Not so Ceremonious Exits...

Last Night, we organized a Farewell party for one of my colleague as he is leaving us and joining another IT company in his home city.

I was just thinking that how organizations deal with Attrition (termed purely germinated because of IT industry), I have a feeling that companies tend to treat attrition as bad thing, although it’s quite rampant in IT industry and is kind of a norm... and why shud companies not treat this bad thing? Lot of money is invested in growth of a resource in company. Companies invest a lot in terms of grooming, Training, H1B costs etc.
But things become wrong when the person who is resigning is considered as "traitor". I know I am using a very strong word. But this is what reality is. But they forget to think that outflow is a normal phenomenon as inflow particularly is growing knowledge industries like us.

Resignations should put Management into a retrospective mood as they need to find out logic and reasons behind people leaving company. They need to have a questionnaire (with questions on reasons of resignation etc) which must be filled up by person resigning the company. This process will mount the data, which can be digged and various employee retention and Management policies can be framed after all for a concrete steps towards effective employee mgmt, right data is prerequisite.

Most importantly, employees who resign and opt for exit should be given a ceremonious farewell and it should be made a point that the person will always be welcome with updated and renewed knowledge base with which he/she be returning back to former company....

Here HR and immediate line managers play a very important role in opening the gates for the person in future...

Hope to see more Ceremonious exits in future!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A visit to Nandan Kanan

Last day, I had a chance to visit Nandan Kanan (NK) (Open Zoo + Botanical Garden). It was a very pleasant weather with cool breeze and a little drizzle... Weather set the mood for an excellent visit...
I had been planning to visit Nandan kanan since I had to Bhubaneswar. But somehow the visit didn't work out till the last day...These days; people prefer to go either to Beaches or to hang out in City... But hardly people visit places like zoo...

I along with Sanchit, (one of best IT professional I know in industry) reached NandanKanan (NK) at around 2pm....We were praying through out the bike ride that It should not rain...and Rain god heard us and he spared our visit with rains...
To my surprise There were lots of people visiting NK, mostly Bongs (famous for their Tourism habits), people from interior Orissa with rural background unlike urbane guys like us..... NK is 40-50 years old habitation and is really big... I guess it was recognized as Zoo of National importance in 1960s. Last year I had been to Antwerp Zoo. www.zooantwerpen.be/ . See pics at http://photos.yahoo.com/anshuman_jai ), In comparison to Antwerp Zoo, NK is very big and very dirty.... We Indians have habit of dirty habitations...and we hardly care what it means for animals (most of them are endangered).

First on the list was Orangutan our fore father, It was the cutest animal I saw at NK. It was sitting very far from the enclosure. To our surprise he started walking, towards congregation of people and started waving towards us... What was that???? We were utterly surprised.... we got the answer in few seconds... A guy threw an alpenliebe (candy) towards Orang who was waiting for it. Orang opened the candy and started eating it... Then I realized that Orang has got habituated of getting food items from ppl... But sad part is that it is prohibited for people to carry food items and still they carry it due to lesser civic sense and slothful zoo authorities who hardly take care of the rules which have been set by themselves....

We saw snakes , fish in aquarium(not a good collection) , group of foreign birds like pelicans, swans etc... The biggest attraction was seeing The Great Indian Bengal Tiger and Majestic White Tiger.... I was seeing the white Tiger for the first time (although I hail from land of White Tiger)... http://www.seemyindia.com/madhya-pradesh/madhya-pradesh-history.htm they were looking restless and starving in Big enclosures. At every enclosure the daily diet was written... 12 kgs of Buffalo Meat etc for a Tiger... I am 100% sure that they don't get the desired diet every day...

I tell you an interesting story behind naming of zoo as "Nandan Kanan". Nandan was Tiger and Kanan was a Tigress. It's mentioned on an enclosure as Kanan enclosure where Kanan jumped and crossed the enclosure to meet her boyfriend (Nandan). She sacrificed her freedom to stay with her boy friend in an enclosure...........There after she lived and died in the same enclosure after spending and seeing her cubs and cub’s cubs grow.....Hence in remembrance of evergreen love of a Tiger and Tigress, the zoo was named after them.... Interesting isn't it??

You can go fromNK to Botanical Garden on ropeway. We also tried a ride on ropeway. It was good experience seeing the lake separating the Botanical Garden and NK below us with people enjoying boating..... We reached the Botanical garden on ropeway and there we were supposed to get down..... But again a new surprise was waiting for us, the ropeway didn’t stop and we were on our way back to NK... On querying the ropeway managers we could get to know that it’s second Saturday and Botanical garden is closed today.... I can’t fathom when we would learn that places like Zoos, Museums, and parks can be visited by people on Weekends and holidays.... and not on Weekdays... Still we have Govt. holidays on Second and third Saturdays....We need to learn and inculcate best practices and government governance (coined the term on lines of corporate governance). We are best in abusing Angrez but we are still continuing the legacies of British because we lack independent thinking in India....

We moved and saw various breeds of deer and antelopes... We moved on crossing toy train tracks.... We were bit exhausted and sat near the lake, eating the green mangoes picked by Sanchit from Mango Trees with many couples around us who were enjoying the breeze and pursuing their romantic discussions...... and Sanchit and I were discussing the whether Picking Mangoes is an act of vandalism or not....

I swear its one of the best place to spend time with ur girl/boy friend in Bhubaneswar!!!!

We spent and 3 hrs in Zoo and were on our way to go back to home... We Came outside the zoo ate 11 aalo vadaas (locals call them aalo chop) and 3 Tea from nearby stall and started riding back to home after spending an excellent trip to Nandan kanan.

Visit http://www.orissatourism.gov.in/new/nandan.htm

Big Budget

For last two weeks the Indian television has been airing Budget stories like there is nothing happening apart from budget in World. There is growing importance of economic stories and Indian Television has been at the forefront of telecasting the same.

Every channel is competing to give the analysis of each word in Finance bill giving look from 0 to 360 degrees, with some mass channels like Aaajtak and Janmat failing to serve the audience with crisp stuff... Aaajtak has been servicing the business stories like chole without salt in it. They present each story giving it mass appeal without really bothering to put enough energies on content... Let me tell you with an example their headline "Ice-cream, Car hue saste and Cigarrte hua mehnga... They can't elevate themselves from these flimsy stories...

Coming to the Budget, in my opinion this 3rd budgest from Chidambram was first budgest in recent times was without new announcements. The whole emphasis was on continuing the existing schemes... In Chidambaram's words (Budget was about Consolidation and rationalization).He is good at rationalizing every thing J (remember last year’s Tax Exemptions and Rebates Overhaul.

This Budget had many new things unlike previous budgets like :>>>
There was no rollback of any announcements (any ways not many announcements were done…)
No announcements of populist schemes(By the way, the biggest populist scheme "Bharat Nirman was already announced in the last budget)
No real opposition from Opposition Parties except Left(which any ways sole purpose to be on always on wrong side of road, as their name itself suggests)

Some steps which were not new and were expected to be part of budget:
Increased taxes on Cigarettes
Increased Service tax from 10 to 12%
No announcements on Disinvestment.

The step to reduce excise on small cars was a positive step as it will make cars more affordable to Indian Middle Class and also deepens strength of Small Car manufacturers like Tata Motors and Hyundai and not mentioned Suzuki Motor Corp.

But this budget could have achieved much more than what was done. These were the missed oppurtunities:

Announcement on Framework for Reduction of LPG subsidies could be done.
Announcement on having Health cess on lines of Education cess could have been done to provide world class health facilities at least in all state capitals and major cities of each state( so that we can achieve world class Health facilities similar to world class Infrastructure and Roads with NHDP project under way)
No announcement on bridging the gap between Small saving rates and bank rates.
Announcement of new Greenfield airports.
Not enough push for Electricity Transmission and Distribution and not to mention the utter neglect towards Generation.
This was the time when India’s image is improving around the world Tourism could have been given boost by giving tax holidays etc. Point to remember is that Tourism is the untapped sector which holds potential to give jobs to millions of Young Indians as IT has been doing.

Taxi-9211

Last weekend I went to movie TaxiNo-9211 along with some of my project mates. I was planning to catch John Abraham movie for quite some time. Last time it was “Garam Masala” which somehow I could not catch up.

Overall The Film was good but somehow I feel director/s messed up with ending. It was bit stretched after interval (although movie surprisingly was not a three hour movie)... But personally the best thing that happened to me was reminiscing Mumbai... while watching the movie.The hustle and bustle of City of dreams (I mean it)... The taxi drivers, BEST buses and their disciplined bus drivers and conductors and local trains....

The drive to catch up the immediate train to any station inspite of having train frequency of 2 mins at most of stations...... is truly experience which can be realized when somebody lives that life.... Even I was transformed into that attitude of running and catching everything fast.... As John says in movie that "Time is everything in Mumbai"... Before Mumbai experience I never had to run for any thing as every thing is reachable in at Max 1/2 hr from my home which probably is signature and trademark of small sleepy towns.... Outsiders (who are new to Mumbai or visitors) always complain of Mumbai local train travel but I had never felt the trouble to feel angry or complain about it.... Although I had experienced all the involuntarily pushes at entry and exit of train door.... The most fascinating thing about Mumbai and Mumbaikars is never ending urge to move ahead and lack of complacency in all spheres of life…
But one thing I surely felt was that there was a need to upgrade local stations... The stations are heavily loaded and there is need to refurbish the stations with modern look.... The stations can not be made like stations of Navi Mumbai but still lot can be done...

It has been two years since I left Mumbai, Let’s see when I get chance to experience the never say No spirit of “Amachi Mumbai”.........