Arvind Kejriwal, hit or missed!!

One more day, one more target, - Arvind Kejriwal's passion of pining corrupt has taken India by storm. The IAC mastermind keeps revealing name of rich, famous and powerful people in corruption charges. The size of the fish seems to be ever growing though. Salman Khurshid, Robert Vadra, Nitin Gadkari, and now Mukesh Ambani and Reliance Industries. Arvind Kejriwal-led India Against Corruption is growing strength to strength. 

You may question the means, doubt the intention, but shocking revelations made with sufficient proofs is a duty well done in the interest of the nation, though it remains a job half done only. The job is completed when these corrupts are put behind the bar and punished as per the law of the land. Will it ever happen? or not? going by history of not just India but also of many other nations, there is very less probability that these corrupts will be punished.

What worries me more is the result of the aggression that Mr. Kejriwal and his team has taken. Shooting at corrupts in all direction is not going well, attacking both government and opposition is a great gamble (a honest one though). This aggression has forced (for bad) corrupts to team-up and fight against one honest man and his team. Will this help IAC and Kejriwal or will it be a boon for corrupts?

As a Mango Man, it is my honest wish that Mr. Kejriwal succeeds in his aggression and we see a better India, India that is honest and India that punishes powerful corrupts.

My best wishes to IAC and Mr Arvind Kejriwal.

is FDI the only solution?

deteriorating economy, rising corruption charges and unhappy allies - UPA II is going through its worst phase since they first came to power. If it was not all over, some of the key allies left UPA II recently this, following government's controversial announcement to allow FDI in retail sector. The gravity of the situation could be imagined by the fact the MMS came out and spoke on national television, one of the rarest moment.

So is the FDI so crucial that ruling party had to go out to such an extend where they were so close to losing majoring in the parliament!! We had our moments of success and failures with FDI but is the FDI only way to get out this economical mess? point taken that once a section is opened for FDI, country will open up large opportunity for investors to come in and open their shop. Funds will flow-in, rupee will strengthen and jobs get created. This rolls for few years till such time we see these large MNCs starting to take their profit back to their land or elsewhere. The gain of initial few years, will slow down (not complete stopped though), and we will once again see a falling rupee and need to open up one more sector for foreign investment.

While FDI is certainly helping us come out of a tragic situation, it alone cannot help us float for long. Country needs earning just like any family and for that we (India) must make money from exports, by setting but investments else where from where we get regular income, just like what MNCs plan to do at our land.

We had good success in Information technology, gems & Jewell, textiles, leather and stone and few more industries to count on. This post in not against or for FDI but to bring up a point that FDI is just one of the step and not the only step for economy reforms.  

Business houses for Education

Indian School of Business was founded in 1996 by few business leaders and academicians and today it is ranked in top 20 B-schools in the world.

Birla education trust founded many institutes including prestigious Birla Institute of Technology in Pilani, Management institute in Delhi.

Tata has been pioneer in education in India, starting from IISC Bangalore, Tata institutes of fundamental research and Tata Institute of science, and many more.

Manipal group in southern India started with first private medical college in India, Kasturba Medical College, largest Distance Education program in India and have institutes globally

there are few more examples to count like Nirma Institute in Ahmedabad where business houses have contributed majorly in bringing up a quality educational institution. While this is good but defiantly not enough, for a society that needs to revolution itself from one of the most corrupt to one of the most prosperous in the world. India has to take this journey and education will play a pivotal role in accomplishing this vision.

While we have some good examples, they surely are not enough. One of the reasons why business houses in India have shy away from education sector is because government policies in India mandates education institutes to be non-profitable. Education Institutes cannot be profit making in India, founders and promoters cannot earn dividends through these institutes. So why should business invest in such a cause. Should they just invest and forget, or they should have control of management and why should they not make money from such institutes?

With motive of profit, these companies may be inclined to setup more and more institutes, and with their capability to bring in quality faculties and industry experience we may see many more world class institutes in India. Business houses in India should be motivated to establish many more professional institutes, policy makes have a job here to do.

Collaborative blogging

'The whole is greater than the sum of its parts'

Collaborative blogging is a type of blog in which posts are contributed by more than one author, although on a common theme.

It requires a great deal of energy and motivation to post regularly. Its imperative to have uniform rate of blog posts across all months as that’s when you attract decent hits on your blog posts. While very few bloggers are able to write regularly, most either give up regular posting or the quality of posts goes down drastically. When you collaborate (& read about synergy) - the blog is not only updated regularly with quality posts but readers too get to read more than one flavor of thoughts / writings. It’s a great practice and something that will also help you in establishing your professional identity better when compared to individual blogging (unless you are already a renowned face in your space)

http://productmantra.net is one such blog where five bloggers authors posts on theme of product development. Sampath, Vivek, Annu, MJ, and Abhay share their experience and thoughts around product management, Agile, & case studies.

Collaborative blogging is receiving greater acknowledgement from the experts and industry. 

Collaborative bloggers are considered better team players, someone who takes people along with, and as professionals who has synergies best. So if you are a blogger or wana be one, try and team up with like minded professionals in your domain. Contributing is another great way of learning.

Lost Ace

Sports and national interest seems to be of very low priority in a country that has earned only one Individual Gold Medal in its history at Olympics. For over 60 years now, we have blamed every possible aspect of sports for our failure to mark a presence in international stage, be it economics, society, media, bureaucracy, corruption, politics, infrastructures, educational system, upbringing, culture, our neighbors and if not less even starts and planets. We always believed that everything and everyone under the SUN are against our sports champions and we have too many struggles when compared to other countries.

We always looked at Nordic nations, China, USA, Australia and said that they are lucky to have all that they need to be champion, and if we had those blessings we too would have made it big in international stage. But what we don’t see is Africa and Latin Americas where probably things are even worse than that in India but they still get more medals and perform better than us.

Last few days in Indian tennis has been heartbreaking. For a sport that rouse from dust to sky, received everything thing that other sports just dream of, including media attention, and love of people, it was great shameful to see its stalwarts fighting like street dogs in front of the nation, and in international media. I grew up watching Leander Paes, and for me his Sachin Tendulkar of Indian Tennis. Bhupti, Sania and Rohan came in very late but they continued the legacy of Leander, Ramanathan Krishnan and Amritraj. They became face of Indian Tennis and dream of billion. They carried aspiration of millions on their shoulders and made tri-color proud by performance.

But somehow, the nation and sport seems to have lost importance and individual ego, preferences and priorities have become of higher importance. Neither Sachin (Cricket legend), nor Abhinav bindra (shooting gold medalist at Olympics) or Viwanathan Anand (world chess champion) ever behaved in this manner. They are sport gem, not just on pitch but also off-filed. For the first time in history of sports in India, sports person are reason for bring down the glory and setting up ugly culture. In this unprecedented event wherein players have come out in open and displayed an ugly character, I hope AITA takes stringent action and ensure this was first and last of its kind.

UPA II: 3 years, do we have reason to cheer?

3 years done, should government celebrate or should be shown the gate. With great hopes people of this country re-elected Dr. Manmohan and his team for a second tenure, hopes that fell flat on nose with corruption charges, inflation & deteriorating economy. The worst part though is the helplessness of Dr. who just don't appear anything beyond a feeble person who lost all his leadership qualities under the burden of coalition dharma.

So do we have reasons to cheer, yeah I am wonder for some time now and long deep thoughts I realized that every cloud has a silver line, so does this too.

1. 3 for 5 years are gone. So even if this government survives its tenure, I guess majority of the pain by now is gone. We will have to manager this burden for a shorter duration only
2. We realized the importance of NDA, the Left, the 3rd front & the 4th front. we need them to  bring in some balance.
3. We now understand that a great CFO need not become even an average CEO. It's a different ball game.
4. We now understand that character and values matter more than education.
5. We have learned that coalition means collective efforts to stop progress. Do chose a single party, strong character if you need change. Change for good.

Thanks to UPA II for giving us such a fabulous learning and helping us value what we took for granted. Jai hind.

Sachin WHY NOT JOIN POLITICS

For over 20 years he ruled the 22 yards track of grass and dirt. Now the God of Cricket has decided to move on to larger role, getting into Rajya Sabha as nominated member.

As an individual he has liberty to make choice and decide on his career path, however I along with billion others who always prayed for his success will not prefer him taking on any specific corner, Right Left or Center.

I hope sachin will not divide his followers and will step in and out of parliament with head held high for the reason that he represents people of this country and not wimps and fancies of any political party.

2011 Assembly polls

Three category of parties / politicians emerged post assembly election results today. One who won, second who lost with learning and third who lost with arrogance.


Congratulations to first category of parties, people have shown trust in you and now you please deliver on people's expectations. SP, SAD, BJP top this list.


Parties that lost and said yes we will take learning out of this lose are graceful losers, BJP in UP is one such example.


Parties that blamed non-existing reasons for loss (eg. polarization etc) and refused to accept the defeat include Congress in UP, Congress in Punjan, Congress in Goa, SP in UP, SP in Uttrakhand and BJP in Uttrakhand. These parties or local leadership will pay heavy prices if they do not understand peoples verdict. Guys you are thrown out - please respect janta, accept their decision and accept that you lost due to your poor performance and winners good performance.


In coming few days we will see enough Nataks (dramas) from various leaders in central and state bodies resigning, blaming, protecting and losing cool head. Lets wait and watch the fun.


Meanwhile, congratulations to voters who showed once again that if their elected representatives do not win they will not hesitate to throw them out. Assembly results today are reflection of powerful democratic system and peoples verdict on corruption.

CMAT Exam

I am excited to see education in India taking new Avatar as one by one many entrance and term examinations by universities and boards go online. CMAT is just one more such test. AICTE started conducting CMAT on all India level starting this year, and I was among the lucky few to take this test today on Feb 20th 2012. Liked few things and hated few things, good is that we are moving on and bad is that low cost mindset still hurts us.

The hall ticket issued says I need to reach at 1 PM at venue for a test that starts at 2:30 PM, am I travelling international? - I had opted Bangalore as my center choice and I was given that - but guess what, 36 kms far away on way to new airport, after Yelahaka - I need to take a left on a high speed highway for which no sign board were fixed. Center was NITTE Menakshi Institute something, about 4 kms off-highway, the worst possible location one can have. I meet students who had booked auto-rickshaw (three wheelers) for 5 hours and drove all the way from Bangalore to this dammn place. Probably these guys wanted to cut down on cost of center.

Moreover, folks at center wanted to verify documents, a exercise that I did not experience in any other management entrance test. We were made to sit in a hall (class room) and were quickly run through the instructions. this was after a photo and biometric authentication. No wonders, next was test.

Test started, in well organized room, we were about 50 in one room but the test user interface sucked. It had no demarcation of sections, all 4 sections could be see in single go. Navigation buttons were quite far from questions so too much of mouse movement, and cannot get out of class even when you complete test 30 mins before time over.

Over and over it was not so great experience. But yes, questions were pretty straight forward and I guess was at not par with any other entrance that I have appeared in. Easiest test with horrible location and management staff. People and venue were kind but that was not I went there for.  

Global warning

Israel embassy staff targeted in Delhi. US & European Union aim to isolate Iran on nuclear issue, and Iran wants to cut down oil supply to west, blames Israel for targeting its scientists. Tension is growing and effects are soon seen on soaring crude oil prices.

While Russia and China plays a wait and watch game, patience is running out. Economic slowdown, followed by Arab world slowdown and now nuclear tension. All is NOT well with our world.

While political community device a plan to ease tension and ensure safe world, I would request you all to pray for peace of our world to your God and hope that we live in safe and peaceful environment.

Election - Code violation ! why is congress worried

Commitments are flowing like water in Gangas - UP elections are drawing political parties crazy, route to central is overcrowded with false promises and senseless allegations. Deteriorate socio-ecnomic scenario and ugly vote-bank politics, party leaders are fast shredding away character & morality. 

Pressure of winning is so high that even the law minister of congress is unable to hold himself, education is insulted and knowledge is pissed away when moral code of conduct is violated by none other then the person who should be standing in support of it. The character is of this law minister is something similar to the MLAs of Karnatak assembly who were caught watching so called 'educational vidoes' while session was in progress.

Has winning become more important then being self? or is this their true self. defending worst of actions and challenging actions against immoral & illegal acts is not going to win them elections or confidence of people.

My sincere request for these leaders (I hate calling them so but....), stop worrying of results when you play, give in best, show sportsmanship and praise what you can. Build character and not vote banks, something that will surely be remember for long.

Karnataka Sleaze

It happens in India, three ministers nearing into grandpa age were caught watching 'educational video' in legislative assembly. Ah they had no idea about all this - they got married, have kids and probably their kids will soon have kids or might have kids but they still dont know about all this - so what's wrong in watching educational video - at least they were learning something unlike other MLAs who just fight most of the time.

Anna

The picture below is just one of the billion reasons why Anna will live longer then life. Most innocent humans believe in Anna and see proud in saying 'I AM  Anna"

If such is the spirit then Anna movement will never fade away, as it now is in our roots.


Jai Hind.

London 2012 Olympic Games & Bhopal

London 2012 Olympics games is already making headlines for all wrong reasons, be at a wooping $100 ticket for infants / kids or its sponsorship agreement with Dow Chemicals. Not all is well with this mega event which is suppose to be one of its kind under the Sun.

All what I believe now is the financial crunch which is forcing the organizing body to get to such low level unkind decisions. Olympics are for masses and not for making huge profits. After all its all about sports, sportsmanship, togetherness and happiness. Heavy ticket prices will keep lovers of sports away from the event and without fans sports person cannot be at their best.

Agreement with dow chemicals is a shameful act. Company responsible for thousands of death and counting and refusing to do its duty of cleaning up its ugly acts should not have been associated with this Olympics. Dow chemicals is a shame on human race and people who let them go lose and people who encourage them in business are equally responsible for negligence of their responsibilities. Dow and London Olympics together are ignoring too many facts around to be respected. All for sure, if this kumb of sports goes with Dow, the shine of five rings take knock.

Hope cries of infant from Bhopal reaches burst deaf ears of Olympic association and Dow is show the door to Bhopal to clear its pending duties.