What if Behenji become PM?

1. Her birthday parties will be more lavish, with more diamonds, more crowns, larger than life-sized cakes, and national holiday commemorating her birthday. With the compulsory gifts that the PM would receive, the personal staff of the PM will ensure that the funds are utilized in national interest of making bungalows for the PM. (She does need a place to stay in every time she visits a place. It’s in national interest because she is cutting down government expense of staying in expensive government houses/5 star hotels. )





2. There will be Ambedkar Parks in every city, where pigeons will continue to excrete on life size statutes of Late Mr. Ambedkar (who did an unfathomable task of copying and pasting our constitution from the available constitution of US, UK, etc, etc), and government fund will be ‘utilized’ to clean up the pigeon excreta to keep the ‘Udyaans’ spic and span, so that a thing of beauty becomes joy forever. The Party will also try and get the world heritage authority to declare the udyaans as world heritage sites. This will boost government spending in Infrastructure, leading to more growth.

3. At major crossings roads life size (actually jumbo size) hoarding of behenji would be erected reminding people (junta), on how selfless is the love of behenji towards her people. This will boost confidence and ‘feel good’ factor among people. Which in turn will bring up the already dampened consumer sentiments, increasing consumer demand, consumer spending, and hence rise in GDP.

4. Like Jodhpur, all major cities would be painted blue on special occasions like, her birthday, kanshiram’s birthday, or Mr. Ambedkar’s birthday. The labor employed to achieve this will create thousands of job opportunities.

5. People would be so engrossed in building monuments of ‘forgotten heroes’, ‘Udyaans’, Preparing for birthday parties, organizing rallies, that all current problems, of terrorism, inflation, slow growth of economy would seem trivial. Actually all problems would vanish. Economic growth is ensured the way behenji and her party operates. They haven’t been able to increase the growth momentum in UP because most of the funds are provided by central government, and central government like all previous government are jealous of behenji’s success, and thus they either don’t provide sufficient fund for development of UP, or raise a false cry on how the funds are misused. But if Behenji rules the central government, all funds will be properly utilized. Regarding terrorist attacks, remember that UP is the only state where for that one episode of temple blasts in varanasi, nothing else happened. It also happens to be the breeding ground of future extortionist, and underworld goons who for their career development move from the state to Mumbai, to move to Arab land, to supply the necessary infrastructure and finance to terror outfits across the world.


Hence Mayawati is the only hope to save India. Whether I or many people choose not to vote for her, she is going to be the PM this time, or next time.

The Big Funny World of Advertising

How is Amitabh Bachhan’s desire to be born yet again on the banks of river ganga got to do with Uttar Pradesh being touted as “lagan nayi”. It is actually a misnomer. The right word would be “Lagan NAHIN” going by the way vote bank politics operate in a state, which unfortunately is instrumental in determining politics at the national level.

Another advertisement which proudly proclaims, “Kayam Rahe Mulayam” talks of VAT as being economic evil to the millions of ‘kirana waalas’. This is despite the fact that Election commission clearly states that advertisements of political nature should be banned. However in 2004 by the directive of supreme court, such political advertisements are allowed under monitoring of election commission. Still, no suitable code or monitoring mechanism exists in place to put check on false projections by political parties.

Talking about advertising, and looking at the number of awards garnered by our ever so creative desis in France and elsewhere every year, one really wonders about the creativity (or rather the lack of it?) when suggestive ads of men’s brief’s are flashed on news channel (the instances of “Nikaliya na…Kapde” and “Oh my god…FIFI”).

The ad spend in India is approx about 127 billion INR. Advertising is century old industry in India generating revenues for many celebrities. It is actually their second occupation, a back up to fall upon. Strangely enough the backup is as long as the main career is going great guns. The 7 up ad of “main dhoni ban gaya” was pulled out immediately after the team came back. It’s just an instance. Pepsi suffered losses worth millions of rupees (Rs 350 crore Blue Billion campaign!!); the new product launch is again based on the same theme, albeit using a different concept.

Commercial advertising has existed for many years. Advertisement to use product/service selling is commonplace, but individuals’ hard selling themselves is a concept, which is slowly gaining ground in India. So common people, wannabes, item girls, policemen, etc, etc, in order to have a share of that fleeting fame, are ready to do anything, anything from slicing their wrists, making up stories, policeman getting dressed as transvestites and calling himself Radha, and not to mention those tear jerker reality shows, where hosts invariably ask stupid questions (ab aapko kaisa lag raha hai, if the person is crying or visibly upset) to the person who has been ousted. People are doing anything and everything to get noticed. The age of advertising is finally here.

So, Whats your claim to 5 minute fame?

Casino in Vegas Vs backpacking in Switzerland

What would you prefer, if your trip were funded? Tough choice isn’t it?

As luck would have it, I got conference calls from two most favored destinations of the world. The Vegas one is in April. They are funding for my stay, registration fees, and I only need to take care of my food. My supervisor says, “Food is cheap in Vegas”, so go if you want to!!

The problem is, the conf wont add any charm to my resume.

The Swiss one is in June and it is a highly esteemed one. SO much so that, my supervisor gave me kindest of his looks when I went to meet him, smiled at me more than once and made me feel on top of this world by saying “Well done, this is very good”. I was so elated, suffered from total loss of speech but somehow managed muttering a small thank you to him.

I have kind of made my mind to backpack across Europe. This is one of the things I have been really dreaming of doing it one fine day. It’s been on my to-do list for almost 20 years now. Not that I never knew of backpacking concept during those good old days, but just that I wanted to visit Europe, whenever I had money. And imagine this pent up desire to travel Europe coming true after 20 years!

The almighty has indeed been quite kind to me, but kinder was what would have helped me to fund the trip. Being on a shoestring budget I cannot roam across Europe, so the budget constraint has pushed me to limit my choice to two more countries apart from Switzerland. One is Austria, and the other one is Italy. Why not France, or Germany? France is a good option (especially the world famous vineries), but Italy has lot more (lets get out of this debate). Italy because I want to see if Venice has really canals in place of roads (:D), Austria, I want to go because it is highly recommended by several friends, who have done the backpacking before. I have seen the pictures, and I want to visit Vienna. In fact I am told that if I really want to explore Europe, it will take months. I really don’t have that kind of money (even for backpacking), and more importantly I am devoid of time. I am not too keen on Germany, but if it works out to be cheaper, probably that may be an option I can exercise.

So these days, I am busy writing mail to friends and friends of friends who have done similar excursions before. Figuring out the cheap accommodations available, and finding out how to stay vegetarian during those 15 days. This is indeed going to be adventurous for I would be traveling alone.

I really pray that I have enough left to get some chocolates back home when I return.

Indian IT Industry

I met some MBA students of George Wahington University, this week. There was a seminar organized for them in IIMB and my guide was to deliver a talk, which went on for 2 hours. The talk was on the evolution of IT industry in India, and how it had managed to remain globally competitive and viable despite all odds of crumbling infrastructre, crippling economic scenario (the early 90s time), and zero or total lack of domestic demand.
In his famous theory of 'competitive advantage of nations' Porter talks about the competitive excellence possessed by french vineyards, japanese consumer electronics, etc. which are because of factor conditions, Firm's strategy, structure & rivalry, demand conditions, and related and supporting industry.
None of which were conducive for the Indian IT industry to record impressive growth in so little time.
There is no appropriate model, or management theory which can satisfactorily explain the evolution of IT industry in India. The enablers are ofcourse the availability of manpower, our ability to speak "english" and the most importantly "cost advantage" that we offer. But these do not explain the continuing growth rate, given the fact that most of the neighbouring countries are soon catching up on the the enablers.

Then what could be a suitable explanation of things.
Several intellectuals believe that india's cultural, social and historical context is what explains the IT story of India.
What this means is that for long since the beginning (when the vedas were being scripted), people have been inclined towards intellectually stimulating job. Physical work was always looked down upon. Even the caste system had brahmins (the priests & the teachers) as the highest ranking social class.
The establishment of the world's Oldest university, the discovery of zero, the advances in surgery and medicines during the times of "Charak" , at the time when civilizations in most part of the world were still backward (and learning to wrap themselves up), explains the leaning propensity of Indians, and the value Indian society places on learning and higher education. Trade and social links with other civilizations have existed in India since the harappan civilization. Heun tsang's (the fist chinese to come to india) visit to india has been documented and he mentioned the importance of education in the indian society during 3rd century BC.

All these social and cultural factors do explain the rise of IT industry. The work of software development as perceived is intellectual, invloves cotinuous learning which is in sync with the historical and social context. The ability to lean quickly and apply the learnt knowledge does differentiate us from the rest of the world, and this is the reason why we see an exponential growth rate in the industry ,even when there is emergence of competitive countries in our vicinity. Another observation is that the industry operates much like a global industry, with flat organization structure, building relationship with the customer, global delivery model, etc. This factor also explains much of the rise. In todays world of shrinking geographies, orgnaizations which are able to adapt themselves to the chaging environmental conditions can survive. Organizations have to cater to different market places, and to satisfy several conflicting needs to be competitive. The ability to learn is what distinguishes between successful and unsuccessful organizations. And here again we see how Indian IT industry has reached where it has reached.

This was the gist of the talk.
The firangs were obviously too impressed. I got to know this during lunch when I interacted with them. Couple of the students amongst them were 2nd generation desis. Their parents would have migrated to the US of A in search of greener pastures. I could not help but pity these guys. They come here with so much of pre conceived notions about India ( which I am sure their parents have passed onto them), and are quite taken aback when they see what "india" is really like... I was amazed to hear their ideas about what they had thought of this place. I am amazed because I really wonder how can people talk like this and be soo ignorant. The world is getting smaller and smaller. People can communicate, connect and get access to every kind of information. And its not a matter of India. The developing countries are developing at a rapid pace, and hence there is china story, brazil story and an India story.

But even then there is one more context to India's growth..the "desi"ness..people have obsession with WEST..western food, western music, western education, western entertainers, and the likes...
For most Indians, "going to "Umericaah" is a dream....earning in Dollars is fantasy, and living in USA is a result of good karma of previous births, or answer to their mom's devotion towards almighty.

..and hence the bhedchaal over being a "computer engineer" which every 5th/or 6th engineering graduate is

and the intellectuals think that aryan blood has got to do with the growth story.....I have my reservations on this..

350 Billion dollar infrastructure investment

The Planning Commission has laid out the requirement of $ 350 Billion investment in the infrastructure sector to fuel the ongoing economic growth story. This means that the infrastructure expenditure is poised to grow to 8% of GDP from 4.7%, where it stands today. The private sector is expected to share approximately $75 billion of this and the major portion of it is supposed to be done through government and PPP (public private partnership). This is a significant move as it could signal Foreign Investors that Indian is indeed serious about mending the deficiencies in the infrastructure that has proven a major bottleneck for various projects. On the face of it, we are lagging behind China because of crippling infrastructure, which is a deterrent instead of being an enabler in the era of globalization.
The news of major investment in infrastructure indeed was much awaited, but there exists “many a slip between the cup and the lip”. Where government policies try to be investment friendly, political motives and regionalism prevail to satisfy “certain” classes of the society. National Economic growth should not be stymied at the cost of personal/political reasons. Long term, sustained growth can be achieved in the society which believes in the legislature and the legislature works in unison to deliver value to the masses.