Its not all about MONEY HONEY!!

Budget and its implications!! The short sighted view has had an impact. The share market saw its lowest trend and i am not so sure if farmers really know what is being offered to them, but banks for sure have an astrologically bad time. While the government is very pro in hitting the right chords when it comes to making emotional people happy, it fails to sustain the happiness for long.
Sometimes i wonder, with the best of brains in country serving as civil servants, is forming a right kind of financial policy so difficult? Don’t they know that charity is old fashioned now, enablement is the key. I am not saying that good things do not happen, i have seen employment cards scheme started by government, i have seen good interest shown by big corporates in procuring rural products, i have also been told that a big retailer is looking at a huge tie up with airline fleet for transferring products across for its stores, so yes, the need for the day has activated many brains. I also know that millions of dollars flow in India in the name of upliftment, but unfortunately, with so much of resource at hand, the outcome is negligible. So, it is really not a lack of resource for us anymore, it is the lack of connection between demand and supply.
What needs to get going is- Infrastructure, education, technical know how, corporations in each village to disseminate knowledge and connect with demand side in cities and places abroad. They are forbidden world. They have power to work and act, but they don’t know which direction is the world outside moving into. With such intelligent civil servants at our nation's disposal, we fail to form a smart governance policy. (They don’t have to slog in fields, they just have to show direction and hand hold. I believe sitting in one village is a waste of time for a civil servant, his job is to plan a strategy and delegate, there are teams which can be hired to implement. )
Since childhood, i have come across many civil servants and year on year my conviction is strengthened, that no one can challenge their intelligence. They go through rigorous selection process, they are all well read and they can create smart business models, but they don’t; because politicians don’t use them. I am just left wondering today, politicians in every country are supposed to be politicians, infact even in normal job, there are politicians. Civil servants can not be thrown out of job by anyone other than a president, and that has not happened in the history of this nation. They have power and brain to tweak around the system, keep everyone happy and still do good for nation. Lalu has got a railway system running with the help of these brains, then why do others fail? You can remain as bad as you are, still do good for nation, every progress will mean an addition in your capacity to receive bribe.
And then, it’s not about money, it is just a resource. A resource without proper utilization is garbage. Give away crores if that keeps people happy, but create a system underneath to ensure that it solves the problem at hand. Why don’t we incorporate analytical techniques when coming up with budgets? Have the problem statements, goals, solutions. Once we have the roadmap, incorporate the emotional factor (say 25% weightage) for vote banks and roll out the governance plan. I am not saying hit your pockets, you are politicians for a reason, but make use of resources you have (civil servants, corporate influence) and do something which makes you feel proud of your own power and improves your earning capacity in future.

India always had more brain than money. Use what you have more, leniently and be a bit stingy with what is not your strength. All nations have politicians with similar characteristics, because that is the kind of skill set needed for being one. Beaurocrats were meant to compliment the politicians, but the education system is faulty, they are just books with zero convincing and “marketing” capabilities, may be. Politicians have done a great job (hit the emotions), civil servants have failed(Right governance and progress goals) . System has been failing for investing so heavily on dormant brains for years in this nation. In the end, it’s not all about money honey, there is something called brain which ensures that money is given its right place.

The Budget is not BAD, but this is not the kind of budget a nation seeing transformational economic progress expects.

The 65,000 crore write off

There was always an expectation that the current budget will definitely look into the issue of farmer loans. Too often have we heard about failed crops and suicides. As Mr Chidambaram said during his budget speech that the country has a deep gratitude towards its farmers. Actually this is true. Do we ever wonder where the sack of potato or onions or chillies are coming from. We just go into the market & expect fresh batches of vegetables/fruits/cereals all the time.

But coming back to the point. Though this was expected to a great deal what was probably not expected was the magnitude of this offer. Rs. 65,000 crores is at any point of time a massive amount of money.

In the short term, there will be a drain on the financial system. As pointed out, it will have an effect on the profitability of all PSU banks particularly in the 4th qtr results of FY 07-08. We have to understand the fact that these loans are assets in the books of the banks against corresponding liabilities which are basically savings & current accounts i.e. our money. Now if the assets vanish ovenight the banks might be under severe liquidity problems. Good thing is that the Government proposes that these right-offs would be compensated by issue of bonds, securities etc. so that the entire effect is not passed on to the Banking system.

Another effect this will have is a dearth of investible money in the hands of the banks. Till the time the bonds are floated the Banks will have less of cash to disburse as loans. This may lead to a demand-supply gap in the short term and the interest rates will probably continue to be high. This will be actually contrary to the expectation of a softening interest regime and may actually contribute to an increase in inflation.

Further, the scheme talks of farmers with a certain cap of land holding. This I believe is the biggest pitfall. The biggest question here is who is going to monitor this aspect. The farmers would probably be at the mercy of local authorities to freeze their holding and there might be a scenario of immense kickbacks in this regard. Also, who is going to stop the big farmers from dissecting their landholding to less than the ceiling limit in the name of family members. In India, unfortunately, money can buy anything. I believe that the administration will be the most challenging aspect of the scheme.

Another point which has not been explored is the loans taken by the farmers from local moneylenders. These are the loans, with exorbitant interest rates, that drive people to take their lives. It's a reality that only a small percentage of farmers take loans from Banks. For most, it's the local moneylender who demand huge interest and heavy collateral from which there is no escape. This segment has not been addressed at all.

Probably from a macro perspective, it would have made more sense that this money be spent on infrastructure - better irrigation, better crop & cultivation technologies, cold freezers etc. This would have resulted in a lasting effect. Because, till the time these things are not in place, the next round of crops would also potentially be at risk of failure and the fresh loans disbursed to the farmers will also be at risk. This will give rise to a vicious cycle. Having said that, the elections are actually not far away and that probably is the biggest reason towards any kind of budget announcement. The infrastructure development may have taken 5-10 years to put in place but by that time there may be a new government who will walk away with the credit. On the other hand, this measure has an immediate impact and will certainly help once elections come around. This I believe is the only negative thing about this entire scheme.

Having said all this, apart from the doubts as expressed above, I am totally for this scheme. I believe any amount of money is worthwhile provided it saves a life. We do owe deep gratitude to our farmers and in a socialist set-up we have to do everything to alleviate their position. There are certain things, we in the city, take for granted. The reality in the villages is very different. "Equitable distribution of wealth" is a word we have been hearing for a long time. This scheme, if administered properly, may go a long way to do that.

picture abhi baki hai...mere dost!

Why is it that some movies get me? And I mean, get me hook, line and sinker? And a very tiny few of them? I am a Bollywood buff. But that's not to say I watch all the movies (actually, I do watch a lil more, but just because I have an unlimited internet connection to d/l the choicest of movies :-)

But why is it that those few movies get me? By the end of when I watch such movies, I go hyper! Not hyper in the sense of jumping around on a pogo stick but hyper mentally. I think more and surprisingly seem to think more clearly at the same time after I have seen such a movie. What is more surprising is that, the people that I watch such movies with, come out of the theatre with a "well, it wasn't as great as I expected it to be" or "that piece could have been handled deftly" kind of look on their faces. I mean, don't they get it? Or 'am I the odd one out? I dont know.


I remember this altercation I had with a dude who had issues with "Rang De...". At that time (even today), I wouldn't buy anything against such a brilliant movie...brilliant not coz it had a message et al...but for the simple reason that while watching the movie, I could relate and would have done exactly the same things.The issue that this guy had was that it promoted violence. Gimme a break...we're humans...unless we're shown sex and violence...we aren't excited.So why crib?I asked him if he liked "Swades"...he said it was boring...precisely for the lack of "action".I mean...either I'm nuts or this guy is so open-minded that his brain has started falling out.

Remember when we were kids, we used to read so many stories? And remember how all those stories had an ending. When we were tiny toddlers, almost all those endings were the "and they lived happily ever after" type. And as we grew older, we came across endings which were not necesarily happy but the story still had an ending. Is it not possible for a person to direct a movie and resist the temptation to put an 'ending' into it? Its not about just trying to be different from the rest of the film-makers...but the devotion to the original concept so that nothing sways it."Mithya", I thought, was a courageous attempt.


So, all you creative people...the proposition is this..."Succumb to the Temptation" (remember the brilliant Kwality Walls' Campaign) and execute it with a twist!!!

Ways to Reduce Risk in the Globalised Financial Markets

Consider this. A person wants to achieve a particular goal. He invests his resources in the way of time, effort, and money, to achieve that goal. But, because there are many uncontrollable external factors affecting the outcome, he cannot be sure that his investments will lead him to his goal. So, if he does not reach his goal despite his investments of time, effort, and money, his investments will be worthless. The chance that this may happen is “risk”. Thus, in order to reduce risk, he must predict the uncontrollable external factors better and align his efforts accordingly. And that can be done by acquiring more information on the external factors.

Financial risk enters the economic system when companies decide to make financial investments in their businesses. These companies face the risk of losing the invested money, if their investments do not meet their goals. This risk is the fundamental financial risk of the economic system. All the other financial risks are “derived” from this risk. The risk that shares, bonds, mutual funds, loans, insurances, reinsurances, securitised debt obligations, commercial papers, and the more exotic instruments face is that the business investments that their money is ultimately funding might not meet their goals. For example, financial risk in the system may flow from the investing company, to the bank that lent it the money to make that investment, to the insurer that insured the bank’s loan, and finally to the shareholders of the reinsurer that reinsured the insurer’s insurance. And if the government bails out the reinsurer from its troubles, it simply passes on the cost to the taxpayers. But, in the very end, somebody has to bear the risk and pay the cost.

As mentioned above, in order to reduce risk, one must predict the uncontrollable external factors better and that can be done by acquiring more information on the external factors. In today’s globalised financial markets, four things complicate that process.

First, as risk flows from one entity to another in the financial system, as illustrated in the example above, it becomes more difficult to measure, especially for the entities that are farther in the chain. As the investing company is directly involved in the business project, it has the most amount of information about the risks associated with that project. But the successive entities have a decreasing amount of information about the same. Thus, they cannot predict the risk well.

Second, through a discipline named “financial engineering”, many financial institutions have been able to create mind-bogglingly complicated financial instruments by “mixing-and-matching” and “slicing-and-dicing” the underlying assets. Many a times these “assets” are nothing but some loans, such as subprime mortgages. It is arguable that the people that buy these exotic instruments have no idea about what they are really buying. Which leads to a scenario where nobody has any idea about which business investment his money is ultimately financing. And if you have no idea about what you are investing in, how would you calculate the risks associated with it?

Third, the actual risk gets exaggerated through the practice of speculation. Things may not be really bad, but the fear of losing money makes people overly cautious, which starts a self-feeding cycle that makes things worse. It’s akin to a bank-run, where a false rumour that a bank will go bust leads to a disproportionately large number of people claiming their deposits with the bank, which results in the bank actually going bust.

Fourth, and perhaps the most important thing that complicates the process of risk calculation, is that the financial returns to the individuals and the institutions “managing” the moneys are disassociated with the financial returns to the individuals and institutions that actually “own” the moneys, aka the end investors. For example, the returns that the asset management companies and their managers earn are completely disassociated with the returns that are earned by the investors employing their services. This leads to a moral hazard on the part of the asset management companies and their managers, where they start focusing on maximising their benefits as opposed to their clients’.

For these problems, I propose two solutions that will reduce the risks in today’s globalised financial markets.

First, instead of paying the financial institutions and their managers the same amount of money irrespective of their performance, decide a percentage of commission and pay them exactly as per the rate of return that they have earned on the funds managed by them. Financial companies and their employees would be a lot more responsible in making decisions about the funds they manage if their own livelihoods were at stake.

Second, create a stabilisation fund for each individual market. The amount of money in each of these individual stabilisation funds should be a pre-defined percentage of the total size of the respective markets. The percentage for each market should be decided separately, based on the amount of volatility that market experiences. This fund should be employed in the market when its regulators think that a speculative “bank-run” type situation has kicked in the market. This measure will greatly help in avoiding the collapse of financial markets and in providing security to the investors. The money for such a fund should be pooled in from the market participants themselves, on the basis of the fairness principle.

The above mentioned solutions strike at the roots of the problems facing today’s global financial markets , viz. inaccurate decision making by the employees of financial institutions because of the lack of an efficient reward system and high volatility in most financial markets because of the lack of a sane and stabilising player. I speculate that these solutions will help combat the issues effectively.

BRAND EQUITY

Like me, do you get the feeling that our world view is a mosaic of different brand filters? Let’s consider a scenario:

Anamika meets Rajiv for the first time on their first date. Rajiv takes her to a coffee shop mentioning how he loves the ambience there. As they sit down, Rajiv places his cell phone on the table. Anamika checks the time on her watch and fishes for her cell phone from her bag and calls up a friend. Meanwhile Rajiv is checking out the menu stretching out his legs with his boots on. He steals a glance at Anamika looking cute in her pink top and jeans. Wearing his faded jeans and his favourite black shirt, Rajiv feels pretty comfortable on his first date with her.

Anything out of the place? Maybe not at first glance. Take a look again.

Anamika meets Rajiv for the first time on their first date. Rajiv takes her to a Cafe Coffee Day coffee shop mentioning how he loves the ambience there. As they sit down, Rajiv places his cell phone on the table, a Nokia N92. Anamika checks the time on her Titan Raga watch and fishes for her cell phone, a Motorzr from her Gucci bag and calls up a friend. Meanwhile Rajiv is checking out the menu stretching out his legs with his Woodlands boots on. He steals a glance at Anamika looking cute in her MNG spaghetti top and Levi's jeans. Wearing his faded Red Tab jeans and his favourite black Diesel shirt, Rajiv feels pretty comfortable on his first date with her.

The point is this. Have you ever had the feeling you were trying to possess things you didn’t really need based on promises that are intangible at best? That someone else was creating wants you didn’t have before? Welcome to the surreptitious world of brand marketing. I am talking about brands that have made us want to possess things we didn’t need based on what they said those things will do to us. “Eat this and you will stay slim”, “wear that and you will be the hottest thing around”, “spray this and you will be irresistible”.

That is not to say all brands are ‘evil’. A brand is a promise. A promise of either physical, emotional or(and) psychological benefit(s). And there are many brands out there that have lived up to their promises. What I am talking about is those brands that have told us we cannot be what we want to be if we do not use their products/services. A brand that tells a girl she cannot be an air-hostess if she doesn’t use their fairness cream, a brand that tells boys they are losers till they start using that brand of deodorant…..you get the idea.

We are all beautiful people and we do not need some brand to tell us we are not good enough. We are free people. Free to make choices…free to question things. We are all free people and we are all curious as hell!!

Curiosity is one of the most basic instincts amongst us humans. We all have wondered where babies come from, if the face on the moon is indeed that of an old man and if the big bang was for real. Each of us continuously questions the status quo and why it needs to be that way. It’s an exciting journey, one on which WE choose our thoughts and our wants, not someone else.

Market corrections: US slowdown or ??????

The sharp corrections in the capital markets world over during January 08 are attributed to the concerns over a possible US recession and its spill over to the global economies. By now there remains little doubt that US economy is headed for a steep decline. First it was the sub-prime mortgage crisis and credit card defaults, now huge losses by Citi group and Morgan Stanley. The signs are getting clearer as the days pass by. Few will argue that this seemingly imminent recession will have its implications on other economies, both developed and emerging. They will too bear the brunt of US slowdown, given the interconnectivity of global economies in this liberal era. But no one seems to be sure as to what extent a US recession will hit other economies. Particularly for India, analysts seem quite positive. Most of them believe India’s domestic consumption driven economy will sail through this turmoil. Some even thinks India will benefit from a US recession as more jobs will shift towards India. Here lies the contradiction as to then why India’s bourses took a greater plunge than Dow Jones on concerns of a US slowdown??
According to financial market data provided by S & P, India was the fourth worst hit market during Jan08 with a correction of 16%. The loss was 12.44 for the emerging markets against 7.83% for the developed markets. 16 of the 26 emerging markets posted a double digit loss. Whereas the Dow Jones corrected by only 6.07%. This clearly indicates there is more to it than what meets the eye. Asian markets, it seems, are being played into the hands of western FIIs. Otherwise why would all asian markets rise and fall in rhythm? If the FII flows to India are at an all time high, so would be the withdrawls. It’s a natural cycle. So whether a US slowdown or not, markets will correct sharply in between scaling new highs. The 'Monkey business in village' story relates to the asian markets more now than ever.

Aamchi Mumbai - not any more ???

Allow me to move away from the heavy dose of economics to realpolitik.

The trigger was an article on CNN IBN which said that strong regional undercurrent is taking shape in Bangalore too. Well if events during the past few weeks in Mumbai are an indicator, I am sure that something similar is waiting to happen in Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi and other metros of the country.

I have never stayed in Mumbai for a long period, I have mostly been in and out of Mumbai (erstwhile Bombay). But I have definitely read about the character of the city, the resilience it has shown time and again. Be it the serial blasts in 1993 or 2007, Mumbaikars (residents of Mumbai) have always risen to the occasion without batting an eyelid. But the regional/ linguistic comments by some self proclaimed leaders and the disturbances that followed, have forced many people to think. The fact that such blatantly regional rhetorics went uncensored by other political parties (for initial few days) is more appalling. What followed was a national shame. Whats even worse is that the state administration allowed it to spill over. The nonchalance and immaturity of the administration doesn't even deserve a mention. Our forefathers had dared to dream about a unified nation, they had dreamt about the country INDIA and not the states. Whenever I will sing the National Anthem I will always remember that there is something that has gone wrong.

Punjab Sindh Gujarat Maratha
Dravida Utkala Banga
Vindhya Himachal Yamuna Ganga
Ucchala Jaladhi Tiranga

Maybe but Not anymore.

But being an analytical person, I tried to go into the reasoning behind the sudden regional rhetoric that are finding favor with the politicians. Not long ago, Delhi CM Sheila Dixit had remarked that "everyday 668 new people come to Delhi". The sums up the problem which Big Cities in our country are facing. The infrastructure has been stretched to the extreme, the culture of the city is getting affected, crime is increasing and many more ill effects of huge migrant population. But that calls for some brainstorming and not slogan shouting. Given the myopic politicians that we have been blessed with, it doesn't require an IQ of 150 to foresee the aftereffects of the regional rhetorics of Raj Thackeray. Politicians in other states are going to adopt similar stance and play on the insecurity of the ignorant and vulnerable minds.

Lets just hope that the ever abstruse "better sense" prevails over our politicians and their audience.

Japanese test matches

My experience of solving a sudoku puzzle in the form of a cricketing metaphor. Hope some of you fellow cricket fans can relate to this.

Scrapping through a tough as nuts sudoku grid comes close to a Test Match experience on Aussie soil.The initial opening conjures up visions of a sheep-like Indian bowling attack of Venkatesh Prasad and Javagal Srinath trying hard for that opening breakthrough against a bullying Hayden and a resolute Langer on a cold Boxing day morning at the MCG. The sparsely populated sudoku grid seems to be jeering at your ineptitude like a thousand Aussies spitting curses at a boundary posted Indian fieldsman on his first trip Down Under. It is hell and you are living it.

And then, the joy of finally getting a number on the grid brings with it a calm reassertion of self-belief. Heh, we got started. One number on the grid leads to a few others, closely resembling an out-of-form Ponting leaving without troubling the scorers. A surge of confidence as the grid appears a little less menacing and the Indian fielders begin crowding around the bat thinking they'll run through the Aussie lineup in one session. Not to be, my friend, not to be.

A partnership follows as the sudoku grid unravels itself to hold mysteries unfathomable by your mentally challenged self. Self-doubts arrive in bigger numbers. Field changes, bowling changes - read that travelling to different parts of the grid in an attempt to see loose ends. Gritty thought soon turns into desperation. Time ticks on..the runs flow. Much head scratching, back itching and team discussions with the inner self. Images of an untiring Kumble toiling on an unresponsive first day pitch. And finally the breakthrough arrives. Hayden departs and few others follow in his wake. The grid starts populating fast.

And then come the tail-enders. These doughty digits represent the last stand of the grid. It is easy to mess up a grid you worked hard to fill in the smug overconfidence that underestimates these vanguard warriors. Insert more pictures of Mitchell Johnson and Stuart Clark pushing up an already behemoth Aussie total to even more imposing proportions. More itching before the grid's last shreds of resistance collapse.

1.5 Hours. On a sudoku grid. An Indian cricketer's Australian baptization. It's all the same.

India's thmpatic win against the aussies...

The win against australia on 10th Feb at the MCG established beyond doubt that India does have that potential to challenge the world champs on any kind of pitch. The fact that Sunday’s convincing win was after a long hiatus of 21 years on that ground is indicative of the strides Indian cricket has made. But then, talent has never been india’s problem. If one has observed properly, India has always had world class batsmen in its armory. Performance apart, Indian batting line up has always looked strong on paper. One would argue that I am looking at the wrong aspect wrt Sunday’s win. It was mainly due to some world class bowling by the India’s current pace trio Ishant, Pathan and srishant. Even harbhajan was quite tactful and showed some great cricketing sense. Ishant, in particular, has been in tremendous form throughout this Australia tour. He was instrumental in the perth test win where he scalped the wicket of inform Ricky Ponting in their second innings and set the tone for India’s win. I fully agree with this conclusion. I don’t want to take any credit away from this young yet tough breed of bowlers India has produced. Still I would say that batting is and will remain India’s stronghold for times to come. The main obstacle in way of India’s getting to top despite abundance of talent is their tendency to succumb under pressure. In my view India has had such solid batting strength as would make any target achievable on any kind of pitch or would consistently set 300+ target. But the same bunch has been found to get bundled out for less than even 150 quite often. It’s a common sight watching Indian batsmen finding it hard to play their natural game after India looses some early wickets. The consistent failure of the batting has put pressure on the bowlers to take the charge and often worked India’s way. But in the long run India will have to depend on its core strength. Since last so many years India has not been able to produce a single world class bowler. But many of its batsmen are among the top run grossers. Six or seven out of eleven would be having atleast one century in their name. even then it is not a coincidence that on one day they can chase mammoth targets but the next day they all r struggling at once. Indian cricket team surely needs mental toughening if they r to perform on a consistent basis. Had Ishant got nervous after being hit for 18 in that over or had Rohit or Dhoni crumbled when Australians were trying to make inroads after India lost 5 wickets, it would have been the same old story.
The professional cricket has evolved much. With the kind of cricket that the Australians are playing, you need to be physically and mentally very fit to push them from the top. Talent alone would not suffice at all.

Property rights in India

Microfinance initiatives in India are being seen as the next big thing in terms of inclusive growth. In terms of inclusive growth, any microfinance organization aims to provide financial services to rural poor (part of the informal economy) in a way that they can afford it and pay for it. Theoretically, the rural poor are being made to participate in the economy and partake of it.

The biggest challenge to microfinance initiatives, like any other enterprise, is to get return on investment. Typically such an initiative would function in many ways similar to a bank. However, the biggest challenge comes from pushing the poor to have enough savings and assets to repay their loans. The cost of financial transactions incurred can be recovered if the net savings go up. In the event that the net savings are low, any asset that the poor have is placed as collateral so that they can repay these loans. As is the case in India, rural poor save by funding their own enterprises or selling their produce to retailers/middlemen. Typically such savings go on to repay their loans over a long period of time. Yet, it seems to me that the business model is such that microfinance initiatives would stand to make a lot more profit if land/property rights were granted across states in India.

Around 28% of India's population lives below a common denomination called the poverty line. Around 60% of India engages in agriculture which only contributes 28% to the GDP. Land use is inefficient and often land ownership is ambiguous because of title disputes and a feudal history.

Amidst all this, one wonders that if the rural poor got land ownership rights and title deeds, such land could well be used for other purposes or even as secure collateral. This is certainly no pipe dream, considering initiatives of this kind have succeeded in a couple of states across India, particularly Gujarat. In this enlightening article, Swaminathan Iyer(of Swaminomics fame) writes :

"Yet, in one state, SEZs are coming up rapidly, with no agitations, no disputes - and hence no newspaper headlines! This is Gujarat. It already has five functioning SEZs, with 12 more ready to start in 2008.

The Gulf of Kutch is the only coastal area in India with low rainfall. Farming is tough, so farmers are willing to sell their land. The state government itself owns vast wastelands, mud flats and marshes along the coast. It has been selling these to developers (like Gautam Adani at Mundra), without displacing farmers.

Even in central Gujarat, where land quality is high, farmers have proved willing to sell. The pharmaceutical SEZ of Zydus Cadila has acquired 110 hectares, paying around Rs 10 lakh/acre. In other states, industrialists say they cannot get contiguous land through voluntary purchases: a few farmers will refuse to sell. The experience in Gujarat is that even farmers who say no initially will say yes if offered a sufficiently high price. Developers should pay this very high price to a few farmers and get on with the job. Why look to the state government for acquisition, which takes two years or more? Time saved is money saved."

As Iyer mentions, Gujarat's experience cannot be faithfully replicated in other states - say Bengal, Orissa. However, ownership of land allows a rural farmer bargaining power. The land could be sold, mortgaged or used in any way fit to push up one's credit. Land that remains in agriculture then needs to be efficiently used to push up yield - India's yield being only 30% of the average highest world yield.

As India's GDP grows, people inevitably move from the primary sectors (Agriculture, mining or foresting typically) to secondary (manufacturing) and tertiary (services) sectors. Accordingly the contribution of the primary sector to the GDP goes lower as a country's economy grows. As economics plays itself out, land ownership rights will be quintessential to allow the rural poor to move into other sectors and partake of a bigger piece of the pie.

I'll hopefully follow up with the kind of initiatives that could be taken to resolve land ownership disputes in the Indian context.

Sky Diving - The Jumps (with Photos)

All excited - I got on the flight from Mumbai to Ahmedabad on Friday.
Was met by Sourin, Narottam and Harnish at the airport and we were
off to Deesa.
Met up with a few more trainees in Deesa - mostly from the army.
Nothing much to say about that night - don't remember much of what
happened as it was all wiped out by the experiences next day.

Got up early morning - had breakfast - and went to to the Deesa
airfield (with a slight detour as we lost the way and reached a dam
instead).

The winds were perfect - the weather was absolutely clear - just one
small hitch - our plane was stuck in Ahmedabad as it could not get a
take-off slot :-( -- then started a long wait - a few warm-up
exercises and another loong wait. Finally the plane touched down at
11:35 AM

By now the winds had become faster and all the first-timers were told
that we would have to wait till the winds died down and were to watch
the experienced jumpers and learn by watching them. To cut a long
story short - watching them was very informative - but by now we were
getting impatient and waiting for our turns. Finally I got my name
into the 7th Sortie - I was to jump second.

I was excited - got my parachute on (fit-chute) -- and was ready for
the jump. Soon I got into the plane with Surya sir and Narottam -
perfectly normal till now. Then as the plane started going higher - my
heart-beats started getting faster - I was actually afraid - it was
the beginning of a sheer terror an almost panic and I could not
believe myself - it was like one part of me is terribly afraid - and
the second part is looking on and wondering why he's afraid. We
reached a height of 3500' and Narottam jumped first - I got into
position - the position being keeping one foot on the strut of the
plane, the second inside and looking straight. I looked down - and
almost panicked. Surya sir tapped on my back and shouted 'GO'. Against
all instincts - against everything I ever felt - against my TOTAL fear
- I stepped into thin air and made the exit position.

Took a few tumbles and heard my parachute opening above me. As soon as I jumped
out the fear vanished (at least for the time being) - I was out of the
plane - I was safe (i.e. alive) and I was back in a state when the
panic was not controlling me anymore. I looked up and saw that the
lines of my chute were twisted as I had tumbled - I took hold of the
risers and pulled them apart to untwist - got my bearings and started
experimenting with the canopy - left turns - right turns - and finally
landed safely and nicely (about a 100m ahead of the target). It was
all amazing. But whenever I thought of the time I jumped I felt the
panic come back immediately - it was almost as if a fear was the only
thing !! I could not believe myself - on one hand I was telling myself
that I loved it had a lot of fun blah blah blah -- on the other hand
there was nothing but terror at jumping again.

Imagine stepping into that

I had brought the cash for the second jump thinking that I might go
for it if I enjoy a lot - I had enjoyed a lot - but found myself
making excuses for not jumping again - its too expensive - how will I
get to Ahmedabad - etc etc. However deep down I knew I was panicking -
I had managed to control the fear once in the air - but now it was
getting hold of me and I knew that if I did not jump again today - I
would never sky-dive again. I controlled myself again - paid the money
- asked them to get me on the earliest sortie possible. I took the
second jump not just because I had enjoyed the first one - but because
I had to control this fear.

I was on Sortie 11 - went up again with Surya sir and Jitin - again
jumping second. This time I kept calm - kept repeating the exit drill
in my mind - "GO - jump - slipstream position - 1000 - 2000 - 3000 -
4000 - 5000 - check". I fumbled a bit while coming into position - got
my wrong foot ahead at first - corrected myself and jumped at the word
"GO". This time it was perfect - there was no fear - a certain amount
of anxiety - but not the shear panic I had felt the first time - I did
not tumble - the chute had opened perfectly - I had time to experience
the flight - I tried 360 degree turns - made a full circuit pattern
for landing and landed safely. It was the most amazing experience till
date. Best of all I knew I had conquered my fear - I knew that now I
would be absolutely addicted to sky-diving. I was part of this group -
and not an outsider looking in.

The entire experience was a learning experience - not just about the
art of parachuting - but about myself.
Photos below:

2008_02_09 Parachuting - Deesa

US sub-prime crisis and India

Disclaimer: All views expressed by the author have evolved out of analysis and might suffer from paralysis. You are free to take your stand. :D

The hot topic as it may rightly be called. Economists world over are busy number crunching the illusion fall( or may be coming down to ground reality) of banks under the term,"Sub Prime Crisis". Well for my dear readers who are like me ( need things to be simple to get striaght in head :)), the crisis relates to increasing number of defaulters and foreclosures of home loans in US. The sudden increase of defaulters has led to an increase in availablity of houses and hence the lowering of property values. The general life style of US is based on hypes and valuations, so as they say, take risks, you will spur and you will fall down equally well, but you will enjoy both.
The idea here is high risk loans which fell on the wrong side. Stocks, securities and properties work on valuation mechanism. The fall of value is directly related to demand and supply. There were too many MBAs diversifying the portfolio of credit lending to make the share of sub prime lending in home loans reach to a proportion of one fifth and all calculations failed when risk anticipated turned into reality. This was just to give a brief context on the problem at large.

The question is, how does it impact India and other Asian developing countries, considering that this is an era of globalization and US' Godliness has been diversified, however, it still remains to rule because of its high risk taking appetite.
Things which are bound to be impacted-
Impact on IT? Oh yes. I have been involved in this industry for sometime now and i can say that around 60% of revenue for most of the big IT companies comes from US clients and Banks INVEST on quality and technology in quest to go global. While sectors like energy and utlity and retail are picking up, banks still remain to be the big HUB of investments in IT. To add to it, banks outsourced a lot of processing to India, so BPO busines is BADLY hit. So, a) reduction in customers ( to an extent). Falling value of US dollar would mean reduction in profit margins for IT service companies. So, b) Reduction in profit earned and that drives stock values in simple terms. Suddenly, the organizations are crying for improving productivity, reason, bottom line is what can be impacted, they really dont have control on top line. I dont count it as negative though, its a balancing act. Anything that grows leaps and bounds has to come back to ground reality and normalize. So, probably we are maturing and we will do balancing act to diversify our client portfolio to diverse geographies and most importantly understand the value of domestic business and drive demand from local industrialists. IT impacts a major part of middle class population, their purchasing power and hence the domestic needs. IT is one of the best pay master for youngsters, so yes middle class will be impacted, they might not come on ground, but the luxuries will reduce.

Things which are bound to balance-
Well, i do want to thank Tatas and Birlas and Reliance. We will survive and will be impacted mildly( if the assumptions go right) in the game because they have invested in food, shelter and clothing business. We as a nation invest in steel, we manufacture cars, we build infrastructure raw materials, and we export clothes. And here, we dont look at margins only, we look at volumes and geographies. We trade with Sri Lanka, singapore etc etc( which IT is waking up to do now). They have made right use of globalization by diversifying their organizational business portfolio to keep IT a part and reinvest its earnings in expanding the busiess on basics which can not be ruled out for life. So, we come in business which trades in salt, grains, clothes, wire, phones, steel and since we are a poor uneducated nation, the economy at lower end does not know what US mortgage is, they never even had a bank account. How does it matter if US falls or awakes, we will still live. May be we will reduce our two cell phones to one because banks dont give us loan anymore, but then what the heck, we never had a phone to start with.

So, guys the answer is yes, we will be impacted. IT is not all that rich till US comes out and IT companies diversify their client profile by taking a hit on their profit margins. And sadly, these guys pay well, huh! BUT, i will love to call it a balancing act. This is about a bubble that bursts. We get slightly impacted, but our economy gets chance to diversify and decrese geographical dependency to make optimum usage of globalisation. Only sad part is, we react, we dont pro act. Never mind!! everything that happens over next two years will take us more and more towards sustainable growth and development, might be a bit slow but yes, steady. :)

The American 'decline'

Interesting perspective on the American economic decline. To quote this statistic:

In his 2006 book "Überpower," German writer Josef Joffe makes the following back-of-the-envelope calculation: "Assume that the Chinese economy keeps growing indefinitely at a rate of seven percent, the average of the past decade (for which history knows of no example). . . . At that rate, China's GDP would double every decade, reaching parity with today's United States ($12 trillion) in thirty years. But the U.S. economy is not frozen into immobility. By then, the United States, growing at its long-term rate of 2.5 percent, would stand at $25 trillion."

Full text of the article here.

Sydney Chapter –ISB Class of 2009

Mita and Sarang and I met for the Sydney-ISB Class of 2009 get together yesterday. It was a rainy Thursday evening and we were tucked away in a Starbucks, talking about ISB life in general and sharing our excitement!
Compared to the massive get-togethers of Delhi and Bangalore, Sydney had a small one but we were very excited to meet someone involved with ISB living so close by! I am sure there are a few alumni in this city too; now we should probably catch up with them another time. It is cool to note that ISB links run far and wide and has only corroborated my faith in the international roots of ISB. I can only add the best is yet to come, when we are all one big party in I S B!

Recipe for Success and Recognition

It has been a very eventful week so far. I spent the weekend with my college friend enjoying the royal treatment he serves me every time i visit his place. We spend hours on end chatting on any and every topic under the sun...Back home in Monterey, Monday syndrome usually strikes me once i wake up on Monday morning. But this week something was different. I woke up and checked my mails and I saw the unbelievable news. ISB - which i am going to join in 2 months time has been ranked 20th in the latest Financial Times rankings for global B Schools.

I have never been a great fan of business school rankings and I chose ISB purely because i believed in its quality - students,faculty and the brand reputation in the Industry. But i guess this ranking beats everything. Even a non-believer like me understands the magnitude of this achievement. Just to put it in context, the B school rankings have always been the stamping ground for US B schools and a few elite ones of Western Europe.No B School from India has managed to be in Top 100 of the rankings though i believe that IIMA should definitely have found a place in them just by virtue of the quality of students and unbelievable brand value in India and abroad. True it does not have international diversity, true it does not have professors from US visiting them but the quality of education it has been imparting definitely deserves recognition. But this post is not about IIM it is about ISB, the school that dared to dream and achieve it.

A quick look at the history of ISB, its board members, its roots in industry (both US and India) is enough to understand the rich contacts that it brings on board. ISB has been setup with an improbable aim of being one of the best B schools in the world and in India. This was not an utopian dream but had a lot of rationality as well. In other words the founders had dared to dream and at the same time been active in getting the pieces in place to achieve it. When President Bush came on an official visit to India, he found time to fly down to Hyderabad to visit ISB. I guess that speaks volumes about the contacts the institution has.

So what happens when an aspiring institution (students, faculty and support staff) works tirelessly to materialize a dream to excel and is backed by established global contacts - the result is out there for everyone to see. The whole world has perhaps seen many such examples but this is unique in more ways than one - The school is in India and the founding members are not westerners but powerful and influential Indians. Finally we have made a hole in the elite class of B schools where the snobbish Harvards and Whartons London Business schools reside. This ranking should act as a shot in the arm for ISB and fuel the aspirations even further. As the dean said, this is the start of a positive feedback loop of more visibility,international recognition, more funds, more recruiters, better faculty, better students which would lead to better visibility. Hope i can contribute to the dream in one way or the other. For now I am just happy for one thing - ALL BEST THINGS IN THE WORLD DOESNT NECESSARILY HAVE TO BE OUTSIDE INDIA

ISB's global recognition....

The judgement day finally arrived on 28th Jan'08, when FT published the global ranking of top B-schools from around the world. Quite astonishingly, ISB had positioned itself at the 20th place in that ranking. It was a indeed a moment of proud, not just for the ISB fraternity, but for the whole of India as a nation. Not only ISB had surpassed the likes of Duke, Haas, darden and its own ally Kellogs in the overall ranking, it had topped the specific category rankings of highest salaries for consulting and finance.
Until now, people have been keeping their fingers crossed and kept wondering as to where does ISB stand vis-a-vis globally top ranked B-schools. No there wasnt an iota of doubt wrt its world class infrastructure, extremely talented faculties drawn from top B-schools, a diverse student mix, research oriented curricullum. Still this kind of recognition is what's needed to put it on the global map and establish it's true reputation. FT is considered one of the most reliable sources, for MBA aspirants from around the world, of comparative analysis of different MBA program. The criteria used for the ranking are comprehensive and data are processed to make the comparisons reasonably accurate.
ISB is, thus now, one of the youngest institutes to make it to the top 20 and the only indian one in that list. from the very onset it had established a vision for itself to be a globally top ranked, research driven business schools which would strive to groom business leaders who would not only take on the challenges of ever evolving business world but will set new trends of leadership and enterpreneurship. This ranking has substantiated the fulfilment of the vision to a great extent and now will draw in talents from around the world to an even larger extent.
It may prove to be a much required thrust to India's march to becoming a global force to reckon with and will help boost our confidence .
kudos!!!! to ISB, to India.......

Nothing succeeds like success..

Behind every successful life is the wary of 200 lifes who did not succeed. Its the game we humans play all our lives. ISB's making it to top 20 has risen many eye brows. The moment this news is broken to big league B school grads, they start giving points against it.
I will put forth some points. Its not just ISB MBAs, its a victory of your nation. Its a testimony of millions of life which bracket under umbrella of tag "Indians". Its the pride for a nation which was brutually killed under slavery and which fought for its freedom.

a) Above everything else, this is victory of my country. There are millions of indians who go abroad to study because their nation was not considered to be the best of the best in terms of providing education. Look at the smiles on faces of indians studying abroad. They now know that they are not a minority, soon they wil have the world coming to their door steps. I have friends doing MS in US of A who flashed ISB making it to top 20, so its high time we digest the BIG victory.

b) Say whatever you have to say for rankings. Hard facts- FT rankings are most reputed in world. We have all parameters open in air for people to judge. ISB has been attracting best of the bests for last 5 years. Its we the people. We might not be the core academicians, who work on quant day and night. ISBians are not selected on their knowledge of GK and how well they can vomit out the figures. ISBians are selected for logics, thought process and courage to fight failures in life. The selection process has academics as one part of it, rest of it is all about leadership, intelligence, smartness, and ability to confer and analyse situations. It takes courage to take a path less travelled and win on it. And if you think institutes manipulate to get a ranking, you may be right. But then it appears to be true for all 100, so battle ground is very much at level. I would say that if Stanford can do it and make itself brand Stanford, we should do it as well. Its high time we stop thiking in stereotypical way.

c) For critics, respect the fact that here is an indian institute which dared to go out to world and test its waters. A ranking of lower than 50 could have made it loose its glamour. It dared to face success and failures with equal grace and it marks the beginning of Indian b school battles in times to come. I am sure there will be a day when we have Indian b schools fighting on global charts while historical ivy leagues watch us play game. :)

Lets take pride in being Indian. I mark this blog to thank all the alums, staff, facility maintenance people and ISB aspirants. We have shown faith in our nation and its products. Its the faith that alums showed for last 5 years that has been given an endorsement.

Cheers to the ISB community!! The only response to the world is "Nothing succeeds like success." I will rest my case here. Flash that card which makes the world look upto you, forget about all other logics for behind every logic is a counter logic. Time to celebrate, we have created a history.

India Shines with ISB

The day is 28th jaunuary, 2008. I enter into office and open my outlook. It is a mail from an alumni stating ISB makes it to top 20 in FT global b school ranking. The moment strikes me straight in head. Boss, here all discussions have led to a way which states, anything in top50 to start with is fine, and this is 20. AMAZING!!
But let me verify this. I click on link and am almost ready to shout in joy. Woooo!! A friend of mine over the weekend said 15 lakhs for a b schools, God knows stands where. I said a b school with an average GMAT of 710 is bound to stand somewhere, but then yes, it might take sometime.
And today, there is this proof, that its done in an year, ISB is ranked 20. No joke, indeed a proud moment for nation. We dared to face the world straight in 5 years and achieved a status which is just not a joke.
The ranking has proven the credibility. This might help us attract geographically diverse crowd in years to come.
However,this blog goes to the young(5 yrs), beautiful(Infrastructure) and successful(FT ranked 20) ISB. ( A friend of mine gave these adjectives and i loved them. )

Cheers!! For the day when the term IVY league will be changed for the history of b schools. :)

Bangalore Meet

We finally had the Bangalore meet of Co2009 on the 26^th of Jan. I was the first one to reach Airlines Hotel. Thankfully I didn’t have to wait for long as people started trickling in from 4:30 onwards. There were close to 15 of us in all. We had the customary rounds of introductions and most of us were from an IT background. But I guess being in Bangalore and expecting anything else would be a folly :)

But the group was a diverse one ranging from people with a little over 2 years of work-ex to folks with 10 years of experience. We discussed various issues over some coffee and Idlis. The topics ranged from the Laptops to telecom spectrum issue in India!! The table then broke down into a lot of small groups with the smokers preferring to form their own cabal. It was interesting to meet up with prospective batch mates and discuss issues and concerns with them. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a single alum attend the meet this time. It would have helped to clarify some of our doubts.

After more than two hours of conversation and a couple of rounds of photo shoots, it was finally time to leave. Paras was generous enough to pay the hotel bills on behalf of all of us. (I really hope he continues with this generosity in ISB too :D)

A few of us decided to hang around for a while. We walked down the road to the HardRock café. After all, what is a Saturday evening without some booze! We continued our debate on ISB V/s IIMs with some Floyd playing in the background and the notorious ‘Hydrocarbons’ in hand. Finally we bid our adieus and headed home.

Looking forward to the next meet sometime in Feb and maybe we’ll have the R2 admits as well.

P.S: Prashant and Suman, where are the snaps?

Information overload

Ever since the results were declared I have been dreaming about joining ISB. More than just dreaming I have also been spending considerable amount of time knowing more about ISB. I have made ISB as my homepage on my office PC. Countless times I have gone through the photo gallery on ISB site. I guess I exactly know how the path curves upto the academic centre from the main gate and how much time it takes to cover the distance. My friend, a current student of ISB, already dreads my number. My mobile bill is consistently hitting credit limit, even though it has been revised upwardly twice. My free time is devoted in following threads on orkut and reading ISB / ISBians blogs. Can't believe that I already know what CP means!!. All my grand plans for 3 months preceding ISB joining all got tossed out of the window. Still I always felt I needed more information........until yesterday.

Yesterday I read a post in general discussion forum of New admits website by Vaibhav of Class of 2008. He said that majority of questions in the forums are related to 'course details' but none are related to student life on campus. He went on to say that the whole campus is available to enjoy (except the Academic centre). On similar lines I thought to myself 'What am I doing?!!'. I am killing all the excitement of going to a new college by gathering so much information before hand. There is no substitute to the thrill of reaching the campus, getting bowled over and saying 'Wow'. Probably there is more fun in initially having some trouble in settling down because of the satisfaction one gets when things start going smoothly.

I will try to control myself from over indulgence in ISB. As they say, one should enjoy little things along the way.

Damn it feels good to be in Consulting

I have been thinking a lot about my post MBA stream. Ever since I was in my B Tech, I have been kind of attracted towards consulting. That was one of the reasons that I took up a job in a consulting firm during the campus placements. I had always felt that there were only two attractive streams Consulting and Finance. Somehow Operations and IT never attracted me and I was not aware of General Management at that time. So I had converged onto Consulting as my career option. I somehow felt that I am good at public speaking and will do well in such a job. Looking back at the past 2 years of my job, I feel satisfied that I had performed considerably above my expectations, especially the kind of roles that I have performed and the challenges that I have tackled. But there is a catch in Consulting jobs, it involves a lot of traveling. Although I have not traveled that much in my current job, that was because I had been plain lucky at times. Yes, I have done a 4 month stint in Bangalore, then sometime in Delhi, Hosur and several other places. But post MBA I won’t be lucky I know.

I came across this video on youtube and somehow that made me do a rethink on the Consulting job. He he he. The line about the lawn boy is surely hilarious and has made me rethink :) Just kidding

Watch this video and enjoy.

Thoughts on the Tata Nano

The Tata Nano was launched this past week amidst much fanfare and hype. People have been quick to laud Ratan Tata for belief in the execution of this 1 lakh car that places itself within the reach of the common man while still giving its manufacturer business viability. One may even go so far as to say that Tata has gone one step further than Maruti in pushing a car that is closer to middle class accessibility.

A few facts before some interesting questions about the Nano :

• According to this estimate the annual car market in India is 1.4 million cars. The same article estimates the total number of 2-wheeler sales in the country to be 5 times the car sales - that is 7 million.
  
• The Tatas plan to put on the street around 5 lakh cars over the next 2-5 years ( 2.5 % of the annual car market). This is a short term figure and assuming they will even capture 10-20% of the 2-wheeler market, one can expect almost 7 lakh Nanos ( 10% of 7 million) in the best case or 14 lakh Nanos (20% of 7 million) in the worst case. In the latter case, the annual market for car sales virtually doubles! Insane, isnt it? All of that isn't happening in a year though, it will take a while to get so many cars on the street.

The Nano is seen in a positive light by many. Some, if not the most publicized positives, are :

- The Nano is seen as a replacement for '2-wheeler families' who can afford the 1 Lakh price tag. From the viewpoint of traffic safety and customer convenience, this is a big plus. While I do not have the numbers, Indian traffic scenarios have a high percentage of accidents due to 2-wheelers. One can expect this number to come down significantly assuming the Nano eats into the 2-wheeler segment.

- Tier B and Tier C cities could well see people going in for the Nanos, especially as the price tag will be viable for people in these cities. On a positive side, more cars in such cities *may* lead to better infrastructure and transport initiatives for these cities. (There's a flip side but I'll come to that shortly)

- On an emotional level, the Nano will see greater convergence between aspiration and accessibility for the common man. Inclusive Growth as we call it will see more people owning cars.

Some of the publicized and not-so publicized negatives now :

- The Nano is all set to congest and burden infrastructure in metros to a level we may not be prepared for. As metros struggle with flyovers, ring roads and other measures to grapple congestion, the Nano means more cars on roads and this may well see longer lines and waiting at signals. One can even make a case for 2-wheelers since they tend to reduce congestion and are able to efficiently use road space and find their way through traffic.

- Fuel emission. The Tatas claim that the Nano meets Euro III and IV norms, which is a good thing. What remains to be seen is whether pollution standards in cities can be maintained with more cars. Obviously this is not an issue directly linked to the Nano as long as it conforms to existing emission standards.

- Fuel consumption. Again a side-issue, nevertheless an important one. More cars will imply more fuel consumption. While the fuel consumption per car is not likely to be an issue, the net fuel consumption as more Nanos come on the road will be. Again, what does this mean for the end customer's pocket and the country's fuel consumption in general remains to be seen.

- Urban sprawl. A lot of people I know have debated this issue. As more cars are bought, it is observed that cities also tend to grow. Often people do not hesitate to travel to work places in city centres from suburbs or from the edge of cities. Does this imply greater congestion in city centres? In the face of lack of infrastructure to support speedy transport, will car-owners simply chuck the car and prefer mass rapid-transit systems? Or will more affordable cars lead to the slow death of public transport and mass rapid transit systems because not as many people will use it as before?

While it is easy to construe this Nano launch as India Shining and get wrapped up in jingoistic fervour, the car itself will raise some interesting questions and demands.

- Will local governments take the cue and speed up infrastructure development in already congested and soon-to-be congested cities? This is at best an optimistic thought given the speed at which our governments are known to execute such projects.

- What will be the role of public transport amidst new and affordable car markets ? I think rapid transport could well get a shot in the arm if infrastructure does not take off.

- As cities grow (and they are likely to), will businesses move their operations to where their employees reside? Highly unlikely considering not every business has this flexibility.

It is one thing to think that Ratan Tata has opened a Pandora's box unwittingly in the process of making dreams come true. It is another if the Nano sets the ball rolling for better roads and infrastructure.

The Kite Runners

Ever observed a group of children chasing a disconnected kite? As the kite slowly advances with the wind, the children follow expectingly, hoping that the bounty will fall upon them. The group becomes agitated as the kite comes in proximity to the ground and the children run in random directions, as ordained by the kite. A lucky fella gets the hold of the end of the string of the disconnected kite, laying claim to it. Another one grabs the string from the middle and lays claim to it, being nearer to the kite. A third one grabs the kite itself as it falls on the ground. The other two come running towards him, laying their claims. In the bedlam that follows, the kite is torn, apart from some clothing.

What would happen if there were three disconnected kites flying in their direction, instead of just one? It's likely that every child will choose his own kite to catch, considering that it will be beyond his ability to catch the second and third kites before the other guys catch them. In such a case, none of the three kites will meet the fate of the unlucky kite in the above paragraph, nor will any clothes. The three children will be satisfied with their respective loots and will not feel as much animosity towards each other as in the case mentioned in the first paragraph.

Any idea why the poorest sections of the world are more prone to violence and become the unwilling cause for destruction of their own resources?

Perhaps the above anecdote can explain a few things.

Sledging Incidents

Hey Guys,

Sorry for deviating from the regular management or professional gyan. Read an article on Time of India, couldn't stop myself from sharing with you all.

The article lists down some of the hilarious sledging incidents.

Article

They are side-splitting believe me

PiccaDelhi Meet - ISB

Was on my way to Shimla for New Year's - had stopped in Delhi for the night - and joined the meet before taking a bus to Shimla.

I reached PiccaDelhi around 1:30 - I was the sixth person to reach. I was a bit apprehensive at first - wasn't sure what kind of reception I would get - not sure what the apprehensiveness was about - but there was this feeling. However as soon as I reached - I felt comfortable - as if I belonged to the group - and it didn't seem like this was the first time we'd met.

We had an initial round of introductions - and I was a bit surprised at the mix of people and their backgrounds. I had naively assumed that most would be techies - more like the nerdy kinds - but I found a motley group of guys very similar to the people I had in my previous colleges. And I had thought I might be stuck for a year with nerdy "brains" who can only think of studying. How wrong I was. The people I met were full of "life" and not at all the studious kinds (and was I relieved . . . .).

Soon more people starting coming in and we had more rounds of introductions (I think we kept on introducing ourselves again and again) Finally we ordered some beer and food - I think by now the waiters had given us up as hopeless and a waste of space. But I guess we made up for it after our orders.

Soon we had a full quorum and finally an official round of introductions. Then the table broke down into the usual inane chatters which everyone (myself included) loves so much. We drank - we ate - we enjoyed ourselves.

One incident I remember is when Kritika asked the question as to who all were married and the question was passed down the table through Prateek (aka talli) and after getting all the answers from the other end (3 married I think) he asked as to who had initiated the question. Kritika mentioned that she had asked and Prateek inquired whether she was married or not and when she replied that she was - his face fell and a loud "OH" came. It was so funny - the entire table started laughing. Of course Prateek did back down and say " I didn't mean it like that" - but it was hilarious.

Then there was a round of tongue twisters courtesy the hotel "clown" - We had to say "Upper Roller - Lower Roller" 10 time fast. Round the table people (including me) bumbled and trumbled till at last Gautam got it correctly. He got a watch as a gift - which he gave to Anurag for arranging such a great get-together.

Finally it was time to leave - we paid the bill - and Vikram (DR VIKRAM) asked if someone had a mobile camera and should take a photograph. Then I remembered that I had my camera in my bag and should have taken it out earlier. Anyways - we managed to get one good photo . .. . .

Little delights all the way

In my previous post I had mentioned that good ad campaigns need to be backed up by positive changes within the organisation. In this post I will narrate an example of a company which exactly did that. It’s about my personal experience with Deccan soon after it started its re-branding exercise. I had experienced flying Deccan before the re-branding. So this time as I entered the airport, I was closely looking for changes with great curiosity.

Deccan already had few good features like ease of booking, quick response helpline, great on-time performance and large number of destinations. On top of this was the ‘delighter’ weapon of Deccan - PRICE. After take over by Kingfisher, all the above remained unchanged. But Deccan corrected a few basic stuffs, although trivial, that truly made the difference, as I was about to find out shortly.

I checked in and got the boarding pass. To my pleasant surprise there was seat number printed on it. I never understood why Deccan was not giving seat no.s earlier. It does not even cost anything to give seat no. Happily I said to myself – Great-Change 1. As I was waiting in the queue for security check in, I noticed upbeat Deccan staff (The staff was now in the same attire as that of Kingfisher) helping out customers and rendering their service (Only later I came to know that all outsourced staff were replaced by airline employees). Nice, I thought – Change 2. Lastly we were served free water on board. Again, a small change that made lot of difference. Change 3.

The re-branding exercise was targeted to reposition Deccan from ‘Simplifly’ to ‘The choice is Simple’. The campaign promised ‘On-time performance’, ‘Wider Network’ both already strong points of Deccan. But more importantly Deccan made a new promise “Little Delights all the way”. From my above experience I could say that the campaign truly lived upto its promises.

Definitely now the choice is simple.

On quitting, feedbacks and what lies ahead.

Wishes on a productive year ahead in each others' company to all those who are reading/registered on this blog. This is my first post here. I run an independent blog over here . Please feel free to visit/comment.

I'll be completing my last week at work this Friday. Inspite of the fact that I'm leaving, my manager insisted that I participate in the Yearly Performance Review (YPR) process. As always, I found the feedback process a great way to become aware (and refresh one's convenient memory) of my development areas. For those of us (and I think most of us) who are still working, I'd strongly recommend participation in some form of feedback. In a sense, even the application process - writing essays, discussing and coming to concrete career goals from a hazy state of mind and the interview itself was the best feedback we could have got about ourselves. While the ISB admit is certainly special, we may be better served if we entered ISB aware of these development areas than in a state of complacency.

During discussions with my manager, a lot of points came out in general about how good managers function and go on to hone their skills. I'm tempted to share some of these ideas on this forum although they may be repetitions of ideas you may have come across elsewhere. These ideas may not apply in all scenarios or situations but generally hold true more often than not:

1. Good managers are usually inclusive and do not hesitate to delegate power with responsibility. Often, we function in environments where we may have felt - what if I had more powers, I could have changed this state of affairs. A good manager allows his group sufficient powers and delegates not just responsibility at times, but even power. Empowering people around us is the best way to go forward, get noticed. Sounds easy, but is particularly difficult when we may have our own insecurities.

2. Anticipation is a skill good managers possess universally. Often, we tend to sit on our accomplishments. Anyone who has read Andy Grove's book Only the Paranoid Survive will know that only those who anticipate change and prepare for it survive the actual inflection periods.

3. Develop instinct. Being able to use your gut feeling when available data is insufficient is a skill that evolves over time. How often are we in a position of making a decision without time/resources/information to guide us? Developing the gut-feel for a situation and tuning this feel to make a sound decision comes with time.

4. Place your ego and your emotions in the trash-can. Hopefully, ISB will teach this lesson in more ways than one. More often than not, we will need to subordinate our emotions to reason - atleast in the work place.

Enough said. I'll now leave you all with some gems taken from "The Daily Drucker" - a book who's author we'll frequently come across in B-school lecture references.

• There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer. He alone gives employment.
  
• Listening (the first competence of leadership) is not a skill, it is a discipline. All you have to do is keep your mouth shut.
  
• The one person to distrust is the one who never makes a mistake. Either he is a phony, or he stays with the safe, the tried, and the trivial.
  
• There are keys to success in managing bosses. First, put down on a piece of paper a "boss list," everyone to whom you are accountable. Next, go to each person on the list and ask, "What do I do and what do my people do that helps you do your job?" And, "What do we do that makes your life more difficult?"
  
• A decision is a commitment to action. No decision has, in fact, been made until carrying it out has become somebody's responsibility.
  
• Luck never built a business. Prosperity and growth come only to the business that systematically finds and exploits its potential.
  
• Just go out and make yourself useful.

Wishing everyone a good break ahead before the grind.

Hello everyone.

This is my first post on the blog. And I'm so excited about the whole ISB experience that I can't think of anything to say. Writer's block is no stranger to me & when I sit down specifically to write, it's the first thing that haunts me.

These days life is quite routine. More so because ever since I got the ISB call, I have found it difficult to concentrate on work - not to say that I was a very productive worker otherwise. So yes, I'm looking forward to meeting up with the Bombay gang & then finally setting up home in Hyd where we can have all the hydrocarbon guzzling sessions as mentioned by many Orkut-ISBians.

Cheers,

Parikshit.

Fate or Destiny

Many people I have heard do not believe in destiny and fate. They say its all the excuses of the weak-hearted.People make their own destiny they say. This has let me to think in earnest about this matter. What do I feel about this?

Being a guy who has been brought up in a decent surrounding I have been lucky to interact with people from different backgrounds,cultures,religions as well as strata of the society.I have seen my mother having utmost faith in god and HIS role in our fate and destiny. I have seen one of my mother's friends as an atheist and a person who is such a firm non-believer of fate and destiny.I have had friends too who have different points of view about all this. To be honest with you all i too at an early age did not believe in fate and destiny. My dad instilled in me a sense of practicality - which still i have to a very large extent and is an impediment in certain cases - and an ability to adapt and cope with situations without being low and losing faith in my own abilities. I used to think at that time that i had the power and control over my fate my own destiny.

During my early days all I understood about my own destiny was what I would end up being in life. I knew I had to be successful and had to make my parents proud of me. My entire life was encapsulated in a set of small objectives and aims I had set myself up with.

It was much later in life after my high school that i came to realize that life is not all about what you do and how you do. There are indeed things over which you donot have any control whatsoever which can affect you life in an unimaginable way.I really for the first time in my life felt powerless and realized that maybe this is what everyone calls fate or destiny.I remember having a very thoughtful conversation with my dad during one of our evening walks before i went for college and he said - Yah there are things in life that you cant help and there would be situation on which you have no control yet in those times too you will find u will be confronted with choices. And what you choose will be your control over your own destiny.

I have had to take a few such very important decisions in life at that time and later and I found that this thought gives me a lot of comfort. It helps me keep faith in my abilities yet conscious of the fact that no matter what or how i do there will still be things that will happen - be it good or bad.Today when I look back at life i feel that I might have taken some decisions wrong but what is still good is that i took those decisions and hence I should be content with what i have. I guess thats what is life all about.We donot realize how many millions of decisions we take or choices we make consciously or unconsciously which all affect our life in certain way.I remember seeing a film called Sliding Doors which tells the story of the life of a woman when she misses a New York subway train one day and what if she had not missed. But however you might want to look at this its is good that there are certain things over which we do not have control. This makes our overly complex life a little more complex.

Having said all that I can say that my destiny now lies in a wonderful year ahead with all you guys at ISB. Three cheers to the class of 2009.

Bye Bye Coding...

I am writing this article sitting in my cubicle at hp, with a code written in C opened on my system. Lately I have been feeling pretty nostalgic about my job. Not only because this is my first job but also because these are my last few moments officially as a techie. Yeah, I still may do a little bit of this and that of tech during and post ISB. But thats not the same. Officially I am ending my career as a techie. My last few moments with the core of Oracle, SAP, SQL, Telnet, C, pointers, bug fixing, patch building...

Before starting my life as a manager, I have decided to give these last few months their space and enjoy each and every technical moment.

Just a thought I felt like sharing with you guys/gals.

Note : This does not mean that I work really hard et all for my team...in fact I have been

doing just the opposite :-D

Good ads need to be followed up with ground work

Many would not have missed the huge re-branding exercise been carried out by Canara Bank. At the heart of the campaign is the new logo (shown below)

My first rendezvous with the campaign was through a hoarding ad, specifically the one shown below (reconstructed)

This is one of the most superbly executed ads I have seen in recent times. The beauty is the manner in which the ad brings life to the logo.

Father represents blue triangle and daughter the yellow one. The entangled sides now become the bonded arms. Even the size of triangles are different showing one cares for the other. If one has read 'Da-Vinci code', one would recall that top ended triangle represents male & inverted triangle represents the female. Again the characters in the ad match it.

The campaign aims to attract young India, probably more so children of existing customers. But no matter how good an ad campaign is, unless it is backed up by ground action, it is deemed to fail. Now, visiting Canara Bank branch is usually a traumatic experience(no exaggeration here), once again proved to me by my brother's recent visit to the bank. I have no idea what back-end initiative does Canara Bank have to fulfill the promises made in the campaign, but if it does succeed, it would be something worth noting.

PS: This is kind of disclaimer. "I have an account in Canara Bank".

Blogging his way to LSE

I happened to read a story on CNN IBN website. The story was about a guy who got admitted to LSE but didn’t have finances to help him. So he has started a blog, where he will write a short story everyday. In return he will earn bucks from advertising. What a novel idea I must say. To read the story you can click on

IBN Live Story

The blog can be found at,

http://www.milliondollarstory.blogspot.com/

It will be make for an interesting read I guess. Especially for those who are vella in office :D

Brilliant talk!!

Considering that i have some leisure time to kill, i have been trying to hear from some real life heroes. This talk impressed me and makes the thought stronger that where there is a problem, there is a solution. So, i could just not resist sharing this with you all.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/91

Happy Viewing!!

interesting trivia.. :)

There's this book I'm reading these days; 'We are like that only'.. Rama Bijapurkar. I came across some interesting trivia in one of the chapters where Rama is discussing the schizophrenic nature of consumer India, one of the key drivers being the different states;

"There is a story, hopefully apocryphal, about how a large prestigious business school, promoted by prominent members of India's diaspora and Indian industry in partnership with two Ivy League American schools, eventually found its home. They first decided to set up in Mumbai, since it is India's business capital. The government of Maharashtra, known for its parochial ideology, immediately demanded reservation. The delegation then went to Bangalore. The government invited the delegation to meet the CM who did everything Indian politicians are known to do - he was late for the meeting, distracted, said yes, yes, yes of course, but did not offer free land or any other benefit that should normally accompany such an initiative. They then moved on to Chennai and met the regional party in power in the state. They were met at the airport by people with garlands and then told that these garlands were for them to garland the CM of the state whom they were to meet for breakfast. The delegation then moved to Hyderabad. They were met at the airport with garlands - meant for them - and, hold your breath, recieved by the CM himself, who came with offers of free land and an agreement which would insulate them from all forms of bureaucratic interference from the department of education."

As soon as I finished telling this to my dad, he said, "and that's why the CM was overthrown..." :)

Delhi Meet

Detailed post to follow - photo attached. . .