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.

Satyam Saga

Ramalinga Raju has done everything to smudge Lord Ram’s name. This was a shocker which came from Land of Tirupati. He is a disgrace for every Indian and Andhrite. IT business runs on transparency and integrity. He has maligned both. What was he thinking all these seven years that he would never be caught? Every person has to bear the consequences of his wrong doings. Some face them sooner and some face them later. Everyone is talking about that he would not have been successful in his deeds without complicity of senior management.

So far we have witnessed lackadaisical approach of ICAI. How can a self regulatory body act against one of its powerful and distinguished member like PWC? Will we see same fate of PWC as Anderson consulting? Probably not, So far, PWC has come out with the claim that it is not responsible in this mess. How a company like PWC be so immoral not to even accept mistake and come out with a public apology.

Other interesting thing is huge political support for Raju. It is strongly believed that he had put all this money(7000 crore) in real estate with full support from present congress government. How will state government find fault in Raju without itself getting caught in the muddle? People call it accounting scandal. In fact it is a Real estate scandal. Real estate in Indian is most non transparent and poorly regulated investment sector. It’s through this sector all the black money is converted into white. Realty investment is considered a safe haven as far as black money is considered. Until now, nobody has talked about bringing transparency and uniformity in Land Transactions, their valuations, regulations and affordability.

Everyone agrees in India that every company cooks books. Why don’t we have a single sting operation from media to uncover this? I guess their TRPS will equally boost if they focus on illicit relations of businessmen with politicians as well as on non performance of crooked politicians. CNBC has over the years given tips for buying and selling stocks, Why don’t they start and do some investigative business journalism than just talking about market techincals and having sophisticated talks with CEOs.

Everyone from NRN to Nandan has said that “you can’t paint every company with the same brush” which is true and everyone agrees to it. Economist has recently said that “not a single Indian company not even an IT company is close to corporate and accounting standards followed by Infosys. If that is the case then, why don’t’ we make it mandatory for all companies to follow those standards?

In India, common populace is always fooled for its financial ignorance and illiteracy. What have we done to educate high school and college kids about money management? For e.g. very few colleges such IITs have economics as a subject for students. How and when will these engineers learn about financial markets? Are they supposed to earn and not understand and learn about financial world? A greater understanding will lead to better valuations in terms of market cap and respectability of these companies.

Not a single PIL has been filed to sue Regulator such as SEBI and ICAI, Ministry of Finance, Company Law Board. Why Indian regulators are always reactive and not proactive?We haven’t seen any CEO behind the bars for cooking books and insider trading? Why are we so lax towards well educated, well literate, corrupt and immoral businessmen?

Businessmen have always been shown in bad light in Bollywood movies of 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s. It was only after 90s post liberalization, we started not to see scripts written around sahukars, strikes and blood sucking businessmen. Businessmen and traders were always seen second worst after politicians. People had almost forgotten about malpractices and have for a decade or so appreciated entrepreneurial spirit before this Satyam scandal came into being. This event will once again shake faith on Indian businessmen as no one expected that somebody from new economy sector such IT, with transparent and suave corporate culture would do such a thing.

Numerous awards are given to such wrong doers; hardly anybody questions their methods and credibility. That’s why Golden Peacock Award was given to Satyam for corporate governance. One question arises, why was Infosys not chosen for the award when it is highly regarded as the company with best corporate governance standards? Can people who give these awards answer this question?

Now Coming to Investors, As soon as SEBI got letter from Raju, why didn’t it order BSE and NSE to stop trading? Why did it allow the freefall? Why did it allow gullible small investors to buy the stock during the freefall? Who bought the stock and who sold the stock? Big institutional investor sold the stock and small investors bought it? Why was this allowed? Why small investors have to suffer while they were paring losses of big investors? Can we sue stock exchange and SEBI for this? Have they ever paid a single rupee in penalty to investors for their non performance?
While we are hearing bailout worth Rs 2000 crore for Satyam, there is no such boon for marginal investors. Why don’t we try to earn the trust of individual investors by bailing them out at least this time? Only 3-4 % percent people invest in equities directly. Can we ever think of a bigger equity investor base in india?

I have been reading Basab pradhan’s posts on Satyam

http://6ampacific.com/
He has been very active in penning down his opinion on Satyam. How many IT CEOS have made their stand public? I heard neither from Mr. Azim Premji nor from Mr. Ramadorai. It seems only Infy has lot of media friendly senior management folks, with no work at their disposal to appear on all the shows of NDTV and CNN IBN. People who have nothing to hide, they always express their opinions freely. Have you ever seen an informal interview of Raju like Nandan and NRN does? I am not comparing personal choice of people but these are some cost efficient ways of making a good public image. You don’t need to run costly commercials if you can have a public conversation. This is why blogging from senior management is so important?

These incidents will have long lasting impact on how business is governed and accounts are managed. Hope we learn from this and make laws stringent, punish the culprits and make regulators active.

Glass ceiling in Corporate World

While I am writing this, one of my school friends, Aarti reminded me of my incident in class 7th. When teacher asked me, what does my mother do? Instead of saying Housewife, I said, she does nothing. It was my ignorance and innocence and I didn’t mean what I said, but that line struck chords with my classmate. After 15 years she reminded on this incident that how she decided to be a working woman.

I saw this interview of Chanda kochhar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chanda_Kochhar (next CEO of ICICI Bank, India’s largest private sector bank) and Naina lal kidwai, Head of HSBC, India. This show on NDTV celebrates Chanda's achievements and explores answers to the question whether glass ceiling in corporate world still exists. It was very interesting with way Chanda responded that women employees should not expect favors from employers and do whatever it takes to complete the tasks assigned to them.
I have always seen that women are always dealt in special ways in teams and organizations. In Infosys, women constitute 40% of staff. This is a huge number and senior management is pushing hard to bring this number to 50%.
I am fortunate to have worked with exceptional, hardworking and diligent women employees. I have always been very appreciative of women employees when they don't seek special considerations and do the job with same passion as their male counterparts would do but I have also seen women employees coming with expectation that their team mates and seniors would assign them with lighter workloads and that it's their right to be considered unequal in terms of work load and responsibilities. Many a times, peers and immediate team leaders are responsible for encouraging this kind of behavior. They treat women employees in special ways and become lenient in terms of work assignments. I have even some times seen them doing women team member’s tasks.
I have seen managers tend to oppose having women employees, as they associate them as under performer in case of firefighting or heavy workloads. They fear that they won't have sufficient reason to ask them from staying late although they can dictate male employees easily. In some cases, they are not left with any choice but to accept women employees in their teams. But what should mangers do when every 2nd employee is a woman? How do they mitigate project management risks in case their schedules go haywire and they are left with no other option but to work extra in already frozen schedule?
It’s important for both managers and women team members to learn lessons from Chanda's rise to highest position in ICICI Bank. Woman employees should live an active professional career. They should not lead a passive or supplementary earner in the family. There will always be pressure in life to manage work and family but an active career would give them confidence to balance both worlds.
Managers should build the atmosphere in their teams so that each member in the team is equally driven towards team goals and any wrong expectation on the part of male or female employees should be appropriately handled.

Let me know your thoughts and experiences when you have come across such situations in your teams.

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?

Finally Infosys goes for it

Finally, Infosys wants to acquire a company. After several years of refusing to acquire a company, Infosys has come out with a proposal to acquire Axon Plc, an UK based Consultancy Company.

        During last several years, Infosys denied the need of acquisition on the grounds of strong organic growth, lack of suitable companies that can be acquired etc but things seems to have changed now. With growing need to diversify business mix, reduce dependency on US market and better deploy 6000 crore rupees of cash pile up(on which Infy was earning 6% post tax return) and slow organic growth, Infosys seems to be thinking correct that time has come to grow inorganically.

        I remember asking question to Kris Gopalakrishanan, CEO Infosys, in one of townhall meetings regarding poor utilization of cash reserves and acquisition needs.  He wasn’t expecting such a question which shareholders typically ask in Annual general meetings and he did comment that this question is an AGM question. He answered in his conservative style that we don’t have to grow inorganically when we can achieve the same growth in organic way.

        By now internet is full of analysis on how good or bad the Infosys game plan is. People have reservations on this deal. They are worried about actual benefits out of this costliest transaction ever done by Indian IT Company. Some stock analysts have even downgraded infy stock on basis of likely downfall in Earnings per share in coming quarters.

        I think Infy management is one of the cautious, risk averse management among all Indian IT companies. I feel they would have taken several months to arrive at this conclusion. Infosys is famous for playing safe and I believe they must have exercised acute diligence in arriving at this decision. However, I feel there are several questions which could be raised against logic of the deal. Let me try to capture some of them over here:

Cash is precious:

When markets are slowing down, cash can be precious. When ypu have 100,000 employees and you promise to give them salary for one year without doing any business, 100% cash deal looks illogical. Why couldn’t have Infosys tried to raise debt on its balance sheet and partially fund the acquisition?

Expensive deal

Axon has generated profits of 37.4 million USD on sales of 378.3 million USD. So, Infy is spending 700+ million dollars to add just 37 million dollars to its bottom line. Doesn’t the deal look pricey? I guess this decision reflects the desperateness that Infy and other companies are showing to grow in Europe.

Other Markets

Japan is second largest market after US and Indian companies including Infosys derive very small fraction of their revenues from Japanese market. It would have been bold decision to acquire a Japanese company to penetrate in an impregnable market.

        We have witnessed many acquisitions happening in Indian markets. EDS bought Mphasis. Cap Gemini bought Kanbay. When market conditions are tough, it becomes conducive to make acquisitions in Indian market. There are too many Indian vendors small and big struggling to grow. I believe time has come for consolidation in Indian markets and Infosys could have tried to look inwards rather than outwards.

Margins

Infosys has always talked about preserving margins and maintaining them (27%) at highest level in the industry. How could you justify acquiring company which has margins of just 9.9%?

        These were some of questions which can make anybody skeptic about rationale of the deal. Let’s hope the deal goes through and Infosys achieves its goals of achieving lion’s share of big business transformational deals out of this acquisition.

Oily Conversation

These days, almost everyone discusses Gas prices, energy problem, and alternative sources of energy everyday. After some time, people will begin the talk with gas prices than with weather. Recently, Prasad, Sunil and I exchanged conversations on oil subsidies. An article in Economic Times became background of these conversations.
Here flows our discussion:
Prasad: interesting article. Oil is subsidized, but we seem to have the highest cost for petrol..... Wonder why? ;D
Sunil: assume you mean India by "we" and not Karnataka. The Govt. of India imposes a Central Excise Duty on refined petrol and diesel (apart from the import duty on crude oil) of the order of ~6%. Apart from this, each state imposes its own State Excise Duty and State Sales Tax. I believe these also run into high single digit percentages. Retailed oil still does not come under VAT for taxation purposes, which is the reason most states impose high duties. That effectively negates the subsidies I guess.
Myself: If new innovations for alternate energy don't happen then this issue is going to cause a global turmoil. Adding to Sunil’s point, one more reason behind Petrol being costliest in India is cross subsidization of diesel and kerosene with Petrol. Diesel runs tractors and tube wells in farms, so it has to be cheaper than Petrol. Kerosene is poor man's fuel, so it has to cheaper than Petrol and Diesel. And whole nation faces the consequences of this mad policy. People adulterate petrol with kerosene since kerosene is cheaper than petrol and India is probably the only country where every car manufacturer tries to launch a diesel version of car as soon as he enters in the market.
Sunil: I would disagree with "mad policy". Cross-subsidization is effectively the only way to provide a cheap source of power to farmers and the BPL population. Even after taking this into account, the petrol prices in India are not the highest in the world especially given that we are not a "net" oil producing nation. If I remember right, until a few years ago the oil prices were entirely controlled by the government and they had built up an "oil pool deficit account" of the order of many thousand cores (which was finally liquidated by former petroleum minister Ram Naik). The nation has done better without that additional burden. Adulteration of petrol is not so rampant nowadays. Most new vehicles will bust their catalytic converters if the gasoline is spurious. Auto drivers adding kerosene to petrol is an entirely different matter. Coming to manufacturers rolling out diesel flavors of vehicles, this again has to do with the price differential between petrol and diesel and is specific to India (and maybe some other emerging countries). Diesel vehicles obviously have lower maintenance costs in terms of fuel over a period of time. I'll put my environment-conscious-guy cap and say that diesel engines are also much more efficient than petrol engines.Again, if I remember correctly retailed petrol in India has a 5% ethanol blend. Countries like Brazil have already moved to a 25% ethanol blend. India is still struggling to get the Bureau of Indian Standards' (BIS) to accept the 10% ethanol blend standard (this was a while ago, not sure what the situation is now). I'll sign off a-la NDTV - "It remains to be seen if there is enough political will to implement cleaner fuel promoting policies"
Prasad:btw, new age diesel engines generate more power for the same amt of fuel, more efficient and cleaner (see wikipedia -Diesel engines are more efficient than gasoline (petrol) engines of the same power, resulting in lower fuel consumption. A common margin is 40% more miles per gallon for an efficient turbo diesel.)... unfortunately, we would probably have older diesel mixes which combined with older engines generates SO2 & particulate emissions. Noise is the other issue which is being tacked too in the modern engines....Blends are still iffy... they have a much lower calorific value and tend to clog the engines since they are thicker. Moreover, with the current food crisis, there are schools of thought against redirecting food generating land to fuel generation. The only plus in my opinion is that it is regeneratable (though at a high cost per some of the current research)
Sunil: Fuel from blend - ethanol can also be generated from molasses, which is the way it is done in India. And sugar-cane doesn't figure on anyone's list of staple foods :) And then there's Jatropha and bio-diesel.....
Sunil: India’s Warped Economic Policy - by Sunita Narain She stole my words! ;)http://www.rediff.com/money/2008/jun/06guest.htm

Champion of Spelling Bee

Sameer Mishra won 2008 Scripps National Spelling Bee championship on 30th May. It was another year in which lot of kids of Indian origin made into final rounds. Sidharth Chand, Samia Nawaz, Kavya shivshankar, Jahnavi Iyer and Sameer Mishra made into list of top 10. http://public.spellingbee.com/public/results/finishers They all love Math and Science. Most of them want to become doctors (that surprised me as none of them said they want to become engineer). For American Indian kids to make into finals has become a kind of trend since last few years. Their continued success is quite fascinating.
What makes these American Indian kids to do so well in this competition? Is it that they are following some kind of trend like Russian girls becoming tennis stars or is it about inborn talent which lot of American Indian kids share, that makes it possible for them to excel in this competition. It would be interesting to follow these kids’ career paths. I hope these kids do well in their lives and achieve their dreams.

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.

Better Know the restrictions

These days, USPS (United States Postal Service) is quite active as they are coming out with new products and services on regular basis to meet changing needs of customers. Recently they introduced Large Flat Rate Box for domestic and International Priority mail giving customers option other than Regular Flat Rate box. They also started Sunday delivery with Express mail. This is one of only its kind offering in Parcel industry as none of big three UPS, FedEx, DHL offer Sunday delivery.
USPS has been taking right steps after momentous Postal law signed by President Bush last year to fight with other carriers as they cannot sustain the business by just delivering letters to each and every zip code from Alaska to SanDeigo.
They have to compete aggressively with other carriers in profitable business of Parcels and their moves are in right direction.
I will transition to another topic which actually prompted me to write today. Few days back, I was surprised to read some of the restrictions that various countries place on Shipments coming inside their borders ( http://www.usps.com/mailpro/2008/janfeb/janfeb.pdf )

Here are some of seemingly absurd restrictions that I found.:
Australia: Goods bearing the name “Anzac.”
Costa Rica: Blank invoices.
Ireland: Hay, straw, including articles made of straw.
Latvia: Live animals except bees and leeches.
Russia: Color copiers.
Switzerland: Mini-spies (miniature wireless transmitters).
Tunisia: Playing cards.
Countries generally disallow arms, ammunitions, explosives and hazardous substances that are identified by United Nations. But what’s wrong with Anzac? And why is Hay is restricted by Ireland? Funnily, Latvia restricts live animals with exception of bees and leeches and Russia doesn’t want color printers to be sent to them. Perhaps, they are happy with monocolor printing.

Infosys Predictability

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Last week I came across Infosys Ad on CNBC, with same themes which are on show in this video. We used to wonder why Infosys never comes out with Ads on TV as part of brand building exercise as had been the case with likes of Accenture. We used to get answers that we don’t need to spend money on such campaigns. Keeping this point aside this video is truly motivational, inpiring and nostalgic. The bonds and attachments that you create with fellow infoscions is truly understood when you are 8000 miles away from the heart of company, representing it and upholding the values every single day.

I believe among all other top IT companies, the one true differentiator is strong value system. Every single day, strong values are ingrained and embedded in you and in my opinion; this is the best asset that you build when you work for Infosys.

The story in video is about adventure of 7 guys who thought of playing gamble and risking their successful careers leading to a company that becomes brand identity of nation after 25 years. This achievement is truly remarkable. But, this is half the journey completed. If Infosys wants to survive another 25 years, then it would need immense imagination and strategy.

Million Dollar Story

I just realised that it has been three months since I have scribbled.Some how I was stuck in other things and couldn't devote time to write.However,I was constantly reminded by some Friends of my full stop on writing...

I recently completed four years in the company.It has been fast ride with lots of ups and downs with varied experiences. On 4th anniversary, I mailed to my training mates in company who joined in the same batch.More than 60% mails bounced providing the proof of mass exodus, which has become norm for Indian IT companies.

This mass mail bouncing reminded me of comments by Subroto Bagchi,Founder of Mindtree Consulting, in one of his article in which he referred oldies in an organisation to be of two types dead trees or evergreen trees.I am not sure which category I fall into. A month back,I read an interview of senior employee in Pitney Bowes where in he made a point to jump organisations early in the career.

There are lot of counter arguments to these opinions but they give you enough food for thought.

I will switch topic and talk about http://milliondollarstory.blogspot.com/
which prompted me to scribble today. Ankur Shanker,DCE graduate is writing stories everyday on his blog and bringing readers on his site to earn money from Advertisements.He is doing this to fund his education at prestigious London School of Economics.

I was amazed to see his unique idea and media coverage that he has garnered.
He hopes to raise 100,000 USD but he is sceptic of meeting the target but hopeful of getting some monetary help in form of scholarships from corporates.
This story is yet another proof of love for education among young Indians and it also attracts our attention on huge demand and supply gap in Indian education system.

I recently got chance to visit one of the Government schools here in US.The infrastructure was mind boggling.We hardly have such good infrastructure in schools and colleges in India.On side of planet we have insatiable demand for education with poor supply and on the other side, we have such good schools struggling with drop out rates as high as 30 percent.

I hope Ankur can join LSE this July and dreams of millions of Indians for good education get realised one day...

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.

Sidhu's Quotes

Sidhu's sidhuisms have found place on brainyquote.com.

Here is one:
"There is light at the end of the tunnel for India, but it's that of an oncoming train which will run them over"

I am not sure whether these quotes are brainy but definitely they are funny.

Here are some of his brainy quotes:
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/n/navjot_singh_sidhu.html

IBM's patent on Offshoring

Few days back, I came across an interesting article by Mohan Babu on IBM's patent on offshoring process .

Here is the article.

http://infosysblogs.com/managing-offshore-it/2007/09/patenting_offshoring_jobs.html

Engg colleges-Need to engineer names

Recently, I came across list of engineering colleges in MP.There close to 83 colleges now.80% of these colleges lack basic infrastructure and are far away from any kind research activities.These colleges are owned by either by politicians or Businessmen.

MP politicians learnt to make money out of educational institutions from their South Indian counterparts. While states such as Tamil Nadu have close to 250 engineering colleges,Madhya Pradesh has lot of catch up do in their comparison.

Precisely, this is the logic quoted by most politicians, for opening new colleges but the logic doesn't consider the huge employment opportunities existing in South Indian states and none in their BIMARU(Bihar,MP,Rajasthan,UP) states

This apalling situatution is true for most of North Indian states.They opened new colleges and produced engineers but they forgot to attract companies into their states to employ these engineers.

While going through that list, I came across some names which were funny and made me laugh.
So here are some names.

• Technocrat Institute of technology
• Shri Institute of Science and technology
• Rishiraj Institute of technology
• Thakral college
• All Saints college of technology
• Nagaji Institute of technology and Management
• Gyan ganga Institute of technology
• Shri Dadaji Institute of technology
• Jagatguru dattatreya college of technology

In my opinion, People who opened these colleges could have named them differently at least, they could have shown some respect to Indian scientists and technologists.

American Telecom Mess

Government Fees and Taxes

1. California State Telecomm. Relay Svc Surcharge
2. California State Universal Service Fund
3. California State Excise Tax Surcharge
4. California State 911
5. California State High Cost Fund Surcharge
6. California State Deaf Tax Surcharge

Surcharges & Fees

1. Federal Wireless Number Pooling And Portability
2. Federal Usf Non-Ld Surcharge
3. California State P.U.C. Fee
4. Federal E911

Above is list of taxes and surcharges that is part of your cell phone bill.For the first time, When I saw this list ,I was surprised to see so many taxes and surcharges.What's the need of so many taxes? Couldn't the Government collect some kind of single tax which can replace all the other taxes and fees? Single Tax/surcharge is easier to manage both by payer and payee.Some of the taxes are obvious but some like California State Telecomm. Relay Svc Surcharge are difficult to fathom. What could be Telecomm Realy Svc? Only California state could answer.You have state 911 and federal 911 tax.What's the need for two 911 surcharges? You have many surcharges charged both by both State and Federation.

Most ludicrous tax is High Cost Fund Surcharge. Whose cost of funds are high? Have you seen somebody charging you because some body's cost of funds is high?

Overall,this doesn't present a good picture of American Telecom sector.Higher number of taxes impede growth of any sector.

Take notice of some other indicators of existing Telecom mess::

1. Incoming calls are charged to receiver of call.(Operators in countries like India where Average revenue per user per month less than $15 do not charge customers for incoming calls.)
2. Non presence of pan US operator.(AT&T has license to operate in 22 states only.)
3. Not enough competition among telecom operators.
4. Non existence of cellular network in some parts of the country.(Hard to believe but truth is that there are some regions which don't have cellular coverage.)
5. Strong lobbying by incumbents like Verizon and AT&T etc(Their recent opposition to Google's suggestion of shared spectrum.)

Things don't look enthusiastic for Consumers.

Regulators should step in and take some path breaking decisions to clear this mess.It's sad to note that sorry state of affairs exists in an industry like Telecom which is considered to be backbone of knowledge society.

Progammers Guild : FAKE JOB AD VIDEO

I recently came across this video which is sponsored by Programmers guild. http://programmersguild.org/

The association is a lobby group which recently rebuffed Microsoft's appeal to Senators for increasing the H1b limit to 300,000. Subsequent to rejection of Bill, Microsoft had to open and expand Vancouver,Canada office as it was finding difficult to place employees without H1 visa in Redmond,US office .
This is a interesting video in which fake job Ads posted by employers are discussed.I have no idea about veracity of claims that are being made in this video but at least it gives another perspective on H1 Visas.

Father:RickShaw Puller, Son:IAS

He is Govind Jaiswal,22,IAS(dream job for a north Indian common man).I got this inspirational forward from one of my colleague.

His story is captured in numerous magazines , websites and blogs.

Yet another story of hard work,continuous struggle,passion,perseverance and unbirldled faith on System.

A rickshaw puller's son can manage to become IAS should inspire millions of people who are living in hope of coming out of poverty and struggle.

It's yet another story which proves that miracles do happen in India where government functions are replete with corruption and redtapism.

I just could not imagine the risk that he was riding on as his father had to sell land for Rs 40,000.

Studying for IAS requires great concentration unaffected by any metro city distraction which he could manage successfully.

It's proud event for govind to achieve his dream which will ensure a decent living his family members in future.

But these miracles happen once in million.This reveals ugly face of Indian system which doesn't guarantee people with decent human life even after 60 years of independence.

It's shame to all of us as we are way short of providing people with dignified living.

Ever wondered why all these stories of exceptional achievements in IITs and especially IAS come from feudal lands of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.UP and Bihar are feudal parts of country where development is abysmally low,population is high,castesim is rule of day.In these societies, people with lathi, rupiya and taakat(power) are respected.Common people like Govind can not attain first two but can attain later by getting a job that wields power.

I hope Govind will work developmental agenda unaffected by politicians' pressure and ugly politics.

M D Pai,True Visionary

I recently read the interview of Mohandas Pai, director on the Board and chief of HR,Infosys.

Here it is . Do read it

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/life/2007/07/27/stories/2007072750020100.htm

I have always found him inspiring and visionary.If I am not wrong, he is only person in Senior Management who is not founder of Infosys. He is a glib talker and charismatic personality. Its pleasure to listen his views on Infosys and IT industry. After NRN and Nandan,If any body can leave audience spellbound,He has to be Mohan.He dreams big and believe in achieving them.

I remember asking him about non existence of ESOPs on billion dollar day celebrations in 2004, to which he hinted on creating Loyalty Bonus program which somehow is not there in priority list now.

I was watching PT Usha's dream to create Sports Academy in Kerala,India on National Geographic Channel. In that documentary, She profusely thanked Mohan's initial contribution of Rs 1 million.

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

5 worst companies to work for

Here is an article which lists top 5 worst companies to work for.

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/career/?p=159&tag=nl.e124

I am surprised to see Verizon in the list. New economy companies are hardly expected to be in such list but Verizon seems to be an exception.I am surprised not to see Walmart which is universally famous for inhuman conditions.

One thing noticeable is that 3 out 5 companies Home Depot,Best Buy,McDonalds all connect with customers directly.

How can they keep their customers happy with demoralised employees?

Fatima's Story

Recently came across this heart touching story. Read the below link:

http://harirhk.sulekha.com/blog/post/2007/06/pani-puri-funds-infosys-dreams.htm

India is land of hard struggle. In order to get simple things in life, one has to struggle hard.On one hand this makes people tough and strong to bear and live in this global world and on the other hand exposes the brutal reality of trials and tribulations that one has to go in our society.

Imagine how hard would have been for Salar to manage mind boggling Rs 60,000 for first two years of education. Credit is always for non needy.Poor is always hit hardest. Considering her background being a Muslim girl,married to a street hawker that too a at early age and living in non livable surroundings, achievement is unfathomable,incredible and superb.

Indeed, It must have been of proudest moment for fathima and Salar when she would have entered sprawling Infosys campus.

Hope, this struggle ends one day for millions of Indians

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................

Ugly nexus

Amitabh Bachhan is slowly become synonymous with controversies....

He was one of the charismatic actors who had fair public image.
A year back, when He was admitted to Hospital, whole country's attention was focused on his health.

Here is an article which captures the ugly nexus between the Super Star and Politicians..

http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/jun/12nazar.htm

Can any one imagine, Amitabh with such great personality to be associated with petty politicians like Amar Singh and Mulayam Singh?????

A Comparison between USPS and India Post

I recently went to US Postal Service Office and was curios to see how US Post office is different than Indian Post offices and hence, was busy noting the differences....

Immediately I noticed, Big Building,Clean entrance and blue colors, symbolic of USPS.USPS has long legacy. In its 200 years of existence,USPS has evolved alot. See its history below::
USPS History

It's a Government organisation with financial and business autonomy. People call it semi governmental org.

Interactive website ,Online label,shipping and tracking functions,Stamp Vending machines placed in post offices and retails stores like Walmart ,Operations in lines of carriers like UPS and Fedex( while trying to retain distinction of a Government org), huge technological spend, strong linkages with mail stream companies like Pitney Bowes http://www.pb.com separate USPS from its Indian counterpart.

USPS has a monopoly on letters and cards delivery. Federal govt granted this exclusivity to reserve some business in which USPS doesn't face any competition, while cross subsidizing USPS's obligation to serve rural areas and hinterlands.

If you enter Indian Post Offices premises, you will immediately find decrepit Betel coloured walls.You will go inside and will see crowded counters.Crowd is obvious if you happen to be in India.

There were lot of people on that day on my Post office visit. Everybody was lined up in a disciplined manner.All the stationery was properly placed that can hardly be expected in India(because orderliness is not to be expected if you are in Indian Offices)

You can expect Indian Post offices humming with noise, with sad, tired,unfriendly and ungrateful looks on employees. I noticed that USPS staff was greeting everyone with a friendly smile and a customer friendly greeting, What Can I do for you Sir/Madam?

Has anyone ever received a greeting like this in Indian Post offices??

I tendered my envelope, paid fee and got a computerized receipt.If I would do same in India, I will get either a paper receipt with rounded black stamp or a dot matrix generated small receipt containing bare minimum information.

Americans disparage USPS for being a slow decision maker and bureaucratic. I think they haven't experienced what bureaucracy and slow decision making is.

Serious and strong measures are needed to modernise Indian Post offices offering best services to customers and to make a strong, vibrant, agile entity.

India Post is in desparate need of Business and Financial autonomy. The Indian Govt. should corportise Post office functions, infuse technology in systems and focus on customers.The deficit financing can still be achieved as it is being done today but commercial objectives should drive India Post to achieve world class standards.

One Billion people expect much more than what they have got from thousands of outlets of India Post.

How long do we need to wait to see the transformation??????????????????????????