Cricket and Harsha

No one can talk so eloquently with such deep insights on Cricket than Harsha

Linking Penalties to Inflation

Government of India seems to be very active in annulling dead laws and reframing them in order to keep them meaningful. There are hundreds of laws which need much amended and reviewed .Laws need to be modernized and made relevant for time we are living. To give an example, Under the Aircraft Act, 1934, the Government can control "manufacture, possession, use, sale of aircraft". And ‘aircraft’ includes balloons and kites. This is so ludicrous and in a way symbolizes our archaic laws
We all must have read the warning or ignored it after reading. Laws are made as if they are to be broken. Law says that “smoking is punishable”. We can’t even communicate certainty of punishment. It is just another example of how communications are loosely done.
Another thing noticeable is that in most cases, a paltry sum of penalty is imposed. Is it strong enough to detract? Everybody knows it is not then why do we set them so low they become meaningless. How come Lawmakers arrive at such figures defying all the logic? Even if we set them high while framing laws, over the period of time, they are not revised and hence lose their significance.
Rents increase annually, DAs are linked to Inflation, and almost all costs gets a periodic revision but why can’t we link penalties for committed crime to average inflation growth rate so as to keep them stringent and deterrent enough for offenders of law?

COAI- Need to be aloud again

Lately COAI- Cellular Operators Association of India, the lobbying organization has been quiet.It is not as loud as it used to be few years ago. The quietness has even entrenched into there website. Look at the picture on the left with garbage data "ddddd" appearing on left pane. This is not the only example of how organization's don't keep their website up to date. Many Government websites are full of incomplete and incorrect information. Websites are interface to the external world. They promote brand equity of organizations. This example among numerous others just shows how little companies/organizations understand Information Technology and its impact on their brand.
Mr. T.V. Rama Chandran, please visit your organization's website to make sure that you show to the world how committed and serious your organization is about IT and its benefits.

SEBI might destory the industry

I have been following growth of mutual fund Industry for last 10 years. It has grown to huge proportion to what it was 10 years back; days when UTI dominated the MF category, few PSU mfs such as BOB, CanBank, SBI mfs operated and very few good quality private mfs such Templeton Franklin existed.
What makes me write this post is the fact that MF industry is on verge of destruction imposed by the none other than the regulator, SEBI, as clearly pointed by http://www.moneycontrol.com/mccode/news/article/news_article.php?autono=409014
Over the years, numerous regulations such as PAN quotation, KYC etc have been introduced for better identification of investors. AMFI (Association of Mutual Funds in India), an SRO (self regulatory organization ) and SEBI have played crucial role in growth of regulations. But are we not over regulating the industry as pointed out in the article? Are we not killing the MF industry in the name of enhancing investor interest? Is SEBI not crossing the limits by dictating what and how the distribution costs should be managed by mutual funds in India?
While you are forcing mutual fund advisors and agents to charge the clients for services provided to them, same is not true for other financial instruments such as Insurance and Post Office deposits. Why doesn't IRDA also follow the same principle and ask millions of Insurance advisors to charge their customers instead of them being paid by insurance companies?
Moreover, is the investor knowledgeable enough to decide how much should be paid for the service? If yes, Has SEBI identified service charges that need to be paid by customers?
Are we not doing too much too soon? Are not discouraging and dismantling a distribution channel, which is already very fragile?
SEBI seems to be playing an unjust role with AMFI and MFs playing the role of mute spectators. We have been clamoring about the need to grow mutual fund industry and its penetration in India. Instead of spreading the industry, the regulator, AMFI and Mutual funds are eager to put the last nail in its coffin.

Some thoughts on Layoffs

Life is hectic in XLRI and no time to do any thing extra other than finishing assignments, projects and meeting various deadlines. We are having regular classes on Human Behaviour and Organizational Structure by one of the world class Professors, Mr. Jittu Singh . Here are some of my thoughts on "layoffs" which had been a buzz word since year and half.

What are Layoffs?
As per Wikipedia, Until 80s, the term Layoff was used for temporary interruption in work when factory work cyclically fell off. In modern context, it is considered as permanent termination or elimination of jobs. The phenomenon has grown since 1980s. Various researches have been conducted to find the effectiveness of layoffs. Most of them have suggested potential gains to corporations and organizations. It is considered as the best tool for turning around declining organizations, cutting cost and improving organizational performance.
How layoffs are made to work?
Whenever organizations find themselves under stress of poor revenue/profits growth or falling revenues/profits or sustaining losses or turning around themselves from loss making entities to profit generating organizations, layoffs are considered. Some companies are conservative but most of them are very aggressive in laying off people. The stance- Aggressive or conservative depends on geography, socio-economic context and local laws. Generally American companies are aggressive and they go for blatant, open job cuts while Indian companies are considered to be conservative as they always adopt layoffs as a last measure to full fill their objectives.
The general approach to layoffs is find non-required job posts, non-performing or non needed employees. Once companies have list of employees, they try to find out cost savings, factoring in onetime expenditure on severance package etc. Generally, American companies tie this list of layoff with potential cost savings in dollar terms which they present to share holders. This is where Indian companies differ. Generally, In Indian companies, layoffs are kept confidential (in fact they make them as non transparent as possible), no cost savings are presented to shareholders. Thousands of jobs are lost in services and manufacturing companies both in urban and rural India but none are reported in media as these companies are either not high profile or Government undertakings.
During current recession or slowdown, Drivers, waiters, construction workers have lost jobs in urban cities and have returned back to their homes in UP, Bihar, Bengal and Orissa. These job losses are not even reported, forget about someone being worried about them.
Need for layoffs?
Layoffs are generally considered as a cost saving measure. During late 90s and early 2000, many PSUs were restructured and lakhs of employees were given VRS. The whole idea was to bring efficiency in system to weed out low performers, less productive workers in age group 50-60. The whole process was well orchestrated as PSUs had to be accountable to Govt, shareholders and powerful unions. Hence, good severance packages were given in the form of golden handshakes.
Let’s look at slip side of layoffs
· Money lost on training employees
· Low morale of rest of staff members affecting their productivity and leading to poor customer satisfaction
· Fearful and shortsighted employees.
Challenges
Committed and motivated employees are most productive and lead to higher customer satisfaction. While layoffs bring immediate cost savings but they lead to low morale among employees. Employees are strained to work more and share a greater work load which can lead to degradation of customer service ultimately leading to customers leaving for other competitors.
Experts have suggested to layoff during good as well as bad times. This makes the policy well accepted among employees; it looks fair from employees and well as from employer point of view. But companies never consider layoffs in good times. They need those employees during good times and when they are in trouble, they lay them off adding to difficulties of employees in finding suitable jobs in downturn.
Researchers have agreed on prompt, proactive communication of such important policies but barring few exceptions, companies seldom give warnings to those employees, make any statement in the company or outside to suggest such an action and when they do act, it turns out to be a bitter surprise for employees.
Employee morale definitely gets hit by dissonance in sayings and doings. People become angry and fearful. If companies claim themselves to be transparent and benchmarks setters, then they should assess and address these issues. This would clarify doubts among employees and would not give scope of gossip mongering.
"Loyalty doesn't mean taking care of an employee who does not produce value”. But well defined policies and procedures are very much required. Indian Companies have been blindly following American model of organizational restructuring. They can’t forget that each job loss in America is tracked and employees have unemployment insurance to fall back on. Also, since layoff is natural consequence of profit orientation, it is well accepted in American society not like here in India where there is no job loss tracker, no unemployment insurance and where layoffs are considered a social stigma.
Laid off Employees are given 3-6 months’ salary along with gratuity. Is it enough for those employees who have built liabilities over the years, who are paying home, car loans and sending kids to schools and colleges? This is where private companies have to learn from their government counterparts. PSU Employees happily parted away from their organizations unlike in private companies where they leave with tears in their eyes and deep agony in their hearts. It's not inherently disloyal to let employees go during tough times, but experts suggest doing so only after other avenues have been fully explored such as salary cut of those identified employees. Companies suffer in long term if they are not imaginative and simply go by rule book.
According to http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/hmu/2009/03/dont-let-layoffs-ruin-customer.php , “The smartest companies today, even when they're in trouble, are moving employees around, having them share jobs, having them work reduced hours so the company can preserve jobs. Although the jobs may be different and may not add up to the same number of hours or amount of compensation employees enjoyed during the best of times, at least these people are still working. That creates trust between employees and management, and that's going to affect how these employees deal with customers.”
For those who must go, the best procedure is to "lay off people as if they were future customers”. When you let someone go, try to put together a safety net, do the best you can do, provide relocation support. Treat these people as potential future customers and potential future employees — as if they will one day is in a position to send business to your company."
I believe, the real test of an organization is in tough times and seemingly, many Indian companies are trailing by a big margin.

Euphoric response to Tata Housing project

Since I wrote last week about Tata's new low cost housing project http://anshuman-jaiswal.blogspot.com/2009/05/mr-tata-has-heard-me.html , there has been euphoric response. See this ET link http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/4496483.cms . Success of this project will surely boost confidence of Tatas and other developers to start such project across India.

Mr. Tata has heard me!

Ya, I am right. Mr. Tata or perhaps CEO of Tata Housing, Mr. Brotin Banerjee has given much needed hearing to market demands. I am so delighted with launch of Tata Housing project for Low cost houses in the price band of Rs 3.9 lakh-6.7 lakh . These days, my predictions are proving correct. I will write more about those predictions in future posts. But for now, it’s great moment for Indian Housing sector. Since I wrote in May 2008 http://anshuman-jaiswal.blogspot.com/2008/05/housing-needs-nano.html ,there has been a great evolution of low costs models. Success of Tata Nano bookings has awakened top line conscious business houses to new source of revenues. All big industrial houses such as Tatas, Birlas, Ambanis and new age entrepreneurs should take a lesson from Tata’s low cost housing initiative and jump into the untouched, unserved markets of low cost housing for creating newer markets of middle class and lower middle class consumers. But I am surprised with poor coverage of this news, which according to me is transformational for Indian Housing sector. Let’s wait for more Low cost innovations coming from fast becoming Low Cost Capital of the world, India.

Why don't you not spend when you can?

I have always been amazed with Brand Building exercises and Ad Spends of two companies HPCL (Hindustan Petroleum) and BPCL(Bharat Petroleum). Here are the reasons for my amazement:

1. Both are Government owned Indian Oil retailers. I have hardly seen any other PSU which spends the way these two companies spend on marketing. Perhaps, there are few government companies in B2C (Business to Consumer) market.

2. Both companies are in red as per ET(Economic Times) dated 30th Apr 2009. If you don't make profits, then you try to cut costs and reduce expenditure on things such as Ads. I have hardly seen any visible efforts in this direction as they continue to get their products endorsed by costly players such as Dhonis' of the world.

3. Both companies are in oil retailing where competition is crushed by Government’s populist policies (Read Closure of Reliance’s oil retailing business). Why the hell you need to spend on brand building (Endorsement Spend, customer loyalty programs etc) when you hardly have any competitor to deal with.

Is it true or just an email campaign from BJP office?

After fall of American Financial system, there has been growing debate on how to end existence of tax havens such as Caribbean Islands and Switzerland. US is negotiating hard to trace trail of American money in Swiss Accounts. At home, Main opposition party, BJP has been making black money as its one of main issues. I recently got below fwd email: Is it true or just an email campaign from BJP office?

IS INDIA A POOR COUNTRY? by M R Venkatesh
Revelation of Swiss bank accounts. This is so shocking.... ...If black money deposits were an Olympics event.... India would have won a gold medal hands down. The second best Russia has 4 times lesser deposit. U.S. is not even there in the counting in top five! India has more money in Swiss banks than all the other countries combined! Recently, due to international pressure, the Swiss government agreed to disclose the names of the account holders only if the respective governments formally asked for it... Indian government is not asking for the details..... ..No marks for guessing why? We need to start a movement to pressurize the government to do so! This is perhaps the only way, and a golden opportunity, to expose the high and mighty and weed out corruption! Please read on........and forward to all the honest Indians to.....like somebody is forwarding to you.......and build a ground-swell of support for action! Is India poor, who says? Ask the Swiss banks. With personal account deposit bank of $1,500 billion in foreign reserve which have been misappropriated, an amount 13 times larger than the country's foreign debt, one needs to rethink if India is a poor country? DISHONEST INDUSTRIALISTS, scandalous politicians and corrupt IAS, IRS, IPS officers have deposited in foreign banks in their illegal personal accounts a sum of about $1500 billion, which have been misappropriated by them. This amount is about 13 times larger than the country's foreign debt. With this amount 45 crore poor people can get Rs 1,00,000 each. This huge amount has been appropriated from the people of India by exploiting and betraying them. Once this huge amount of black money and property comes back to India , the entire foreign debt can be repaid in 24 hours. After paying the entire foreign debt, we will have surplus amount, almost 12 times larger than the foreign debt. If this surplus amount is invested in earning interest, the amount of interest will be more than the annual budget of the Central government. So even if all the taxes are abolished, then also the Central government will be able to maintain the country very comfortably. Some 80,000 people travel to Switzerland every year, of whom 25,000 travel very frequently.. 'Obviously, these people won't be tourists. They must be travelling there for some other reason,' believes an official involved in tracking illegal money. And, clearly, he isn't referring to the commerce ministry bureaucrats who've been flitting in and out of Geneva ever since the World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations went into a tailspin! Just read the following details and note how these dishonest industrialists, scandalous politicians, corrupt officers, cricketers, film actors, illegal sex trade and protected wildlife operators, to name just a few, sucked this country's wealth and prosperity. This may be the picture of deposits in Swiss banks only. What about other international banks? Black money in Swiss banks -- Swiss Banking Association report, 2006 details bank deposits in the territory of Switzerland by nationals of following countries:
TOP FIVE
· INDIA : $1,456 BILLION
· RUSSIA : $470 BILLION
· U.K. : $390 BILLION
· UKRAINE : $100 BILLION
· CHINA : $96 BILLION
Now do the maths - India with $1,456 billion or $1.4 trillion has more money in Swiss banks than rest of the world combined. Public loot since 1947: Can we bring back our money? It is one of the biggest loots witnessed by mankind -- the loot of the Aam Aadmi (common man) since 1947, by his brethren occupying public office. It has been orchestrated by politicians, bureaucrats and some businessmen. The list is almost all-encompassing. No wonder, everyone in India loots with impunity and without any fear. What is even more depressing in that this ill-gotten wealth of ours has been stashed away abroad into secret bank accounts located in some of the world's best known tax havens. And to that extent the Indian economy has been stripped of its wealth. Ordinary Indians may not be exactly aware of how such secret accounts operate and what are the rules and regulations that go on to govern such tax havens.. However, one may well be aware of 'Swiss bank accounts,' the shorthand for murky dealings, secrecy and of course pilferage from developing countries into rich developed ones. In fact, some finance experts and economists believe tax havens to be a conspiracy of the western world against the poor countries. By allowing the proliferation of tax havens in the twentieth century, the western world explicitly encourages the movement of scarce capital from the developing countries to the rich. In March 2005, the Tax Justice Network (TJN) published a research finding demonstrating that $11.5 trillion of personal wealth was held offshore by rich individuals across the globe. The findings estimated that a large proportion of this wealth was managed from some 70 tax havens. Further, augmenting these studies of TJN, Raymond Baker -- in his widely celebrated book titled 'Capitalism' s Achilles Heel: Dirty Money and How to Renew the Free Market System' -- estimates that at least $5 trillion have been shifted out of poorer countries to the West since the mid-1970. It is further estimated by experts that one per cent of the world's population holds more than 57 per cent of total global wealth, routing it invariably through these tax havens.. How much of this is from India is anybody's guess. What is to be noted here is that most of the wealth of Indians parked in these tax havens is illegitimate money acquired through corrupt means. Naturally, the secrecy associated with the bank accounts in such places is central to the issue, not their low tax rates as the term 'tax havens' suggests. Remember Bofors and how India could not trace the ultimate beneficiary of those transactions because of the secrecy associated with these bank accounts?

Advani goes Obama way

Mr. Advani has adopted Mr. Obama's "Yes We can" in style. He is visible on social community sites such as Orkut and Facebook. His blog is getting popular day by day. BJP Ads on television are able to touch hearts of voters. His site http://lkadvani.in is creating fleet of volunteers.
But Is it worth investing so much money on Technology marketing in India where Internet and PC penetration is minuscule in comparison to the population of the country. How did BJP evaluated that IT is the way to go? Can this time's campaign go haywire as it had last time with India Shinning?
But whatever the answer is, It will surely have impact on urban voters in Tier 1 cities such as Delhi and Mumbai. It's welcome change to see leaders going tech savvy by writing blogs and creating forums to interact with people on facebook and orkut. The day of live Prime ministerial debates on lines of US's Presidential debates is not far. You can catch Mr. Advani's Blog @ http://blog.lkadvani.in/
It is heartening to know that BJP manifesto reserves one page for Information Technology.

Two promises are clearly in sync with what is needed urgently.

Launch a National Digital Highway Development Project to bring affordable broadband Internet connectivity to every village.

Mr Obama talked whole year while campaigning to increase penetration of High speed broadband connectivity which currently pales in front of South Korean achievement. Eric Schmidt, Google, CEO has been technology adviser of Mr Obama. Here's where we see the differences in Indian context, there is no open support and collaboration between Indian Tech leaders and aspiring political leaders. Why don't Indian Tech leaders come out in open and join political landscape by supporting , advising tech matters to these leaders on the similar lines as we have seen recently in US.

Every Indian citizen to have a bank account; welfare funds to be deposited directly into end beneficiary’s bank account to eliminate corruption.

This is good idea although remotely connected with Technology. Perhaps, BJP is linking direct deposits in Banks with information Technology. This act would create a direct channel between subsidy provider and consumer but How will we achieve this, given the fact that ECS(Electronic Clearing Service) is available in selected 50-60 odd cities in India and Cooperative banks and Regional rural banks have not invested much in technology. RBI and MOF(Ministry of Finance) would have to surely work hard to materialize this.

Leaving you with BJP's ads , Bhay Ho on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4Nodf1aetA and Determined Leader, Decisive Government http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejuHr5FjtZg

USO for Private Banks

Ever heard of anybody taking Education Loan from ICICI Bank? What do you say? Never. Ya that's right...You will hardly find people taking educational loan from big private banks such as ICICI bank, HDFC Bank etc. 

While these banks chase you to give Home Loan, Car loan, Personal Loan but never ever they would agree to give loans that are categorized under Priority Sector Lending. This raises questions on universality of Priority sector lending itself? Is it just the job of PSU banks to offer all kind of such loans to Farmers, students, unskilled, semi skilled, rural population?

There is term called USO(Universal Service Obligation), frequently used in Telecom sector. IS USO not applicable to these private banks?

I understand that every private enterprise's primary objective is higher margins and bigger profits but when these enterprises grow big and their market share becomes dominant, they need to fulfill USO otherwise who  will care to serve the underprivileged?

 I guess banks such ICICI Bank should act as responsible bankers. Loans such as education loan provide them opportunity to build relationship with future high earners.

 In one such instance a PSU banker sarcastically commented, You maintain salary accounts and deposits in ICICI bank and when you need education loan you come to us? No relationship, no loans..

 Ms Chanda Kochhar, Are you listening? You need to revise your lending policies.

View and endorse at PetitionOnline.com

Please take a step ahead & join this initiative. Please view and endorse at PetitionOnline.com:
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/26novAct/petition.html

On 7th December 2008, this petition will be attempted to be presented to the Prime Minister of India. Till 7th december, endeavour is to collect at least 1 million signatures. Probably such mass need may stir the administration to take visible and needful action.

Please sign and forward to as many people known to you as possible.

Why terrorists should attack parliament once more to wipe out all the rascals in Indian Politics?

India's 9/11-Mumbai Terror Attacks

Watching news coming from home on this Thanksgiving has made me sad and angry. There has been unprecedented coverage of Mumbai attacks in Western Media. Never in history have news channels CNN, NBC; FOX covered any terror attack in India in such details as they are covering since last 24 hours. CNN's partner CNN IBN and NBC's partner NDTV have been source of excellent media coverage to the western world. Most of the TV journos are on vacation here in US but the tragedy of this magnitude has made them engaged and busy over this holiday.
Because of foreign hostages, Western media and Government are very much interested in knowing developments happening in India minute by minute.
These attacks have put Mumbai's name in mouth of common American who otherwise doesn’t care to know anything other than what's happening here in US. It's a great learning for western media of what India and Mumbai are. Their lack of knowledge was widely apparent in shows such as Larry King live and American Morning on CNN.

Attacks after attacks from Jaipur to Bangalore to Mumbai have become norm and India is becoming one of unsafe places in the world. You go from Virar to Churchgate in morning for work but your family is never sure that you would return back Virar at night. There have been more than 7 attacks in India this year alone but not a single attack in US since 9/11 which happened seven years back. America has unique geographical advantage of being surrounded by Atlantic and Pacific oceans on both sides and no base of islam in whole of North America (Canada, US, Mexico) but that fortune is not shared by countries such as India.

These attacks were well planned and have achieved 100% success in causing damage to India's reputation and inspiring terrorist organizations from Albania to Afghanistan.
In all these attacks, ideological fanatics from Islamic world are involved. Time and again everyone has said that not all Muslims are extremists but incidents like this give bad name to 1.5 billion Muslims around the world. As Spiritual leader, Deepak Chopra rightly said, moderate Muslims have to do more than just condemning these attacks.

Indian Intelligence and Central and state governments are equally responsible for failure to get any clue on all the attacks including this one. They haven't busted a single attack till date. Because of appeasement politics, no party has shown guts to crack down on this Islamic fundamentalism. Various Islamic extremist organizations including SIMI continue to operate in India.
India is extremely complex and diverse society. It is difficult but not impossible to detain and destroy networks of these ill minded people. So what should be done now? Should we let this rescue operation over and forget these attacks as we have forgotten all other attacks? The answer is No. This time media should take this agenda of terrorism comprehensively and create a public opinion on terror. They should focus their stories on financing of these organizations. They should put pressure on Indian government to create strict Anti terrorism laws and form a Terror Intelligence body of constitutional structure.
Share your comments on what more can be done to bust these terror organizations?

Disclaimer: I have used Muslim and Islam words many a times in this post but I am in no way against any religion or faith including Islam.

image:http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/11/26/world/26india3-600.jpg

Meeting with Ashwin Madia

I have been following US presidential elections keenly for last 12 months. The D Day (Nov 4) is just 3 

days away; Radio and TV are full of all sorts of Ads.

It was surprising to know that elections in US for all the public offices happen on a same day unlike in 

India, where elections happen almost every day for numerous public offices from Gram Panchayat to Central 

Parliament. This practice of regular elections is time consuming and resource intensive. It keeps politicians and  

bureaucrats busy all the time in contesting and conducting elections. Development takes a back seat 

and vote bank politics keeps all the executive and legislative constituents occupied with elections.

Former President APJ Abdul Kalam made a great suggestion for amending the Constitution and making 

all the elections happen on same day. This would be huge boost for progressive and stable 

governments. I am not sure why Indian media and intellectuals don't push for this idea.

What makes me write today was a surprise meeting with Ashwin Madia. He is a Democratic candidate 

running for 3rd district in US Congress. He is another story of successes that American Indians had in 

US. Indians went gaga after Bobby Jindal won elections for Governor of Katrina State of Louisiana.

It looks like it is Ashwin Madia's turn this time. With anti Bush sentiments giving strong lead to Obama, 

Ashwin Madia is not far behind. Ashwin is young, highly educated and aa experienced Marines officer. However, His 

opponent, Erik Paulsen is strong and experienced leader, which makes this fight tough for Madia.

Last week, my colleagues and I went to Culvers for lunch. While we were busy with lunch and usual office talks,

a man comes from behind and stood infront of our table.He said, "I am Ashwin Madia". I am 

following him since he started his first Ad but never expected that I would meet him in person. 

See his Ad:

As a natural Indian response, I stood up and greeted him while my colleagues were still sitting. I was 

surprised and answered, Ya I have seen you on TV. My colleagues could not even recognize him. He 

asked, Do you have any questions?, and I said, No, which ended our conversation. We shook hands 

and he moved to other tables to meet other hungry voters.

I can never imagine that a politician comes and you don't stand to greet him in India. It was a 

complete culture shock for me to see the response from my colleagues and lack of any such 

expectation from Madia. Politicians don’t have a special status in US unlike in India where our 

jansevaks and netas (public servants and politicians) consider themselves above the people.

This election is all about change; Can we ever have a change in India?

Housing needs a Nano

I would like to begin by expressing my appreciation for all of you who visited my blog and shared comments on last post. It was startling and exciting to know so many diverse thoughts and opinions. Some agreed, some disagreed, but one thing evident was everyone’s zeal about development in India. I believe no one would disagree with me on this.
Last week an article caught my eye. It was about affordable housing in India. http://www.business-standard.com/common/news_article.php?tab=r&autono=323039&subLeft=1&leftnm=1

Omaxe, a real state player is planning to spend 20 bn dollars on constructing 1 million low cost houses. This move should be applauded and placed in same category of low cost innovation same as No frills hotels(Ginger, Tata’s venture), No frills airlines(Kingfisher, SpiceJet, GoAir) and low cost car(Tata Nano).
Housing sector has long been ignored and underserved. An 2BHK apartment in India’s Big cities like Mumbai and Bangalore is dream for millions of people. Hardly any one in India’s big cities can think of house with front and backyard like we see here in US.
There are various reasons to this housing problem:
Lack of government support and priority for affordable housing: There is lot of financing agencies, various housing banks but reality is none of them have revolutionized housing finance sector barring few such as ICICI bank and HDFC.
Lot of Black money involved in Land transactions: People with black(unaccounted) money have been parking their money in land and real estate for long time. Since it’s unaccounted, it gives an edge to these people in buying a property. Moreover, it drives the prices upwards and makes it even more difficult for people with limited white incomes to full fill their basic need.
Arcane Laws: Because Land is a state subject and not a union or federal subject, there is no common policy framework in whole country. Laws vary from one state to other. And for bankrupt state governments, land revenue is lucrative source of earning but they treat housing and land transactions like a butcher who kills Hen that hatches golden eggs. High property taxes, corrupt Land revenue department, low IT penetration, lack of transparency hinder growth of this sector.
Lack of corporate involvement: Companies have always structured their offerings for people with high disposable incomes,NRIs etc. There have not been large scale offerings of quality and affordable housing.
But looks like exciting times have come and things are changing. While taking cue from Omaxe, Tatas could consider venturing into this untapped, high potential market with a Ginger or Nano version of housing product. Mr Tata, Are you listening?

More things change, more they remain same

It has been close to two months since I “put pen to paper”. Since I have just been to India, I think this is good time to share the observations that I made in this trip.
I went home after close to 1.5 yrs. Hence, I was anxious to go and see family and friends. I boarded from Minneapolis Airport for Chicago. Baggage check in and security check were smooth. These days, airport security staff and travelers have learnt to cooperate with each other and they are taking traveling travails in good spirit. The flight from Minneapolis boarded and arrived on time in Chicago. I had lot of time on my hand in Chicago and hence made use of time to see the airport, buy some gifts and read books and paper.
Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport is world class airport. I could see lot of shops selling promotional items for 2016 Olympic Games, planned to be organized in Chicago while in Delhi’s Indira Gandhi Intl Airport, there were hardly any signs of Commonwealth games which are just 2 years away. This clearly tells you why sports are non priority for India.
I bought and read Financial Times as I had never read this paper before. I was surprised with lot of articles on India and China in paper and felt as If I am reading some paper from subcontinent. I was also carrying a book, “Exporting America” by Lou Dobbs. Since I had seen Lou Dobbs tonight on CNN several times, and main theme of this book is on outsourcing, I was interested to read the book. I was not impressed by reasoning presented in book. It seemed to be chauvinistic and exaggerated writing with sole agenda of presenting facts in negative light. But, I was impressed with the fact that after outsourcing of Manufacturing and high paying service jobs, how the employees and future generations would be trained to something that is unthinkable currently.
My American Airlines flight to New Delhi boarded on time. I liked the cabin crew services, especially sumptuous Indian food. I felt American Airlines serves good food and has good in-flight services. I am making these comparisons with experiences that I had with NWA-KLM which I feel grossly under serves.
My India experience started as soon as I landed in GMR Delhi Intl Airport at 9pm in Night. Nobody needs to tell you that you have arrived in India. The appalling infrastructure (more so because of revamp being done at the airport) and sad faces you see at immigration present a disappointing picture. You can make world class Infrastructure but how will you change mindset of people in immigration, customs and security check? All the claims of world class airport will fall flat if we don’t make folks at airports customer friendly and service oriented.

You are ashamed at mistreatment and feel like not coming to your home country. Nevertheless, one has to come and so did I.
To be on Delhi roads with so much traffic, noise and pollution is an experience in itself. I now imagine why foreigners become scary of Indian conditions when they are not accustomed to these in their home countries. while going to my friend’s place, I zipped through Chankyapuri area where all embassies and consulates are located. It was reminiscent of days when I came to Delhi for getting Belgium Visa.
I was soon going to start early morning when I was supposed to catch a train to go home.
I reached New Delhi Railway station early morning. It was crowded as expected but signs of grand railway station were missing. As soon as I entered the station my luggage was searched by two police men. I felt happy that there are people who are keeping eyes on people in such crowded areas. But, Here is a problem, when hundreds going in and out of station are two ill-equipped policemen sufficient to carry out this job? Can’t we have some x-ray machines installed at entrances and exits of National capital’s railway station?
My train came on time. As soon as it stopped, all passengers lined up at the door not even allowing passengers to get down. This is another typical behavior that you will find on all railway stations in India. Despite knowing that train is going to stop for 20 mins still people don’t have patience to let the passengers disembark from train. Why Indians are so Impatient? Why can’t they display more civilized behavior?
I was using Railway e tickets for first time. TTE came, saw my tickets but never bothered to ask for my identity card. After a while, a retired tourist couple hailing from New Zealand boarded the train. They were heading for Rathambore to see tigers. We had good conversations. At least it helped me pass time. One thing that I heard from them was differential pricing of tickets in tourists attractions like Taj Mahal. Indian govt charges Rs 20 to Indian citizens and Rs 750 to Foreign tourists. This lopsided pricing of tickets is unjustified and leaves a bad taste among foreign nationals. I have never seen this kind of pricing in any tourists location here in US.
After some time, lunch that I ordered came. I was surprised that IRCTC has outsourced the pantry services to RKHS(RKHS also serves in Infosys canteens) . I found no difference in service or quality of food which left a dangling question in my mind that whether organizations consider “customers” in their quest for outsourcing services?
My train journey was about to end as Ratlam(You can find references about Ratlam in "India Unbound" by Gurcharan Das) station was about to come. I reached Ratlam in evening after 12 hours of train travel. I have nice memories of Ratlam as I have spent my childhood days here. Out of station, I saw same old buildings, congested roads and tempos guzzling pollutants in plenty.
Dad had come to take me to home. We started our 2.5 hours journey to my home on a bumpy ride. I felt sad with road full of pot holes and more so uncomfortable life that has been in India for centuries. I was feeling drowsy and tired after traveling for more than 40 hours. Finally, I reached home with a thought in mind that “More things change, more they remain same”. I once belonged to the place and now I don’t desire to be part of it.

An Idea whose time has come

In the above interview, Manmohan Singh clearly mentions, Left parties as source of opposition to India-US Nuclear Cooperation. He would have never imagined the kind of tussle that has existed between Congress and Left since last two months at the time of the interview.He shares his dreams and vision about India in this interview. India has been blessed with very few prime ministers who have such depth of knowledge and understanding about World's affairs. He shares his views on china and Iran impresssively.Very few politicians can express any kind of insight on such countries. It's remarkable to hear from prime minister about India's desperate need for Infrastructure. He is also critical about Government's role as Ma-Baap. Beaureucrats and politicians should take lessons from his vision about Government’s role as helper and facilitator.
Hear this interview to get insight on his thoughts and dreams for India.

Bring jobs back from India

Yesterday, I stopped on c-span TV channel while I was jumping from one channel to other. For those who don't know C_SPAN http://www.c-span.org, let me tell you that it's a channel dedicated for airing government debates in senate,seminars etc involving public policy. Its a kind of government's interface to connect with citizens. Prasar Bharti (Indian Public Boradcaster) should take steps and transform Rajya Sabha and LokSabha channels to cover more public debates out of parliament.

The live telecast of National Governors Association (http://youinnovate21.net on subject of Innovation and technology was going on. I started listening to Mr Randell's ( AT&T CEO) speech followed by Mr Schmidt's (Google CEO ) speech.
The presence of these two CEOs glued me to channel till end of council meeting.
Randell talked about challenges in broadband penetration and competitiveness of Telecom Industry while Schmidt talked about Transformation of Govt. Services using new and latest technologies.Mr Schmidt is a glib talker while Randell seem to be regulated like his industry is.

All the governors seemed to be concerned about growing importance of new technologies and were deeply interested in learning new ways to bring innovation in government services and change in society.

I was day dreaming of this becoming a reality in India where 99% politicians and 90% IAS officers can't even define innovation.

The speeches were followed by Q & A round.I was struck by question from Mr. John Baldaccid Governor of Maine.He talked about creating IT clusters in his state and asked about Industry's role in partnering Government . His question could have been straight forward but he added chauvinistic spice by mentioning IT clusters will help bring back jobs from India.

This is another example of how India has taken centre stage in Government policy formation on Job creation and losses. Ten years back, these Governors would not have known what and where India is. But today it is a different world.

This development is significant as it highlights the achievement of Indian IT Services Industry.
It very easy to blame Indians for all job loses and but hard to evaluate the core reason behind such development.

The Senators and unaware public in large forget the hard labour that Indians apply to deliver IT Services at low cost to make American economy competitive and robust. They forget the taxes that Indians and Indian companies pay to federal and State Government without availing any Social Security benefits.

Its sad that Indians' hard work for American companies doesn't get much deserved acknowledgement and appreciation

Infrastructure Bottlenecks

Twenty years back,"India-land of snake charmers", the idea used to popup in people's minds about India...

But now thankfully, if some knowledgeable American has to say something about India-It will be IT, Call centre and Poor Infrastructure.

I have been hearing Infrastructure debates since last 10 years.But sadly nothing substantial has happened.
Some Indians especially BJP leaders might take pride in Golden Triangle Highway Project, But truth is that all the things that have been done on Roads is drop in ocean.

Recently, I was listening to GE CEO's interview with Prannoy Roy. His message for Indian leaders was to focus only on Infrastructure for next 10 years. According to him, this measure alone is sufficient to bring revolution and sustain 10% GDP growth.

Infact in my personal conversations, I have found this is major lacunae that people identify India with.The chaos and mismanaged traffic, and not to mention crowded and poor roads that they see become a point of ridicule.

Indian community in US has a strong sense of appreciation for US Infrastructure and the same time they are grossly pessimistic about Indian infrastructure especially roads.

Urban, Metro Indian now relate Infrastructure with Roads.But what about Electricity,Ports,Airports,Railways?????

Still 6.5 lakh villages haven't experienced what electricity is even after 60 years of Independence.Poor electricity conditions exist in whole of India. Mass Transmission and Distribution losses, Inefficiency of State Electricity Boards are prime reasons for poor electricity infrastructure.

Urban elite especially in Metros have kind of forgotten how sad the story in rest of India.There has been same talks since post liberalisation about electricity sector but hardly anything has happened.....

Millions of Indians are still deprived of basic human needs.How can we grossly ignore plight of 1/6th of humanity?
Let's talk about Roads..."The most talked about topic among Indians in US as far as infrastructure is concerned"

The problem is India is we haven't made it as top priority in spite of recognising it as major bottleneck in her growth.

We are still talking about Golden Triangle which is in fact past now...I haven't travelled on GQ Highway hence, i will not talk about it. But what about 100s of National Highways and 1000 of state highways????
GQ fell into purview of Central Government, hence it was achievable by a central body like NHAI. But how will we expect upgrading of state highways into 4 to 6 lanes which come under purview of bankrupt state governments????

Indians are now touted as most talkative people in the world by looking at figures of time spent on cell phones..Same distinction can be achieved for Roads sector.The kind of economic factory bythat will get built Road and Travel Industry is unimaginable.

We constantly hear about Unemloyment rates in US and Europe.. But If I ask what is unemployment rate in India? Hardly any body would be able to answer.
Infrastructure is key to mass unskilled and skilled job creation.We can seriously kill all birds with single stone called as "Infrastructure".

How can w claim to be a super power in making if we are not willing to solve the gross problems??People always compare India and China.But infrastructure part, China has taken a big lead and where are we?

Take Airports,hardly India, with a Billion+ people have 35-50 airports with most of them below world standard except 4-5 airports which are kind of OK.
Hardly 20 million people travel by flights.We don't have enough airports and enough flights for all 1 million plus cities...

if you happen to be in Mumbai or Delhi Airports, you will find them to be shabbiest Airports in the world....What face do we show to foreign travellers??

what we people, who are neither into administration nor Infrasture sector can do???
I find, there is lack of solid concern about sorry state of affairs in India.
We should at least be conscious and concerned about problems and solutions,discuss, debate the issues.

Do you share same opinion??? Let me know your thoughts................