day in day out. Few days later he could hear and see. And sad for him he could only hear pessimistic things about his state. But that night he decided he would breathe himself. When he communicated this to his Nurse she did not comply and said No to removing the ventilators. When the nurse was asleep he decided he would remove the ventilators himself and he did it! And Goodness me he could breathe. He cried again thanking God and within few days he could talk. He requested the doctor who was stunned to see his recovery to get a wooden plank to be placed at a cupboard which he could always see. The plank would have the word SNIOP imprinted on it. And everyday he would motivate himself by reading that and convert all the negative energy around him into positive ones!

And 8 months after the accident the Man got discharged from the hospital and walked his way into the Car before revealing to the doctor that SNIOP means “Susceptible to the negative influences of people”. I feel every human being on this earth to watch that movie. And what I have written here just transpires 1% of what I had seen. It was such a powerful movie!

I have so many to infer from this story which was one the best motivation movies I have watched.

1) In times of stress its very important one motivates himself. Infact there’s nothing else that can keep us alive. When we fail to develop this trait we end up becoming sadist’s or end up in a suicide.

2) I heard someone say this, definitely not Sidhu :) “The world is not flat, not circular, Its crooked!”. Negative influence is more that nitrogen in the atmosphere. It’s very important we develop a resistance to this. The only way we can do this is to develop positive attitude and in our own little means spread positive energy around us.

3) If you believe you can, you can and you cant, you can’t. In both ways you are right. This seems so often heard. So I don’t want to write more on this!

4) Always trust in God when you believe in anyone around you. After all there is something definitely mysterious in everybody’s birth,life and death. Not everything is under Human conception. If it was there would have definitely been a prototype of a brain developed by now, considering that there is one for almost every organ in our body!

And to end this article of mine on a philosophical note I remember a kabir’s quote I read when I was in my 6th standard of schooling. The translated version of the saying means to say “All of us remember God in times of distress and none of us when we are happy, but those who remember God in times of happiness will never have a phase of distress in life”

Spread the positive energy!

Sagacious Schumi

Sagacious Schumi

I always didn’t want to make my blog an editorial one! For the simple reason that to report what happened, is done extensively by the media and its stupid for me to do it with little inputs. But I just cannot stop writing about what I saw yesterday. I saw attitude. I saw determination to win. To sum it all up I saw what Success means. Success according to me as I have already written about, means Consistency. Being consistent in whatever you do best.

In the arena of sports if ever a game became dull because someone won repeatedly and the game hence became so predictable ,that game is none other than the invigorating Formula One till 2 years back(Both invigorating and dominating only then :)! .To my knowledge the epitome’s of consistency in sports were 4 Men- Sachin, Tiger woods ,Lance Armstrong and the invincible Schumi. Atleast they are the ones I knew and admired.

And I just want to untiringly admire Schumi in this blog for the simple reason that he retired yesterday. Retired with pride and sense of satisfaction. Satisfaction to both his fans and himself.

I just wanted to analyse what was so special about his Man that he made me write so much about him. Considering the fact that I have been watching Formula One only for the past 2 years. The two years when Schumi’s career started to fade! There are lessons to learn from him here..

Lesson No.1 –Never Give up.

In the last race of his life Schumi to all his fans disappointment started 10th in the grid. As he started the race with just two laps completed he raced to 6th position and before I could even believe his agileness he was behind Fisecella and fighting with him for the fifth place. And Man another misfortune he had his tyres burnt and went to his pit before even finishing 5 laps and had a tyre change. I thought he was going to retire from the race but he came out of the pit and believe me he was the last on the grid and heights he was already a close back marker to the race leader Massa. I just felt so bad because I didn’t want him to retire at such a disgrace. I was 100% sure he would have reached the podium had he not burnt his tyres .I switched off my TV set and started browsing on my laptop.

But although my Man was no way expected to get even any points for his constructor I was still tempted to switch On my TV again and see him for one last time driving. And what was I seeing. Schumi was on 8th position and within minutes threateningly close to becoming 6th on the track racing past raikonen on 7th. And there were 17 people on the track by then. Imagine the grit, from 18th to 8th in some 30 laps consedering 5 of them were laps with safety cars on the track and obviously didnt allow any overtaking!. I just felt in the final few laps that this guy shouldn’t retire and should win next years championship! That’s whom you call a Hero. And that’s why Ganguly isn’t called one.

And as the race ended I was so happy and proud because Schumi ended racing past the guy who was the reason behind his first pit shop. Inspite of never being a race leader this guy was fastest on the circuit twice beating his own time!! From 10 to 6 to 18 to 4. I just don’t have words to express this spirit. I just want to salute this Great sportsman. He just dominated the sport and retired with honour.

Lesson No.2- You should know when to retire with honour.

I think it’s very important to have this skill. I have seen so many people who inspite of being very successful in life ended their career with a disgrace simply because they didn’t know when to call it a day. I have two examples that strike me now! No prizes for guessing the first- Ganguly and the second Vajpayee. And this is one reason I want to admire Schumi. Because its so tempting to quit something you were a leader in. After all the more you play the more you earn!

Lesson No.3 – Fight for a comeback.

Be it yesterday’s race or this formula one season, Schumi for me came from no where. Alonso was becoming slowly but surely the next invincible chap. And imagine the Japan Grand prix that might have given Alonso sleepless nights! Taking pole but schumi was so unlucky. I am saying this because a Ferrari Engine failure was history. But it did happen on the penultimate race of the season and Schumi’s career! But salute to the hero who came back strong and made everyone believe this guy still has potential!

And I don’t want to write about my other heroes –Tiger Woods, Sachin and Lance Armstrong. You know why they are called heroes now!

Riding on the boom

Riding on the boom

Pessimism and spiritualism are the most fashionable thought outlooks today. I know this pretty well but the tinge of pessimism and philosophy is very hard to ignore every time I sit down to write!

News No.1

My dear reader,How on earth do you interpret this? A company called Google buys a company called you tube for 7500 crores!!(1.65B$)

You tube is a company that just has a portal with loads of web multimedia content in its database. It’s a company with a mere 67 employees. It’s a company that started with a venture funding of 3.5 million dollars( 161 crores). 7500 crores for 161 crores ? I just have one word for this, ‘Ridiculous’

This is just a show of opulence and an attempt to exploit the confidence and fame Google has with investors.

News No. 2

Tata plans to buy Corus Steel ,at a deal valued at more than 10B$

Now the same question repeated. How on earth do you interpret this? Tata steel is a 3.5B$ company that aims to buy a steel giant valued at more than 15B$.

Corus Steel is an angle-dutch company with 50000 employees and a turnover of Ten billion pounds. Now is the time to remind my readers about the topic. Why I saw this is riding on the boom? Where will Tata get the money for such a mighty acquisition? Tata plans to source money from investors and plans to float a bond for 2B$. And take a loan of 6B$ from Standard Chartered Bank. Again a show of opulence and a showcase of exploiting investor’s liquidity.

That poor fellow was scary of investing in stocks and preferred to open a FD with Standard Chartered Bank. Look where his money eventually goes :) .Philosophy not missed in this article!

Back on track,

I am just striking at some illogical valuations and some illogical acquisitions. Why on earth can’t someone be pessimistic if such deals happen around us. And you have another fashionable word discovered with justifies all these acquisitions. And the word is Consolidation.

Consolidation in one industry that relies heavily on a depleting Natural resource and Consolidation in another industry that relies on Open source data.

Where are we heading. Are the investors being fooled.. Are we riding on a boom that’s gonna become unsustainable because we rode rashly and lost our balance in the process?

Sorry I tried to be neutral but the pessimism seems to peep so very often. I will write more about this!

Beware my dear investors :( .Drive safe and drive with a smile!

America is living beyond its means- Larry Elliot,The Guardian.

I read a excellent article about the fate of US econmy.Posting it below. Read it repeatedly!

America is living beyond its means

China and India will be calling the shots when the US is no longer top dollar

Larry Elliott, economics editor,The Guardian

It's 2056. After a coup in Saudi Arabia, the new government announces it is cutting off supplies of its dwindling stock of oil to the United States. The White House responds by sending in the troops, but is forced to withdraw after Beijing says it will only continue shoring up the dollar if the military action is called off.

Marking the 100th anniversary of Suez, the Americans have no choice but to comply. Fanciful? Ludicrous? Certainly, that would have been the reaction of the traders on Wall Street who last week sent the Dow Jones industrial average to within a whisker of its all-time high. But even if the US can avoid a hard landing in the short term, as equity dealers believe it can, the medium and long-term risks to the economy remain.

Optimism seems to be inspired by falling oil prices and the expectation that the next move in interest rates from the Federal Reserve will be down. It is an optimism not shared by the bond market, which is sending out clear warnings of impending recession. It is possible those who have pushed the Dow back well over 11,000 points have got it right. Many economists believe, however, that the equity market has got it wrong. They can hear the sound of fluttering wings as the chickens come home to roost.

Stephen King, chief economist at HSBC, has downgraded his forecast of US growth next year to 1.9%, and believes that by the end of 2007 the economy will be expanding at only just over 1% a year. That, by US standards, is very slow growth and would certainly lead to a sharp jump in unemployment. The Fed would be cutting rates by this time next year in an attempt to get the economy going again. It may not be that simple. For one thing, the downturn in the housing market looks like it has a lot further to run. Activity and prices may continue falling for another year, and with US consumers already drowning in a sea of debt it's not obvious that they will be prepared to load up on any extra borrowing, whatever the level of interest rates. And the wisdom of curing the hangover from one bubble by another binge has to be questioned.
Consumers have been using their homes like ATMs - borrowing against rising prices - but this cannot go on forever. The US economy needs quite a prolonged period in which consumer spending grows more slowly than the economy: that is the only way that the trade deficit is going to be reduced. There are those who say that the trade deficit is not a problem for the US. They argue that it is perfectly sustainable to run sizeable deficits in perpetuity because the dollar's status as a reserve currency means that there will always be demand for US assets. But there are two points here. First, running a permanent trade deficit affects the structure of your economy. It means fewer manufacturing jobs where productivity tends to be higher and more jobs in the service sector, where productivity tends to be lower.

The US has struck a Faustian bargain with its trading partners, particularly China, responsible for about one third of the $700bn-plus trade total last year. As the American economist Tom Palley puts it: "US consumers get lots of cheap goods in return for which they give over paper IOUs that cost less to print. Meanwhile, China creates millions of jobs and builds modern factories that are transforming it into an industrial superpower, and it also accumulates billions of dollars in financial claims against the US. From this perspective, trade deficits don't matter because there are no limits to either government or private borrowing, and because manufacturing doesn't matter either." The logic of this, Palley notes drily, is that the US would benefit even further if China devalued its exchange rate and ran a larger trade surplus. The second point is potentially much more explosive: it is the one sketched out in the crystal ball gazing at the top of this piece. What would happen if, as a result of global developments over the coming decades, the dollar ceased to be the reserve currency of choice. This was a point raised by Avinash Persaud, one of the financial sector's more original thinkers, in a recent lecture in New York. Persaud's argument is as follows.

Throughout history, there has always tended to be one dominant reserve currency along with a host of lesser rivals. In the 19th century Britain was the pre-eminent economy and sterling was the main reserve currency. Yet currencies don't retain their dominance forever; part of Britain's problem at the time of Suez was that it was struggling to adjust to a world in which it was no longer the top-dog currency but the creditors came knocking at the door asking for their cheques to be cashed. The US is living beyond its means, hoping that nobody cashes the cheques it has been merrily writing as the current account has gone deeper into the red. That's the advantage of being a reserve currency, even though, as Persaud notes, there is no rule which says that you have to run current account deficits simply because you are a reserve currency.
Britain didn't a century ago. In the decade or so up to the first world war it had a trade surplus of 5% of GDP. "That is a mirror image of the US today. The UK was in surplus by as much as the US is in deficit." That deficit has enabled the Chinese to build up their industrial strength at a rapid rate, so much so that it is probable that China - and perhaps India - will have overtaken the US as the world's largest economy (on a purchasing power parity basis, at least) by 2050. Persaud thinks that the upshot of this will be that in the next few decades the dollar will start to lose its reserve status just as sterling did in the last century. "In the case of sterling's loss of reserve status, world war one and two accelerated a process that had begun more slowly before and ended abruptly with debt and inflation."

Today the process is also being accelerated - by wars where the end is as elusive as the enemy and by a consumerism built on a property bubble. Perhaps we will not have to wait until 2050. In my lifetime, the dollar will start to lose its reserve currency status, not to the euro but to the renminbi or the rupee. This would clearly have massive economic and geopolitical consequences. As Persaud rightly says: "If it was economically and politically painful for the UK, even though its international financial position did not begin from a position of heavy deficit, what will it be like for the US which has become the world's largest debtor. There will be an avalanche of cheques coming home to be paid when the dollar begins to lose its status."

And this "avalanche of cheques" is likely to make for the most horrendous geo-political tension. The idea that the US will give up global financial hegemony without a fight seems fanciful in the extreme.

SIP- The key to Convergence

SIP- The key to Convergence

With the advent of IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) Architecture, SIP is largely going to change the way the world will communicate. Inspite of the emerging RFC’s day-in day-out SIP will eventually be throned as the most versatile End to End VOIP protocol.

Although SIP only does call setup and signaling it establishes good connectivity with PSTN through gateways and going forward RTP(Real time protocol) and RTCP(Real time control protocol are going to make streaming data a easy reality. RTCP will also manage QOS and enable the user to receive some very high quality data transmission. One more favourable feature of SIP is ,it can act as a carrier for many protocols. For example in media sessions, SIP acts as a carrier for SDP(Session Description protocol) and RTP.

SIP Messages are very easily decodable. Following are examples of few message responses in a SIP call flow. Any user can understand the call flow in the network.

1xx—Informational Responses (100 Trying , 180 Ringing ,181 Call Is Being Forwarded ,182 Queued ,183 Session Progress)

2xx—Successful Responses (200 OK ,202 accepted: Used for referrals)

3xx—Redirection Responses (300 Multiple Choices,301 Moved Permanently,302 Moved Temporarily,305 Use Proxy,380 Alternative Service)

4xx—Client Failure Responses (400 Bad Request,401 Unauthorized: Used only by registrars. Proxys should use proxy authorization 407,402 Payment Required (Reserved for future use) ,403 Forbidden ,404 Not Found: User not found)

And now some gyan on what are the typical request messages in SIP,

INIVITE,ACK,BYE,CANCEL,SUBSCRIBE,NOTIFY.

(Source :Wiki)

To sum up this beginner level article,

SIP is similar to SS7(Signaling system 7). But SS7 is a much versatile protocol as it interacts with the entire system. SIP can be classified as a peer to peer Protocol and this makes it scalable and adaptive. The key to success these days is De-centralisation :) (The seed for my blog is already here). This also ensures this protocol is here to stay!

Much detailed architecture explanations will continue some time later!

Rising salaries Vanishing workers!

Rising salaries Vanishing workers!

Recently I heard from one my colleagues who had been to our office in Romania. On his first day at the office they proceeded to have lunch at the canteen. Interestingly one lady who was a Romanian working for Alcatel, Romania called upon them and asked if he was an Indian? On immediately saying yes the lady prompted saying

“You Indians keep changing your employer every year is it?”

Embarrassing for the country at least!

And who can forget the Hari Sadu. H for Hitler, A for Arrogant, R for rascal and I for Idiot ad by Naukri.com. :)

So where are we heading? Are we getting too much carried away by the sudden Buzz that’s around the Indian industry? Are we getting too ambitious and tantalisingly over-confident? Where is the maturity and Ethics for which Indians are known all over the world?

Somebody asked me “How different it is to changes jobs every year from changing wives every year?”. No prizes for guessing that he was a HR. You obviously promise commitment in the relationship with your employer as you do to your wife. Just because you find a girl richer than your wife you cannot divorce your wife! If yes then why do you divorce your job? If no, you better be less influenced by people around you who like kangaroos keep hopping.

Hang On! My subconscious mind now is forcing me to write what is so called practical! And I will not disappoint him. :)

What’s wrong in switching jobs? After all my parents never thought about one because they were secured by their employer with pension but I will never be. Also because my parents never re-skilled themselves, never were ambitious but I am. Concisely they didn’t see growth inside or around them. I don’t have any security in life. I am seeing so many growth opportunities blooming around me. So I will seek a high paying employer and hug him as long as the high becomes mediocre!

Someone I talked to two days back exclaimed “WOW an ISB grad got a 1 crore package!!” and someone I talked to yesterday regarding the same issue said “Did you know how worthy that individual was. She deserved such a pay because she was an IIT Grad with some promising exp and a ISB MBA” . So what am I trying to say here?

The person I talked to first was more carried away by that money. The person I talked to second was more carried away by that person and who got that money! Now slightly tuning my statement we seldom look at the company. We often look things monetarily.

On further insights I think we are very myopic in our views. We need to think long term and plan for a period of life rather than plan for short periods of time. And if you still thought you need to hop then its pretty logical and an intelligent move.

So the next time, at least the next time you type that resignation letter weigh the pros and cons, on a short term and on a long term. Do a SWOT. Do a PEST.Remember that if you still felt you should get out of this job, the last time you did a SWOT you miserably failed. So you could fail this time as well :) .

Remember,

"What we are today is the result of our own past actions. Whatever we wish to be in the future depends on our present actions. Decide how you have to act now."

Caution: The writer quit his job recently!

The letter I wrote to Mr.Azim Premji- My Chairman!

AHP(Azim Hashan Premji) writes to us once a month. I had once replied to his mail and underneath you will find both his address and my feedback about his thoughts!.

Memorable days those! :(

Dear Wiproite,

I delivered a speech at India Leadership Forum organized by NASSCOM, Mumbai- India . I am happy to share the same thoughts with you. Globalization seems to have descended upon Indian organizations in a way that would look like a dream come true. Apart from the well known role of IT in the global arena, many other industries are now moving swiftly into it. These include diverse sectors of the economy such as engineering services, hospitality and health services, tourism, medical transcription and education. The future therefore holds in front a new mirror, in which both hard and soft elements of leadership are visible. On the hard side, we see that global strategies are being heavily served by information technology and enterprise wide planning that includes suppliers and customers into the firm's strategy. On the soft side, we see that effective cultural integration involves learning in context and behaving in a manner that elicits continued business engagement.

The recent NASSCOM estimates show that the IT Software Services and ITES in India are estimated to reach a little over USD 17 billion by the end of March 2005. This represents an overall blended growth rate for Software and ITES exports is 35% over last year's revised estimate. IT in India is known more for exports to overseas countries. But it has an equally important role within the country as an engine of economic expansion. IT has been contributing significantly to the growth of nations in the global economy. A 2001 study of major technological revolutions over the last three centuries by the IMF has revealed that IT enhanced the growth rate of the US economy by 1.8% per annum between 1995 and 2000 and contributed to 7.9% of its GDP. In Japan , IT accounts for 9.7% and makes up 9.6% of UK 's GDP. If you were to consider India , our IT industry size was $20.6 billion in 2003-04 and it constitutes 3.3% of the Indian GDP. Indian IT exports have the potential to grow to 7% of the GDP by 2008. Some of the enablers that have aided India 's march in the global race are cultural enablers.

First, is the respect for knowledge. Indian society since ancient times has recognized the importance of knowledge. Even Kings have paid homage to the knowledgeable sage. The trend continues to be visible in Indian society. Successful companies have capitalized on this long-standing strength of Indian culture.

Second, is the educational rigour. Indian professionals have gone through the grind of competitive educational systems, from nursery schooling to professional college education, and the hustle and bustle of corporate life. The Indian society seems to have become adept at filtering talent progressively. Competition has pervaded educational spheres as early as school and assumes significant force for professional courses. In corporate reality, this has implied that only few can reach the top management levels.

Third, is the tolerance for ambiguity. Ever since the institution of the Indian joint family, tolerance for diverse opinions has been in the Indian social fabric. Fathers and sons, uncles and nephews within the same joint family would debate over complex family issues and still remain undivided. A similar spirit of accommodation of viewpoints prevails in successful organizations.

Fourth, is the exposure to multiculturalism. The Indian educational setup has the three language formula, which has implied a multilingual dimension to the Indian workforce. Diverse Indian languages make for a natural adaptation right from school to work life. The key in all such adaptations has been tolerance for diversity and the capacity to learn in different situations. In work context, this has guided creation of harmonious business relationships.

Fifth, has been the quality of processes. This has been more apparent in the Information Technology area where companies have pursued rigorous Quality standards such as SEI- CMM. Some of them have achieved the highest level in these models and related models like the People CMM. The rigour has been even stronger in companies that followed simultaneously other approaches like the Six Sigma. This has ensured quality output for the client even as development cycle times were crashed on a continual basis. An important cause of success of these initiatives has been the commitment from top management in process initiatives.

Looking forward, there is optimism in the air when analysts speak about India . According to one of them, India could well be the world's third largest economy in less than 30 years from now, after the United States and China . In fact, India could grow the fastest among all countries at an average 6 per cent, going past Italy , Germany and France in the 2015-2025 time frame and past Japan in 2032. Even post-2050, India may continue to clock some of the highest growth rates in the world. But achieving this is not going to be easy. We need leadership that is not only transactional or one that moves from task to task. We need leaders who are truly transformational.

Transformational leaders do not depend on authority or charisma. The attributes needed are more intrinsic to the personality of the leader. I would like to briefly mention some of these.

First, transformational leaders identify themselves as change agents. They are not content to let things remain as they are even if it seems very comfortable.

Second, they are courageous and value driven. They are willing to look ahead and work towards creating a better future. Their vision creates a sense of purpose both for them and their organizations.

Third, they are lifelong learners. They pick up the ability to deal with complexity and uncertainty. They are also able to guide others when they are lost in the maze of ambiguity.

Fourth, transformational leaders communicate high expectations and express important ideas in simple ways. They give individual consideration, personal attention and continuously coach and advise their team members.

Also, they delegate enough to promote a culture of pro-activeness in problem solving. They anticipate many problems before they happen and do not wait for one crisis to strike after another.

In order to achieve business leadership, we must realize that IT is not an end in itself but a means to impacting the Customer's business. The challenge is to target IT applications in such a manner that it impacts business. And this is where both the Customer organizations and the IT Solutions provider have an important role to play.

First, we must identify what really drives productivity in the Customer organization. Is it the numerator, number of units or Value or the denominator, cost and effort? We must focus on what matters the most. This needs in-depth Customer knowledge. This also means understanding the Customer's business model and priorities. This varies not only from industry to industry, but also between organizations in the same industry. We must not be trapped by generalizations about industries as they could be misleading.

Second, we must have a holistic view on prioritizing investments for our Customers and also help them find value in sunken IT investments. IT investments are built on one another, often in complex ways. Many companies with apparently lifeless IT investments may be missing one final piece of technology that needs to be found. This is an interesting opportunity. If IT companies can help the Customer in a systematic manner to find the missing link, it could lead to unleashing enormous benefits for both. Identifying such links and building on them could be an enormous transformation tool.

Third, we must ensure that technological and managerial innovation go hand in hand. Many companies have discovered that when technology innovations outstrip managerial innovations, the benefits fall through the crack in between. It is like a car with a powerful engine but a wobbly chassis. It cannot get far. For customers to achieve higher returns on their IT investments, organizational structures and business processes need critical improvements. Partnering with IT vendors, who have tremendous managerial depth and understanding of business process changes, will help customers maximize on their ROI.

Finally, we must realize that there cannot be a silver bullet to achieve leadership. Out of the myriad opportunities ahead, we must decide what to focus on and what we should ignore. If we chase after a wrong goal, we will end up getting exhausted. Let me end with a parable that makes this clear.

A small kitten had just returned from cat philosophy school. He was running around in circles, trying to catch his tail. A seasoned old alley cat looked on and asked the kitten what she was doing.

"I have learnt that happiness is in the tip of your tail, and I am trying to catch mine, so that I will always be happy."

The old Tom replied: "You have learnt well. I never received a fancy education, but I too have heard that happiness is in the tip of my tail.

What I have also discovered is that if you forget about trying to catch it, it will follow you wherever you go."

Thank you once again for giving me the opportunity to share my thoughts.

Azim Premji

My mail to AHP
15-3-2005

Be it yesterday when in train I was reading Louis V. Gerstner Jr ‘s “Who said elephants can’t dance” or today as I am reading through the transcript of your speech at NASSCOM I am amazed at the Simplicity and continuous Sanguineness that leaders like Louis V. Gerstner Jr and Azim Premji deliver through their speeches.

Dear Sir,

As I am writing to you I might have read the speech transcript you had sent to employees a nine times in completeness. And to extract every drop of juice of your Sugarcane Speech I have rolled it over and over from top to bottom a dozen times.

As I thought I had got 50-60% of the message into my mind ,I decided I must write to you my emotions and thoughts on your Speech. But I am sure that tonight your thought mosquitoes bit me more than live ones as I am drafting my views to you.

As rightly started ,Globalisation has been the Ubiquitous word in the industry. In my view the most globalised thing since 1991 has been the word Globalisation in India. Every effect of it and every moment since has been researched.

It has been quite comical to note the change of events since globalisation in two parts of the world. As America the nation that indirectly forced India to liberalise stands at a precipice amidst huge Trade and Fiscal Deficit ,a local laborer at Tirupur down South in India who at his age of 40 headed the movement against Globalisation now at his 60’s is a Millionaire and says that he has a potential to double his wealth every 2-3 years. He (a illiterate then) now is worried about the depreciating rupee and writes to the finance minister. This is globalization of Mind…!

Your second paragraph emphasizing on Statistics surrounding the IT industry takes me to the times of Late Dewang Mehta who projected the software industry to earn 88b$ by 2008. But there has been a lot of stability and pruning that has effected the industry since then and the earnings are now(2005) at a modest and realistic 17 b$. I foresee a similar stabilisation to occur across countries of the world post globalization.

Further I would like to focus the statistics away from GDP. Rather than looking at what percentage IT contributes to GDP ,we should look at what percentage of various sector's contribution to industry is done by IT. For instance IT will win, if in agriculture that contributes close to 35% of GDP ,IT is responsible for 4-5% of agri sector's growth. Similarly IT should be seen as a partner in every sectors growth rather than being looked upon as a separate one.


With regard to your usual way of Enumerating points to the reader, I was making a classical analysis of the parameters that you had quoted as cultural enablers.

With regard to the respect for knowledge I believe our ancestors had a foccused array of thoughts which influenced every following generation. This was the success of Indian gene that produced very smart and capable pass outs against western compatriots.

With regard to the education rigour I believe that our educational system failed to channelise the rich cultural repository that India is known for .As a result today be it the IT industry or as a Nation we have a abundant resource of technical talent but very few leaders. This is because of the absence of case studies and motivational tonics which did not supplement our well known tech. adept Curriculum.

With regard to the tolerance for ambiguity that you have specified as a cultural enabler, I believe this gain flows from our Ancestors. This comes from the quality of Simplicity. This one quality is fast eroding in Organizations as people begin to live false lives and develop ego ,amidst their peers at work and Siblings in their family. The ordeal of simplicity and down to earth thinking must be imbibed into minds to nurture this rare quality of tolerance to ambiguity.

With regard to Quality, I have always found that quality comes with age. The quality that we believe we have gained before age is later realised to be just a mirage. As we grow we understand the efficiencies of people around us and start to re-engineer ourselves continuously until we become benchmarks for others to follow and this seamlessly improves this world.

Before I close I would like to thank you for the patience you have shown to read this amateur’s writing and I hope I get a feedback for my efforts as you did from me.

Finally on your optimism of India becoming a superpower I believe we should be maturely aiming for it by 2050, to escape from being another Dewang Mehta. :)

Best regards

Your Proud Employee,

Jayaram Mahalingam

NAM –India striking its neutralism

NAM –India striking its neutralism

I hardly derive admiration for a communist. But communism is one topic that can shake anybody’s will. People who preach or follow communism are always very erudite thinkers. They don’t get carried away by the misleading optimism that is present both in a society and economy. They always predict and warn about a imminent defects of a cosmopolitan society and economy. I am drawing so much praise for communism after following closely a person and his ideologies. This person when he met our prime minister a few days back said few words which need to be closely assimilated and thought about.

“The financial system was faced with uncertainty with countries like the United States absorbing the bulk of the world's savings”

I remember Sudharsan of RSS also say this a while back. The world is investing a lot of its wealth in US treasury without thinking how US economy would transpire. The US economy is already reeling under some mighty Current account deficit. What if the deficit becomes unmanageable? What if the currency weakens? It would be counter productive for every other economy and particularly the Asian countries like Japan,China and India which have a major chuck of their Forex reserves in Uncle Sam’s kitty!

The Asian economies should stop supporting the US fiasco at large. The economies need to be insulated from a possible American depression influence. In the current scenario it seems like the Asian economy will just slither like a pack of cards in case an American downfall happens. And this is exactly what, the great thinker Fidel Castro is hinting at. Food for thought :)

Hats off to India for striking its neutralism and participating in dialogues with countries like Cuba, which always hated American Hegemony!

I would intensively follow this topic in my future blogs….

Hare and Tortoise story Retold

Hare and Tortoise story Retold

Once upon a time a tortoise and a hare had an argument about who was faster. They decided to settle the argument with a race. They agreed on a route and started off the race. The hare shot ahead and ran briskly for some time. Then seeing that he was far ahead of the tortoise, he thought he'd sit under a tree for some time and relax before continuing the race. He sat under the tree and soon fell asleep. The tortoise plodding on overtook him and soon finished the race, emerging as the undisputed champ. The hare woke up and realised that he'd lost the race. The moral of the story is that slow and steady wins the race.

This is the version of the story that we've all grown up with. But then recently, someone told me a more interesting version of this story. It continues.

The hare was disappointed at losing the race and he did some soul-searching. He realised that he'd lost the race only because he had been overconfident, careless and lax. If he had not taken things for granted, there's no way the tortoise could have beaten him. So he challenged the tortoise to another race. The tortoise agreed.

This time, the hare went all out and ran without stopping from start to finish. He won by several miles. The moral of the story? Fast and consistent will always beat the slow and steady. If you have two people in your organisation, one slow, methodical and reliable, and the other fast and still reliable at what he does, the fast and reliable chap will consistently climb the organisational ladder faster than the slow, methodical chap. It's good to be slow and steady; but it's better to be fast and reliable.

But the story doesn't end here. The tortoise did some thinking this time, and realised that there's no way he can beat the hare in a race the way it was currently formatted. He thought for a while, and then challenged the hare to another race, but on a slightly different route. The hare agreed. They started off. In keeping with his self-made commitment to be consistently fast, the hare took off and ran at top speed — until he came to a broad river. The finishing line was a couple of kilometres on the other side of the river. The hare sat there wondering what to do. In the meantime the tortoise trundled along, got into the river, swam to the opposite bank, continued walking and finished the race. The moral of the story? First identify your core competency and then change the playing field to suit your core competency.

In an organisation, if you are a good speaker, make sure you create opportunities to give presentations that enable senior management to notice you. If your strength is analysis, make sure you do some sort of research, make a report and send it upstairs. Working to your strengths will not only get you noticed, but will also create opportunities for growth and advancement.

The story still hasn't ended. The hare and the tortoise, by this time, had become pretty good friends and they did some thinking together. Both realised that the last race could have been run much better. So they decided to do the last race again, but to run as a team this time. They started off, and this time the hare carried the tortoise till the riverbank. There, the tortoise took over and swam across with the hare on his back. On the opposite bank, the hare again carried the tortoise and they reached the finishing line together. They both felt a greater sense of satisfaction than they'd felt earlier.

The moral of the story? It's good to be individually brilliant and to have strong core competencies; but unless you're able to work in a team and harness each other's core competencies, you'll always perform below par because there will always be situations at which you'll do poorly and someone else does well. Teamwork is mainly about situational leadership, letting the person with the relevant core competency for a situation take leadership.
There are more lessons to be learnt from this story. Note that neither the hare nor the tortoise gave up after failures. The hare decided to work harder and put in more effort after his failure. The tortoise changed his strategy because he was already working as hard as he could. In life, when faced with failure, sometimes it is appropriate to work harder and put in more effort. Sometimes it is appropriate to change strategy and try something different. And sometimes it is appropriate to do both.

The hare and the tortoise also learnt another vital lesson. When we stop competing against a rival and instead start competing against the situation, we perform far better. When Roberto Goizueta took over as CEO of Coca Cola in the 1980s, he was faced with intense competition from Pepsi that was eating into Coke's growth. His executives were Pepsi-focussed and intent on increasing market share 0.1 per cent a time.

Goizueta decided to stop competing against Pepsi and instead compete against the situation of 0.1 per cent growth. He asked his executives what was the average fluid intake of an American per day? The answer was 14 ounces. What was Coke's share of that? Two ounces. Goizueta said Coke needed a larger share of that market. The competition wasn't Pepsi. It was the water, tea, coffee, milk and fruit juices that went into the remaining 12 ounces. The public should reach for a coke whenever they felt like drinking something. To this end, coke put up vending machines at every street corner. Sales took a quantum jump and Pepsi has never quite caught up since.
To sum up, the story of the hare and tortoise teaches us many things. Chief among them are that fast and consistent will always beat slow and steady; work to your competencies; pooling resources and working as a team will always beat individual performers; never give up when faced with failure; and finally, compete against the situation not against a rival.

IP-ImPossible

IP-ImPossible

I have a little knowledge in this telecom domain. To weigh it myself I thought I will try writing something away from philosophy regularly. To see if thoughts can even flow in my mind when I think techie. Hence this attempt.

Caution: The entire transcript is influenced and not original. And with due respects to engineers defining standards and protocols at IEEE,IETF,RFC.

I always thought there are two things that caused a rapid change in the growth of technology. One was computing and the other communication. IP (Internet protocol) changed the way we communicated and the way will be communicating in years to come. It’s just made ImPossible communication dreams possible .

IP’s success must be attributed to its scalability. If someone said Wired communication was the made possible though IP, it’s only half true. IP had a tremendous role to play in Wireless advancements as well. And now let us not rhetorically keep speaking about evolution but get some insights into the latest trends! to follow.

WIMAX:

Wireless Maximum is my expansion of WIMAX although IEEE’s is Wireless interoperability in microwave access. It is aimed at providing last mile access for so many new access technologies that are rising. Wimax promises high speed wireless broadband internet with mobility. This technology promised data rates of 70Mbps(Incredible). But the promised throughput in the Rev e version(mobility) is 3Mbps(equally incredible for wireless tech.) .Once this technology is a reality its going to change the way this world communicates, courtesy IPV6.

Triple play:

How exciting to hear when someone says in a single cable I will get access to Interactive cable TV (IPTV), Telephone and broadband internet without OFC? Yes this is will be possible. And to add more glamour to this technology , IP TV is going to change the outlook of the traditional TV with a load of interactive features like mail access over the TV, Recording, Choice based viewing, online gaming , Online gambling/betting. And what’s more all this can happen wireless with a router in one corner of my house !!

VOIP:

Are you bored of the analog telephony over SS7 that keeps wasting bandwidth because of dedicated channel allocation? HANG ON! Telephony is gonna change as well. All those costly copper wires will be gone. Voice over IP ,telephony or Intelligentphony(my abbreviation :)) will introduce optimization and cut heavily on costs and investments. Its gonna be a very very small and cheap world going further!

Mobile TV:

Did u miss that Soap (Mega serial!) yesterday because you were at work.. Here comes MobileTV another technology which is going to revolutionise life courtesy again IP and Wimax. This technology is also proposed to be linked with Triple play and called Quadraplay.

One of the magical teachers I met at Wipro told me this “Network is world” .That’s the mantra these days.

I have just given few HOT technologies which were incredible a while back but not IP is making all these look very much possible. Further deep insights will continue !! Food for thought for googling :)

Looking back!

Looking back..!

“Its kinda funny how life can change ,Can flip 180 in a matter of days!”

How true is this lyric of Blue as they sing ONE LOVE. I have a reason behind getting philosophical this day. This is the day I am two years old. Not in life but in my professional career. And what prodded me to write this ,is a mail that I wrote exactly 2 years ago when I started my career with Wipro. A mail full of innocence ,excitement and overall so naïve in content. But today as I look back it’s no longer me. I cant resist to believe I have changed so much. But the ultimate question that I keep asking myself. To be or not to be!.

Have I changed for the better or….I should say I have grown a lot matured. A lot mature in views, thought, mannerism etc.. But an inner feeling, the so called subconscious mind keeps rattling its tail. It says it’s more important to be static than to be dynamic. Static here means consistency. Dynamic here means unpredictable.

I started with my dream company, Wipro. I enjoyed every moment of innovation that kept happening around me. But today it’s a lot more different. Life seems so different every day. What I thought yesterday as good today seems dubious. And what seemed dubious yesterday seems exciting today . If the human mind is this dynamic(unpredictable) how can I Live? How can I decide what is best to me? How can I feel happy about what I did and feel happy about what’s coming my way?

I ended with my not so dream company this June. But the disappointment was less felt. The excitation that was there the first day wasn’t matched by the disappointment on the last day with Wipro. Is that because Wipro has changed? Nay! It was because I have changed. Changed for better? Questionable today. Answerable tomorrow and questionable again the day after!

Now what Iam trying to say? Let me try for some clarity hereon…

Why are we so confused at life. Is this because of the choices we have?. Is it because we don’t have a fixed thought process?

The answer to this is simple. The root cause of this is abilasha (wish). When we can feel satisfied in life then we can predict our life easily. We can live life the way we want to. We can live happily. So my dear reader ,Optimism starts from the mind and ends in the mind. Feel satisfied about what you do Big or Small. Don’t take the law of relativity to the mind and compare.

I just want to become Innocent! :)

Software Stinks!

Software Stinks!


Remember that day when you are in a critical phase of delivery, No I didn’t mean delivering a baby. Something more critical, delivering the software. When everything goes as planned in the progress bar suddenly the dialog says memory reference error and the application crashes. I can only pity the guy who sees that! This last minute fiasco is relevant to most of the things that is done in life. But the agony here is that this fiasco is not handled with right balance. Instead the team or individual toils with a strange pessimism striking his keyboard hard and clicking his mouse left to right!

Many of us plan for success but don’t plan well to handle failures when faced unexpectedly. When the graph drools to the nadir we don’t want to plan to see it improving slowly but want it to sky rocket. Many a times we don’t want to explain the customer and take him to confidence but try to keep on to the dates and release the product full of defect. That’s when the customer looses confidence upon us and starts suspecting our capability.

Sam Walton said “There is only one boss-the customer. And he can fire everyone-from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else”

It is equally important that we predict our risks as we predict our strengths, to the customer. It’s important that he believes in us as a company more than as a service provider. Credibility is the key, delivery isn’t. When we fail to realize the nuances in the abstract level we end up losing the credibility and the customer forever.

Errors are acceptable but failure is not. When spotted as errors we should look at it with magnifying lens and try solving it. Otherwise the infinite pointers will just make us paranoid towards the end.

Disaster management becomes the key and demands a lot of maturity in handling. Blame game will just add to the commotion and derail association. It’s very important we Count the chickens before the hatch. This can make us breathe easy and keep us prepared for some risks upcoming.

It’s very much in our hands to prevent that Software from stinking!!.

The problem of Plenty

The problem of Plenty


Once I had a opportunity to meet the HOD of electrical department at the Indian institute of technology. He was the most revered and dynamic professor I have met until today in my life(Everyone of us in our life have one like him). I asked him why was the lecturer community in the country a crippled one. Always a lecturer in an engineering college is someone who failed to succeed in every level of his career and finally ended up becoming a lecturer out of desperation?

He had a beautiful explanation to it. He said that my observation was very correct when it comes to the numerous self financing colleges all over the country, but not to institutes like IIT’s. He had two interesting conclusions to this.

1) A professor at IIT or any other top ranked university in the world is respected because of his continuous reach to update his knowledge and almost synchronously share with his student community. Alongside he inspires each one of his students to innovate. This explanation of his was to support the student community and prod at the teaching community at various colleges who don’t aim to enrich their knowledge.

2) On the contrary the second reasoning of his was to say that the enumerable educational institutions that have opened up in this country have encouraged everyone who is jobless to turn to a lecturer.

I wanted to draw a line of parallelism (the two reasoning’s) to the IT industry. If the institutions where driven by lecturers, the IT industry was driven by Managers.

As this industry has started to grow in size, the quality of the input in the form of both entry level employees and managers is declining. The managers are rarely inspiring in their attitude. And the heights, every employee feels his manager does not deserve the position. There is always a stint of envy that looms over the mind of the subordinate over his manager.

On the contrary rarely can we find a case where a student feels envied of his lecturer’s position and fame. The student always admires his knowledge. There is a feeling of immense gratitude and respect that flows when the student thinks of his revered lecturer. But the same is not reflected in the manager – employee relationship.

I think this is one issue that needs to be thrown enough light on and researched. In many Indian IT companies this problem is imminent. Do we want the admired Indian IT companies to become like those numerous engineering colleges in our country?

This is what I call in India- The problem of plenty….

Why Wait for a developed India Till 2020?

Why Wait for a developed India Till 2020

“Once upon a time there lived a Dog who was well nourished and was a pet in an opulent family. The Dog one fine day decided to go out and see the world and sufferings that other dogs faced. When he set out he saw the starved puny dogs which never got anything to eat. He struggled for three days without any food, until finally he saw a dry bone lying in the road. With great expectations he started biting it. A minute later blood started to ooze apparently out of the bone and the dog happily started drinking the blood believing that it was coming out of the bone. Just then another dog reached out to this dog and said ‘hey stupid the blood you taste is coming out of your body and you are harming yourself. But this Dog was unfettered and continued to believe that the blood was from the bone and said ‘don’t fool me. I know the blood comes from the bone and the more I bite the more blood flows out’”

This story reminds me of the country India which once starved for funds and ultimately went on to inevitably liberalise biting the bone and started to seamlessly grow and extracting every dollar (Blood) it can amass and continuously striving to increase its dollar reserve. Asia today alarmingly is holding 80% of the dollar reserves that the world outside US holds. But Alas all the money is reinvested at Uncle Sam’s reserves. This is one ubiquitous topic about which every economist writes but no one can suggest a realistic measure or policy that can Gag US hegemony.

To trace the source of Dollars and to detect the need for dollars will solve this puzzle. The source of dollars to the Asian countries has been Technology and the need for dollars is to feed our automobiles. The Source cannot be blocked but the need can be diluted so that the source (dollars) becomes less attractive. If there wasn’t a need for a substance called OIL countries like China and India would have become self sufficient 10 years ago. The Oil Pool Deficit has been growing steadfast thus impacting the growth of all countries around the world. If there can be a solution to this then Abdul Kalam’s Dream of making India a developed country can be reached before 2020.

While Scientists have been working to make non-conventional energy sources an alternative, it seems a viable solution only on a longer run and requires huge investments. Also the efficiency of such energy sources is very negligible when compared to oil. This leaves an indelible dent on the Economies which Struggle to sustain their GDP Growth but a bigger chunk of this fortified growth goes to the OPEC. It is high time that we Indians think audaciously about this. Why audaciously because we can never expect a General Motors in India to spend millions of Dollars in research on Fuel cells.

If we could find a solution for this who knows one day technology will become the Driver of the world just like OIL and Indian currency would be the most sought after. And there will be a day when 1rupee=50 US$.

The world will be behind India.

Lead ERR Ship

Lead ERR Ship

Every century or epoch of time see certain words take strategic focus and research. Manufacturing was the buzzword in the mid 20th century and towards the end of the 20th century globalisation was the byword of almost every other individual. Similarly the start of 21st century has seen much of focus on two famous words, Quality and human skills collectively called the Soft skills.

Human skills in itself is getting a new dimension almost everyday a new behavioral aspect getting added in the corporate compendium. I wonder how the vishwamitra and the jesus Christ lived in the A.D’s without having analysed even traces of these behavioral traits.

Among all soft skills leadership adorns itself as the most basic and essential quality to be possessed by a person who wishes to be most successful in his life. On past experiences and learning’s leadership is one quality that does not associate itself with being academic. By academic I mean being stead forth in education. Almost all successful leaders who stand as embodiments of success in the corporate arena have failed miserably in their initial schooling. But on further insights they all have enough reasoning and maturity to learn from mistakes. Hence Lead ERR Ship is to learn from mistakes or errors. And to make mistakes or errors you need to take risks. And risks you take should be prefixed by an interesting word ‘calculated’. To take calculated risks you should reason out yourself on the future. The reasoning should come from one’s gut feeling and artifacts of success painted by people who have been successful. Today leadership as any other sift skill is mistook in a very decentralised sense. Every manager who tries to just co-ordinate a team of 10 without any efforts or adding value through innovation is considered a leader. A key term to be associated with every leader is innovation. If a person leads a rut he can never become a leader. This misnomer of being a traditional leader without risking needs to be cleared. To be succinct a person who tries to achieve excellence of a few dollars through process or product improvement is a leader as against a person who tries to stay insulated from experimentation and keeps reeling on the same income.

To conclude leadership should be broken down to three important constituents. Learning from errors, reasoning out from your insights, learning from outside and gutsy to take risks, but calculated risks and …….. on a lighter note fail during your school :).

Can one define Idealism?

Can one define Idealism?

I always believed idealism is achieved on a relative measure, meaning we role model ourselves against someone and aim at achieving idealism benchmarking ourselves against him. That Him most often than not happens to be someone in our close ambit. And in most probabilities our dad. He has, on a revisit defined his idealism from someone else. But although we egoistically defend our thoughts and opinions derived out of our so called idealism this idealism actually is a selfishness that flows in our brain, that we have to defend someone we trusted so much and made him our idol, forgetting to question our self on the act we performed. And on delving more into it we have actually thrusted our views which are more self centered to our outlook on so many around us.

This is a paradox… we start to believe in our definition of idealism but when we get doubts of whether our definition is right we egoistically defend our thoughts and stick to our definition irrespective of the guilt and differences in our mind. Have we achieved idealism here?

Idealism is something that is always unreachable. We fail to understand that we lack the maturity to realize so many things which are complicated. We form a conception and satiate our self that we have achieved perfection. Some feel to be simple and modest is being ideal but in some other person’s purview he thinks I am not ideal when I don’t spend and live to what I earn. But rarely are people seen in the bridge. Either people are on this side of the bank or the other side. So it’s the fight between the conservative principle of living and the opulent way of living that will give a definitive definition to idealism.

Let us now explore both conservatism and opulence…

Opulence to me is inflation. It might be ideal to you on a short term or long term. Short term if your income will not be steady and reliable and long term if you have a very reliable hoarding of wealth which will last until your death. But if you continually spend you rise your living style almost everyday and it slowly inflates in multiples. If you spent 100 rupees today to live an opulent life then when 100 days from now you need 1000 rupees a day to enrich your opulent living. But remember anything that goes up has to come down. Inflation as an economic term affects on a long term. You have your Son coming who will not have even 10 rupees a day to spend.

Here you definitely were ideal (in your own definition) until your death but if the son of an opulent raja begs for his day’s living…. Have we achieved idealism here?

The other way of living in Conservative living. Conservative is a word in itself which is very ambiguous. It is a word which is confining the individual of desires. Irrespective of the measure of money an individual possesses if he believes he should live by his principles he is conservative. Conservative people are the ones who are most ridiculed and mocked at. For the Son father seems a conservative if he saves beyond his requirements. But he is guilty of his past opinions about his father when his father hands over a cheque of 5 lakhs when the son is on a dire need. He starts to think what effort it would have taken of me to have saved 5 lakhs in spite of having earned so much every month. His allen solly shirts and levis jeans which he loved more than his dad add to his guilt. Have he achieved idealism here? Or did his father ? . I believe neither did his father achieve because unless he effected to change the lifestyle of his son his 5 lakhs will be forgotten in a span of months.

That’s why I said Idealism flows. Both in the negative and positive way……