Strikes and Deals – India this week

This is the summary of the events of last week. India saw strikes and we also were involved in some “deals”.

Strike 1 –
The citizens participated in a strike against the taxi and autowallas. We called it MeterJam. This media\internet hyped event saw little success but if you are on social network sites, your views may differ. Some also compared this as a David vs Goliath war….I am not sure who is David and who is Goliath.

Strike 2 –
A small strike by the Indian cricket team captain, MS Dhoni. Mr Cool, lost his cool about a bad practice pitch offered by Lankan cricket board. The practice pitch was bouncy and good length deliveries turned out to be bouncers. Karthik got hit on the elbow during practice. The already unfit Indian outfit were in for another blow. Dhoni lost his cool and walked away in protest, from practice. The team followed and observed the strike.

Strike 3 –
Our dear Parliamentarians did a mini-strike. They stalled the Parliament session for a day to ask for hikes. The “poor” MPs wanted a 400% increase. As the cabinet surprisingly put this on hold, the united MPs decided not to work for a (yet another) day. Though there is still no decision made on this, it’s hardly a  tough guess to predict the outcome.

Deal 1 –
In a Times Now expose, we got to know the deal between India and US. India wanted some favor from the US in a world bank issue. Montek Singh wrote to a top official in the US govt requesting for help. In the quick reply, the US official asked Montek to handle the ‘noise’ created by the Dow Chemicals judgment.  We all know how we got silent on the entire issue of Bhopal gas tragedy.

Deal 2 –
After Randiv shamelessly bowled a no-ball to Sehwag and denied him a well deserved century, the media lambasted the Lankans. Technically, Lanka had not committed a crime. But audio\video recordings, bowlers apology, twitter messages forced the Lankans to take some action. Captain Sangakkara was to be blamed. Seeing SL’s precarious position in the tri-series, a deal was set and a bakra was caught. Dilshan was fined and Randiv was suspended for a game – effectively both lost a match fee.

Deal 3 –
Govt was looking for a support for the nuclear bill to be passed (pending since a long time). And they got support from the most unexpected party – BJP. A separate headlines came on the same day. CBI announced that Gujarat’s BJP CM, Narendra Modi is not involved in the Shorabuddin encounter\murder. Though some call it co-incidence\truth, I think it was a bloody good deal.

Amidst all these, we also celebrated our 64th Independence day.

A letter to Mr. Qureshi

Dear Mr Qureshi,

First of all thanks for hosting an Indian delegation for “talks” in Islamabad. You have done a great job as a “host”. The “guests” are very happy with your treatment!

Coming to the serious issues that have marred the bilateral talks - In strongly worded statements you have hit out at India and the Indian delegation headed by the foreign minister, SM Krishna.
The media on both sides (India and Pak) is gung-ho over your statements. You seem to have created a new debate topic for the news hungry media. When it comes to Indo-Pak topics, the debates are intellectual in nature. But by your “cheap” comments, you have tried to bring down Ind-Pak debates to a street quarrel.

Sometime back, I read a research paper on “Fear psychology”. I do not remember the author, but still remember the details.  The paper said - “Fear” kills the “reason” side of the brain. “Fear” ignites the “instinct” side of the brain. And “instinct” without “reason” more often leads to “blunders”.  This is the reason why people die in fire and stampedes. “Instinctively” people run from inside the building (which has caught fire). “Reasoning” would suggest that you need to crawl towards the exit, because smoke goes higher. People die more of suffocation than burn injuries.

Looks like, you said what you said because of the “Fear” you are in. The “Fear” of the ISI. The “Fear” of the Pak army. The “Fear” of being ‘taken off’. The “fear” of the terrorist groups within Pakistan. And most of all, the “Fear” of ‘Facts’. You are after all a human. And these fears have killed your “Reasoning”.

The entire world knows how notorious is the ISI and how powerful is the Pak army within Pak. Recently the USA and India got hard evidences through Headley that ISI was arm in glove in the 26/11 attack on Mumbai. It’s no secret that ISI and the army control your Govt and your policies  (FYI…in most other countries, the Govt controls their army and intelligent agencies). It’s also no secret that even today your army considers India as their enemy No.1 (though its more than obvious the enemy No1 is within Pak). The Pak army did invade into Kargil and the then Pak PM had no bloody clue of this! Later the army chief becomes the head of state. That’s the power of your army. Every minister of Pak including you fear them. Isn’t it?

You grew puppies which have grown into monsters called Terror Orgs. The puppies were supposed to bite Indians. But now that you allowed them grow into monsters, they need more food. They are feeding on common men and women of Pakistan. You have no control over them. Not even to save your fellow citizens.  Poor you! And it’s too hard for you to digest the fact that this is known to the entire world. Especially when an Indian tells this, it hurts most.  And when the US tells this, you fear most. And when your own media whips you on this….You run out of any reasoning.

Look at what your newspapers during the talks. Facts. Facts that your govt is incapable of handling the internal crisis. Fact that you cannot handle India well. Fact that you did not have your side of agenda for the talks. Fact that you did not talk Pak side. And the fact that you are not the person who should represent Pak in Indo-Pak talks.

So to counter all these “Fears”, you chose the easy route. BLAME INDIA. Bravo. Not even cared to do it with dignity. Phone calls, ill-prepared, time-bound talks…Dint you get better reasons? I am sure your experience would tell you that you goofed up. And big time. I am sure, you will regret this, probably in your auto-biography.

Come on Mr. Qureshi, Krishna wants a better and fearless counterpart.

Best Wishes,
Common Indian

Census 2011 - Questions

Currently, India is running one of its biggest projects - Census 2011. This is the 15th time that this exercise is being conducted. Because of the sheer population, 2011 seems to be bigger than the previous 14 census. The next one will be bigger.

The enumerators visited my home some days ago. There were a set of standard questions on the family setup. This was on expected lines.

There were also some questions on the house (structure) like number of rooms, number of loos, source of water etc. Though the question on number of loos was a surprise, I later realised that the question makes sense in rural areas where the loo is still an open field. Hygiene factors are measured and this may influence govt budgeting. Census is also trying to measure the success of Govt schemes (There was a scheme in Udupi district of Karnataka, where the panchayat provided around 1200Rs for building loos in the house where it was not existent). 

  

Then came the questions regarding the assets. Like in the previous census, there were questions like do we own a TV & radio. But there were a couple of new questions that caught my ears. "Do you have a computer or a laptop? Is there internet connection available?"  Will be interesting to see the data here. The other question was on telephones\mobiles. It would be interesting to check numbers of landline connections and compare it with the next census data. It would go down for sure, but by how much is the question. They did not ask questions on other assets like "Do you own a washing machine\oven\gaming console\geyser?" Could be because govt is not directly involved in the sales of these. Census is not a marketing tool for private companies.

Census sticker on my door

One question I seriously missed was about food habits - Veg, non-veg, alcohol, smoking habits etc. Won't this be of interest for Govt planning? States can decide to go dry, increasing plan outlay for agriculture or poultry farms based on this data.

I have participated, so has my family. If you have not participated in the census, you still can - Refer to the FAQ in the official website. Karnataka will finish the exercise on June 1st. State specific schedules are also available in the official website.

    

Why India lags in Innovation?

One agrees to it or not, we Indians lag in innovation when compared to nations like Germany, Japan, USA and France. Even if we disagree on this front, everybody have to agree that India has become an outsourcing destination not an innovation destination. Who is to be blamed (if at all there should be a blame) for this? Surprisingly, its the superiority and the inferiority complex of Indians that combine to pull India behind.

Inferiority complex
We love foreign. No harm. Harm is caused when we love foreign to the extent that we hate ourselves. Top companies think that we have to import goods and technology to make good products. There was a major project to reach outer space undertaken by a Indian research agency. When they were planning for this project, the first thought that came to the planners was - import the technology to manage the communication between earth and outer space. The consideration to use other research agencies within India was not done. Finally many parts of the mission came from abroad. But as a proof point to innovativeness, the organization set up an amazing hi-tech antenna developed and designed entirely in India.

How many times we talk about a local product cheaply? There is the foreign brand, the Chinese brand and then there is "the local maal sir". And in that priority. Locals are the most inferior. When we ourselves do not respect the local product, why would somebody invest into innovation of the same?

Superiority complex
Lets travel to a country where the innovation levels are better than that of India. Lets see their work culture and compare it with ours. Just to make it explicit - its an IT industry example.

A guy who is interested in coding continues to code for 20 yrs. He puts in all his effort into mastering the product and improving the product. Over a period of time the product is no longer a product, but is a passion. And passion drives excellence and innovation.
Lets come back to India. 10 yrs of experience, we see that the role of the person is to manage people...no technlogy. We take pride in telling that a person became a manager at 28 yrs. He or she automatically feels that they are superior over the others. Coding is considered inferior. This is a disease and spreads fast. The developers want to become managers and coding is considered a fresher job.

Now where is the innovation - It has to be from a customer requirement or from the developer coding the prj...Not the middle management. If the developers aim is to get up the ladder and become superior does he or she think of innovation?
(I wonder if today's brand of young managers can really do the management job for the next 20+yrs of their career. Wont it be boring?)

Indian manufacturing industries are slightly better in innovation. Because the guys there have put in years of service on the products they are building. The superiority complex of a manager is lesser there. During my college project at HAL, I have seen senior managers sitting on the lathe machine assisting the workers. A good lathe guy or a cutting specialist is recognised for his talent and is not looked down upon (paywise he gets less, but jobwise he commands respect). He continues to become an expert in that. The work is his passion and so he innovates using the lathe. This is at a grass-root level.

If one argues that Indians are less intelligent and hence less innovative, my one and only suggestion to them is -- come, stay, work in India. Understand Indian minds & society. Then you know how intelligent we Indians are.

Do we need to change? Changing minds can't be drastic.

"Labour Union" and "Right To Information"(RTI)

This could be one of those blogs which try to link 2 un-linked topics.

Traditionally the "Labour unions" are formed in labour intensive industries to fight for the rights of the labourers. It was(is) believed that the management generally are profit oriented and disregard the concerns of its employees. So the employees ganged up to form a forumn called "union". What started from a finance point of view grew into wider topics - like work envoirnment, health care of labourers, education of labourers children etc. The union would be the interface between the mgmt and the labourers. Union was the mouth of the labourers heart. It got rights to check into the balance sheet of the company and got a pie of the profits into labour welfare schemes. Unions also ensured (by timely discussions and untimely strikes) that the labour laws are adhered to by the company. It's seen as a socialistic model to have unions.

To cut a long story short - Unions created transparency in the mgmt processes and ensured that the policies benefits the labourers. (In someways you could say that its democracy at work).
(Personally I may hate unions, but I indirectly owe a lot to unions of my dad's workplace. Without unions probably my dad would'nt get good salary and hence provide me a good education!)

RTI is a law in India that came into existance in the year 2005. I am sure that many do not appreciate the powerfulness of RTI. I have been part of one of the RTI applications, and I can very well say that it is a good tool. If you want to know what is coming up in a govt owned plot in your locality - approach the local corporation and submit an RTI application. You will get a written answer within a fixed span of time. Govt authorities are entitled to provide a reply to each RTI application. The example given is about the plot right in front of my house. Different political leaders gave different verbal promises on the purpose of this plot based on who asked the question. To get the right answer, RTI is the way to go. Now no politician can bluff his way ahead. The various tenders of Govt right from the Nehruvian era can be questioned now to get facts out. Looking at the big picture, it aims to bring in transparency on the functioning of the govt and hopefully reduce corruption. After the Sant Chatwal conterversy, Vir Sanghvi posted his RTI application about the Padma awards selection criteria. On this aspect, the Govt would be careful to have a clear process in place from atleast next year onwards. Isnt this transparency?

Do you see a link now? Transparency!!

Ofcourse both unions and RTI have their own pitfalls (No process is perfect...the great LEAN process of Toyota seems to fail them now). Union leaders have become corrupt and management take them on their side at times. Frivolous RTI applications kill the essence of RTI. RTI (like Lokayukta) is under the govt and may be amended to suit the Govt. But lets look into the positives.

In the age of "Clear Enterprise", RTI is a model to be followed by all Govts of world providing "Clear Governance". India has set an example here. Proud of that!

Basically the Unions question the management, RTI questions the Govt. And that's damn good.
 
Wondering about the origins..Socialism -> Transparency -> Democracy or Democracy ->Transparency->Socialism...
 
Why wonder ? Enjoy the great Indian democracy :-)