WHEN TRUTH IS REVERSED

It was sometime in the early nineties that one started hearing about this company. What was felt unique was the very name of the company. It was called Satyam. Satyam in any Indian language (including the original language Sanskrit) means Truth. What was surprising was that no one thought of a name like that before, to name a company, that too one in technology sector. Most of the names hitherto were jargon based. The motto of G o I is Satymeva Jayathe. The very statement is the ultimate truth. It says Truth alone prevails. One has always felt that it is simply not possible to do business always in hundred percent truthful ways. Thus I was really enamored in someone naming the company as Satyam.

Soon thereafter, Satyam came into prominence of having bought a dotcom company (Indiaworld) at a value that is 500 times higher than the company’s turnover. This happened during the dotcom boom and at the century changeover. Dotcom companies were evaluated on crazy parameters such as eyeball counts etc. This news really created a feeling of ‘awe’ in everyone. Somehow, it did not jell for me and I suspected some hanky panky in the transactions. My thoughts were getting clearer. Satyam is not that Satyam, I thought.

Time flew. The company came to the fore as one of the topmost technology companies of the country. With global footprint and fortune 500 clients, Satyam grew very well. The company crossed USD 2 billion turnover in the course of time. Its chairman was very highly rated. He became the E&Y global entrepreneur award winner. The company received Golden Peacock award for excellence in corporate governance. Five of its independent directors were the who’s who in academic circles. It was sort of, Satyam had arrived. Like everyone, I too was watching it.

Then came the news. That of Satyam’s board deciding to buy the controlling stakes 2 infrastructure companies headed by the sons of the Chairman of Satyam. The evaluation of the stock of companies was done at the highest level. And Satyam was going to spend a fortune buying them over.

It is very strange to hear the name of the two companies. They began with the name Maytas. Maytas is the word Satyam reversed. From the beginning, it looked as bad omen. By the way, what happens when you reverse satyam? The truth will become lies. And here too, it was the same. The investing public, the stock market, the regulators and the opinion makers were in unison in denouncing the deal as a shady one. The stock of Satyam tumbled, globally. (Mind you, Satyam is traded in NASDAQ & NYSE!). Within no time, the company reversed its decision but not before the well-known independent Directors of Satyam Board coming under the questioning glare and the ire of the public. The winner of Golden peacock in corporate governance taking an agenda centric decision like this was unthinkable to many. That too when the chairman and his ilk’s were owning only 6% of stakes of the company!

Two weeks passed. Then comes another hit and this one came from the World Bank. One of senior executives of World Bank dropped the bombshell to the media that some months back, Satyam was blacklisted for the next 8 years by the Bank for data theft. Lo and behold! There lies Satyam, brutally wounded, shattered, and in total negative publicity. At the time of making this post, one reads about Satyam trying to take the Bank to the court for making inappropriate statements. Now what is that?!

You must remember that all these are happening when the company is not doing well and the market conditions are bad. Satyam has been doling out pink slips to many of its employees. The company had started down sizing the employee numbers back in September 2008 itself.

One does not know what the provocation was. Some business dailies had been writing about Satyam moving out of IT to Realty. Whatever that be, the company is in some bit of trouble. Is nemesis catching up with Satyam? Or is it getting caught for its misdemeanors? Looks like within 2 decades of its birth, life is coming to full circle for Satyam. One thing is clear, after all, everything that happened inside Satyam was not truly satyam.

We are living in the days of perception being considered as ultimate reality. With PR positioning, advertisement and continuous corporate communication, today it is possible to create whatever perception that you want in the minds of stakeholders and the public. The name Satyam itself looks as the ultimate idea of a corporate blitzkrieg. But somewhere on the way, the stripes went away and the original colors got exposed.

Friends, what is truth? Is truth a created one or is it something that lies deep inside the object, original to itself, as very much part of it, like, say, the DNA.

For the time being, let us all pray; Satyameva Jayathe!

THE END OF THE RAT YEAR

It is almost the last days of year 2008.

It really does not require higher intelligence to state that the Year 2008 was indeed a bad one, globally. The year reeled miserably under the impact of the Great Depression 2.0, terrorist attacks, assassinations and global warming (North America never had experienced this cold a winter for a long time). Well before the year began, the Chinese predicted that the year 2008, being a RAT year, would be one of the worse years and true to the predictions, the year behaved.

With this year, many things considered as bad or good-for-nothing is coming to an end. The first is the Bush presidency. For eight years he straddled the Americans with the fear psychosis, went into war with Iraq and Afghanistan, almost began the third one with Iran, messed up the nation with financial and governance incompetence and sent USA into the an economic recession presumably far greater than the great depression of the last century. Thank God he is going! The world and of course US is waiting for good tiding to begin with Obama taking up the reigns of the country. Let us hope for the best.

How good was year 2008 for the India? Not all that great, I can tell. For one thing terrorism had come to stay in India. The Central Government had proved its incompetence in proactively handling the terrorist affairs. The whole country lives with the fear of a terrorist attack that can happen anytime, any where. Also, the terrorism is spreading into hitherto unknown areas that were once touted to be best example of communal harmony. Several arrests of suspected terrorists from many parts of Kerala prove the point. Now there is the emergence of Hindu terror groups in the country (e.g. Malegaon). This year thanks to global meltdown, the country’s growth had taken a beating. Industries such as IT, Tourism, Automobile and the stock market were affected very badly. The year turned out to be good for Indian cricket and Congress Party (it gained more states to rule) though.

What about Kerala and the year 2008? There is absolutely nothing to write home about. It continued to be bad time for the state. No economic progress. No industrialization and no nothing. It is as is where is. Of course we had the usual quotas of the financial frauds, the ‘sthree peedanams’ (woman harassments), the continuation of washing of the dirty linen in public between the stalwarts of the CPM party, and the poor standards in education & health. (the comrades will not like it a wee bit, particularly when they ensured a near cent percent pass in SSLC exam!). Towards the end of the year, the Chief Minister put the whole state to shame with his unintelligent, untimely and unwanted comments of the martyr NSG hero Sandeep Unnikrishnan. The less written about the present Kerala, the better it is.

Personally too, this was not a great year. There have been business slumps, cash flow issues and people problems at professional front. When some thing is settled some other thing will crop up from unexpected quarters. The year was tumultuous, to say the least.

What is eternal is HOPE. The hopes never die. In fact it soars. Even without a back up. It is on the hope that I rest, for a glorious year to come by!

Here is best wishes to everyone for a productive, joyful and fantastic Year 2009.

THE CARNAGE IN MUMBAI

The Indians finally had it now, in abundance. Earlier, every time a terror incidence happened in the past, the country took it in stride and went on with its life. Nobody really bothered about the size and substance of the terrorist strikes that happened. It is only after 10 seaborne terrorist belonging to the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (L-e-T) outfit easily invaded South Mumbai and did blood bath in the Taj Heritage Hotel, the Oberoi Trident, the Nariman House, the Chatrapati Shivaji Railway Terminus, the Cama Hospital and other places; that the Mumbaikars, the Maharashtrians and the Indians fully realized that in our country anything like this is possible anytime, anywhere. Our surveillance systems, warning systems and the security systems are so lax that even an untrained terror outfit can create havoc in the country.

I heard Shekhar Gupta, the high profile Editor of Indian Express commenting in a TV show that among the last 4/5 governments that had ruled India, this one belonging to Manmohan Singh was the most ineffective in handling country’s security. Every time an incident happens, the PM would condemn it and get on with it. There was no proper action taken (neither reactive nor proactive). Look at what had happened at Mumbai. The Indian police force with antique model bullet proof vests and archaic protective measures is fighting fully armored terrorists. Their AK 47 is replied with 303 rifles! I just saw footage of what happened in CST where the two terrorist were indiscriminatingly and continuously firing with their AK 47 and a police constable desperately trying to load his 303 rifle up to shoot them. I do not know if that cop is alive and I wouldn’t be surprised if he had been martyrered.

The Intelligence agencies had already started their blame game. The RAW & IB had stressed that they had passed on information to the security forces about the impeding seaborne terrorist attack at Mumbai. The Indian Navy, the Coast Guard and the Mumbai Police have been replying that the intelligence input was of generic nature that nothing actionable could be done on that. Every agency is trying to cover up, what else? Once the attack began, one must admit that Mumbai police fought valiantly. High profile officers like Karkare and Kamte led the retaliation and perished in the process. The country owes to them immensely. Though under resourced with antique equipments, the Mumbai Fire force did a splendid job, that too in front the spraying bullets. And that was indeed a higher call! The NSG commandos came in (thought late) to complete the annihilation of the terrorists and get Mumbai out of the siege that it was for close to 72 hours. They too had lost men in the process and that includes Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan. NSG did what is required of them and turned out to become the heroes, getting the gratitude of every Mumbaikar.

Every one - the people, the press and the experts were unanimous in their expressions of utter contempt of Indian Political leadership. Throughout the siege, on every channel, the scared and anguished citizen of Mumbai were asking what had the Government and the politicians done for such incidents not to happen, in spite of the fact that it had been happening at regular intervals in Mumbai. Looks like the Government and the leaders haven’t thought of the safety of the hapless citizen and took the intelligence warning very casually. India is full of these self centered, illiterate, corrupt and inefficient politicians. It is high time these good-for-nothing guys are thrown out. Hearing the comments of RR Patil, the Dy Chief Minister who was also the Home minister of Maharashtra, one feels ashamed of having such people ruling us. No wonder, so many high profile heads rolled after the carnage.

What is the role of Pakistan in all these? Well, its political leadership could not have done anything but the role of other powerful elements such as Army and ISI in this event cannot be ruled out. How true is former American Secretary of State Madeline Albright, when she said that Pakistan is an international migraine. Its leadership is helpless and clueless and its control on the state affairs is very minimal. The Jihadi groups are completely free and is continuing with their act of training militants, killing hapless citizens & foreigners and sabotaging democratic processes & institutions. The country is bankrupt with high levels of unemployment. The education is still through madrasas where the radical clergy is injecting every student with feeling of hatred for anything un-Islamic. The lone terrorist who was captured at Mumbai seemingly had confirmed the direct role of Hafiz Saeed, the founder chief of L-e-T and the former ISI chief in training them and indoctrinating the group. People such as Hafiz Saeed, Moulana Masood Azhar (founder of Jaish-e-Mohammed), Dawood Ibrahim (D company!) etc.,who are listed in the international list of banned terrorists live and move around freely and easily in that country. It is time some semblance of discipline and order is brought about in Pakistan. Will it ever happen?

As for India and its citizen, we continue to live with the anguish of the carnages, the sadness on the loss of our dear kith and kin to terrorism and with the eternal fear on what will happen next, where. This is a terrible feeling. It is time our leadership rose to the occasion, kept rhetoric aside to get into proactive actions of preparing the Nation, its administrative and security machinery to prevent such mayhem from happening. The people are waiting for such confidence building measures to happen.

I think it is time.

M. S. DHONI – A LEVEL HEADED CAPTAIN

India had vanquished the mighty Australia 2-0 in a four Test series with the other two ending in draw. Both the winning Tests had been captained by M.S. Dhoni, the first win at Mohali and then the last Test at Nagpur.

Media and pundits had written so much about Dhoni’s captaincy skills, motivatory abilities and winning strategies. He is developing into a solid cricketer and a quick thinking captain.

With the services of three of the fabulous four still available and with such wealth of talent in the country to assist him, Dhoni can rest assured. Here is all the best to him!

This blog is about the level headedness displayed by Dhoni in the last Test. In the last day of the Test (India was winning then), he went to Sourav Ganguly and tossed the ball to him and requested him to captain the side for one last time. The legendary Benagl Tiger, being in the last hour of the game, had already switched off and was amply surprised by the act of humaneness by Dhoni. It was indeed an appropriate gesture by Dhoni. Sourav had lead India with aplomb and had created a distinct identity for India in the annals of world cricket. Remembering that and paying tribute to him at the very last stages of his career in a befitting but innovative manner, Dhoni had won the heart of many.

The second instance was he inviting an already retired former captain Anil Kumble to join him in receiving the Border - Gavaskar trophy from the legendary former cricketing captains Alan Border and Sunil Gavaskar, in the award ceremony at the end of the Test. Anil having retired already, there was no need for Dhoni to have done that. But the goodness in Dhoni found a way of expressing his appreciation of Anil Kumble’s services to India by giving him the recognition due to him in front of spectators, media and officials, had won him everyone’s hearty appreciation.

Both the acts, a normal person would not have done. It is a human tendency to be selfish, particularly at winning moments. Normally the winner would like to take it all. Here is a lad who thinks otherwise. It requires real attitude to do that. The attitude of gratitude! Only people with such attitude can rise above petty thinking to do what Dhoni had done. It is indeed good for the country and the game of Cricket to have a leader like him

India can smile, for its cricket is in safe hands. This man will lead the country to the greatest of heights. He had begun well as a captain in twenty- twenty. He is doing well and in time to come, he could take India to super status, a status that was enjoyed by Australia in the immediate past.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni, you had endeared yourself to the country and everyone attached to the game, across the world. You kept the spirit of competitiveness and humility together.

India salutes the levelheaded Dhoni!

REMINISCENCE OF AN UNRECIPROCATED ACT OF KINDNESS

She was always seen in a white saree, mostly with the pallav covering her head, like a true Kerala Muslim lady of those days (four decades back), quite unlike the ones with borrowed fundamentalism displayed today. She was the lady of the house of a rich aristocratic Muslim household in our village with huge land and properties.

Never had I seen sadness in her face, for I had seen her so many times, even when she lost her very dear grandson who was 2 years old. The face always showed equanimity, never indifference. It was a sweet, positive, fair face. It always showed a concern for others but never with an an emotional shadow. Her face and her attire had a sense of calmness around them; more for the benefit of the people around her, for it calmed them beyond reasons.

For a long duration of time, we were dependant on her. We called her “Umma” that's what Muslim children in our village addressed their mothers. She was indeed an eternal mother, Umma or Amma, whatever one called.

The complete supply of rice, coconut and firewood for our home came from her side, at a cost, of course. But it always used to be substantially lower than the market price. Every week practically one of us brothers would reach her house. We traveled not through the main route, but we criss-crossed through properties of others. Those properties were not boundary-walled but had small shrubs planted at the boundary to make one understand the extent to which one's property existed. Her house had two components, the modern terraced one in the front and the old tharavadu (ancestral) house in the back. Surely, the two were interconnected. The action was always at the rear, the tharavadu house. The kitchen was there, so was the dining area. The house was full of servant maids, all of them Muslim women from nearby poor families. They came in the morning and left by dusk. They ate at least two meals there. Most of them carried food home for their children. Umma allowed it and she never forbade them, for she knew of the many hungry, innocent small boys and girls, waiting for their mother to return home by the sunset, to devour the rich tasty & fried delicacies that their mother made for Umma's family. It was a daily affair.

I would reach the thalam - open verandah at the rear - that the tharavad had, and would stand their for a while. Soon one of the servants would announce me to Umma “ lo, the teacher's son is here'. Umma will ask the servant to bring my basket in. Minutes later the servant would come back to us with the basket full of rice that was cultivated in Umma’s paddy filed. The rice amounted to 10 KG. Most of the time, I would say 'coconut too'. She will go back and come with 6 coconuts. I would put the coconut too in the basket, take the basket on the head and walk back home. We always bought on credit. My mother would meet Umma every month and settle the bills. Umma never kept the accounts and she always went by the statement reported by my mother. Never had she questioned the statement of my mother.

On the rear of the house, they had a compound wall. Outside it, there was the big guava tree always full of ripe big fruits. Many times, when I came out of the thalam and beyond the wall, I would stop; keep the basket aside and climb the guava tree to pluck the fruits. At times, through her window, Umma could see me but she would not say anything and that equanimous face never frightened me. I would pluck sufficient fruits, jump down, take the basket on the head walk back home, criss – crossing through the same properties, biting and chewing the guava fruit all along.

For considerably long time, we were the beneficiaries of Umma's kindness. She always encouraged us to study and helpfully never increased the price of rice, coconut and firewood that she supplied to us, though at the market outside, the prices had soared multifold. However, never did she make our family feel that we were under her benevolence (actually we were). I consider it as a Godly trait. In many ways, it was to be: in the white saree she wore, in the equanimity in her face, in the positivity that she emanated, the calmness she made us feel in ourselves, the help she rendered was truly God like. Though time went by (almost four decades now), I am fully convinced that she truly was a manifestation or Avatar born to help families in hardship, such as mine.

We did not get the opportunity to reciprocate the kindness that she had bestowed on us. She never expected it. Umma never needed it either.

Viewed from the constricted religious perspective of today's world, it may look strange to have a relationship as explained above, between a Muslim aristocratic family and an average middle class Hindu household. True help rendered without any expectation in return. A silent delivery of help and a dutiful acceptance of the same. In time to come, rarely will one find such relationships existing, due to the narrow-minded selfishness of people and due to intra-community pressures. But having gone through such a long-term experience and understanding it’s significance in these changed times, gratitude for this saintly person overflows within me, making me everlastingly indebted.

Also, I earn to see the world to go back in time to give away such wonderful examples of give and take.

I doubt if it will happen again, ever !

BARACK OBAMA – THE MAKING OF A LEADER

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: that all men are created equal " In 1963, Martin Luther King spoke of his dream for the benefit of his black and colored brethren in America.

Though it took long (many thought it would never happen), the dream has come good. By February next year the caravan of African American Barack Hussein Obama will hit Pennsylvania Avenue at Washington to stake the claim for the president-ship of America and occupy the White House, the single most seat of power and supremacy in the entire world.

May be then, we could call the presidential house: ‘Black house’, why not?

47 year old President Elect Barack Obama is a classic case of hybridism and diversity. His father was a Kenyan Muslim who later became an atheist. His mother Ann Dunham’s lineage comes from Native American, English and German ancestry. It looks as if Ann Dunham had a penchant for Muslims, as both her husbands (African Barack Obama Sr. & Asian Lolo Soetoro) were Muslims. Barack Obama’s step dad was of royal Indonesian ancestry and a Muslim by faith. His half sister Maya who is settled in Hawaii, is a Buddhist married to Canadian Chinese whose roots are in Malaysia. His half brothers and sisters through his father are living in Kenya, China, and England & America. His stepmother Jael (his dad’s fourth and last wife) lived long years in South Korea before reaching US to settle down. The list of the diversity is endless. The moot point is that it can happen only in the melting pot called United States of America, nowhere else. Only in US today can a migrant or his generation next aspires to become the head of the State. Rest of the world hasn’t grown up to reach that maturity yet. It wasn’t far when the king makers in US decided to have only a Protestant Christian, that too only white to have the right to sit on the gaddi. Indeed profound changes are happening in US.

Changes in the US are harbinger to the changes that would happen to the world. Today USA is indeed in a bad shape. It is standing against the wall and has its hands up. Rest of the countries of the world is truly focused on the developments in America, because the fate of all other countries is directly linked to the fate of America. George Bush had truly messed up the country economically and politically. Its foreign affairs smacks of authoritarianism and muscle power and lack finesse that is expected of a large mature democracy. No one can envy Obama. As the 44th President of US, he is going to inherit a country with an economy that is completely in shambles.

A lawyer by qualification, Barack Obama taught part time in the Chicago University Law School for about twelve years. He also worked in a Law firm. While teaching, he also became the State Senator of Illinois. At the appropriate time, he contested to the US Senate, representing Illinois and had the rare distinction to be a black Senator that too relatively younger. As a senator he was fresher and an inexperienced one. In the Democratic convention in 2004, the then Presidential candidate John Kerry gave him the podium to address and the speech endeared him to the party and people. The presidential aspirations of Barack Obama took shape then and he never needed to look back. The road ahead was rough and tough. He needed to ward of the great efforts of the determined Senator, Hilary Clinton (with full assistance from her former US president husband) to become the Democrat’s presidential nominee. The widely accepted and heavily decorated John McCain and his glamorous running mate Sarah Palin tried their best to beat him down with a negative campaign and he did not wither. And he won with a thumping majority to be the President of United State of America, beginning 2009.

If you trace back the life and times of Obama, you will realize that he had been preparing for the position all through his life. All his decisions in life and career were taken with a consideration of this aspect. He never wanted to be controversial. He also ensured not to carry the burden of the past. He did not want any skeleton in his cupboard. Because of this, many times, his associates saw a reluctant Obama when serious extreme issues were taken up. It looked like he would want to join the issue but he will bite his tongue. While he led people, student and his followers to debate, he never took an extreme position in any of the issues. Though he empathized with the poor, the minorities and the down trodden, he has never taken a tough stand as having done by Martin Luther King Jr. Therefore it needs to be seen how effective would Obama be when serious issues related to minorities, hunger and health reach his table for decisions. Or, wanting to be goody goody, will he stay at the middle path?

Obama knew that in America, it is possible for person of his background to aspire to be the president. He convinced himself and the American public that he could lead the change that America desperately needs. He mastered his oratory skills. His books, writings and speeches were very motivatory. He never coveted extreme cushy jobs and positions. He let go many opportunities that came in his direction to raise his living style. Within his means, he lived a decent life. And he bided his time. All through, you will notice that he had perfect sense of timing in his life and career. And then people say he was lucky too (?!).

Most of the religions speak of avatars or God’s representatives happening on mother earth from time to time, to mitigate her problems. God loved the world so much that he sent his only son Jesus to it to redeem it at its time of need. It is expected that he may come again. Bhagwan Krishna had taken many avatars from time to time to redress the world’s challenges (Sambhavami yuge yuge). Prophet Mohammed Nabi led his brethren and consolidated the framework of Islam religion. Bhagwan Buddha, Varhdhamana Mahavira, Guru Gobind singh…. the list is long and plenty.

I am not trying to portray Barack Obama as an avatar. But it needs an avatar to bring America back to its glory. There is a genuine, warm and concerned human being lurking inside him. He could bring it out to be the world most compassionate leader. Or, he could continue the synthetic image that he had created for himself to traverse the road to presidency. It is up to Obama. Time will tell whether he became an avatar or he ended up being an also ran!

THE NECROPOLIS

History sleeps underneath
The tombs with hieroglyphs on it
The powerful men of the ancient
Rest here, waiting to wake up – for journey to nether world

Tombs with pyramids above
And architectured chambers below
Laden with peerless hoards
Of gold, pearls, stones and Godly things – all intact, ever bound

Herein lay the kings who slayed a lot
Who wiped out civilizations asunder
Who drove communities to flee
To yonder places, never to return – concluding the exodus

In the chambers below the tombstone
The linen wrapped scented bodies
Of kings, queens and noble men
Looking for the spirit to get back - to be born again, in earth or heaven

To live again with those Gods to guide
With nectar, spouses and concubines
Thousands of women, boys and eunuchs
For pleasures of love making and orgies - isn't it all life about?

Having lived to ripe ages
Having ruled, built and destroyed
Having killed and wounded in return
Having seduced, conquered - and consummated

Yet keeping hopes of eternal life
Beyond death, rebirth and death again
Built up sacred cities of death
Like the city of spleandored living - with coffers full of loot and all

History sleeps, waiting to wake up
To be present, yet keeping the past
Exposing the contrast of time
Between the day past, today - and the morrows to come.

(In the second half of Septemeber 2008, I had an opportunity to visit Egypt. The above poem is an aftermath of the visit)

EMPLOYEMENT WITH MNCs

Something that happened to a friend of mine compels to make this post.

My friend works for large TELCO as a senior Manager. His wife, about 8 months back left a local firm she was working for a long time as a commercial executive, joined the branch office of a Japanese IT company excelling in Peripherals as a back office Executive. The nucleus family of the husband, wife and their kindergarten going daughter lives in an apartment in downtown Cochin. True to most of the youngsters of the day, my friend and family belong to the ‘upward mobile Indian’ citizenry.

A month back my friend’s mother got involved in a car accident. On their way to a famous pilgrimage center, the car in which she was traveling with her daughter and son-in- law met with a nasty accident. She was badly injured in the skull and underwent surgery soon after, at a nearby hospital. Later, she was shifted to a major medical facility at Cochin and she is undergoing recuperation, after swinging right and left many times, giving anxious moments to my friend and family. She is saved mainly duly to the timely, selfless and continuous intervention of a surgeon friend of us.

Due to mother being hospitalized with serious up and downs, my friend and his family were required to attend to her at the hospital. Both applied for leave from the job. Whereas my friend got the leave sanctioned, it was not allowed for his wife. The Japanese company manager told her that she hasn’t completed her probation of one year and the leave cannot be sanctioned. If she has to go, she could resign and go, she was given the ultimatum and was forced to resign from the job.

This sets me thinking. At one end we are talking about humanity, corporate Social responsibility and complete happiness of employees etc in modern companies, and at another end, we see such drastic steps being taken by corporates. Instead of consoling the employee for the great difficulties that she was undergoing, inhumanly, she was given the boot. It looks like in this Japanese company nothing else but performance mattered. ‘Productivity and profitability at all cost’ looked to be its mantra. How very sad!

This is a true outcome of the globalization that we are undergoing. These global giants and economic super powers had entered into India to capture the market with the sole aim of making money and nothing else. All they want is Indian market share. They are not worried about the ‘bloody’ Indians. The attitude that these companies management displays to its employees is that to slaves. ‘We are bloody paying you, shut up and work the way we tell you, else, get lost’ is the dictum. These companies do not have any compassion for its Indian employees. They are here to make money and the numbers matter to them, nothing else.

Amply, we see the pressure of these MNCs telling on its workforce in India. Money is there but happiness is not there. It is work, work and work. These guys are stressed out a lot. They have time for nothing. Life swings between the agony of slavery and the ecstasy of dollars! Medical problems (both mental & Physical), family problems (the warfare at home resulting in split homes), divorces, single parenting, alcoholism, etc are on the increase. In the end, these MNC employees will need all the extra money that they had saved to resolve crisis in life such as above.

Is this what we call life? Does it really make any sense to you?

IS WRONG RIGHT?

It is some days that I had blogged. Activities are hectic both at job and personal front. There are so much of activities but results are not often commensurate with the efforts put. Something is missing somewhere. It is time to introspect. May be the festival season would give time for that. Some level of re-thinking and restructuring is required on life, I guess. The only thing that flies by is time. There seems to be no time for anything. Often, one is forced to do things in half hearted manner due to paucity of time. Such things do not deliver any happiness or satisfaction. Time to take stock has come.

The news that one reads in dailies are confounding. Apparently every one is making money through means that are not credible, transparent and legal. The hardworking, meritorious, transparent and legal means to grow your business has totally taken a back seat. After the Himalaya Group and Santhosh Swami, the vernacular dailies are out with the story of a Sabarinath , who in very short span, had built up a huge fraudulent real estate and Financial enterprise using goondas and anti social elements to run it. As usual, sensations are built around the guy gifting BMW to girl friend!

The new Indian Express carried a story last week of the new Pakistan President with the title, “Mr.Ten percent is Pak President”. Short, rhyming and interesting title. As again, look at the way Zardari had reached the presidentship of Pakistan. Yes, he had reached there at the cost of his wife’s life. It is the sad and gory death of Begum Benazir Bhutto that catapulted Zardari into this high point in life. Though from traditional and feudal family, our man grew up in abundance, having things such as exclusive discotheque at home etc. Later, he married the most well-known lady of the world politics. When she was the Prime Minister of Pakistan, he was taking commissions on all deals that were happening in the country. He came to be called as Mr. Ten percent, for the cuts that he was collecting. I am sure his Swiss bank account must be stashed with funds. (Why do they need this much of money? May be, he could buy up people, army, politicians and Judges using the same). A couple of years back he was loitering in jail for criminal charges such as corruption and Murder – Benazir’s brother Murtaza is allegedly finished off by him, at least that is what Murtaza’s wife says-. What do one do, wish Zardari and Pakistan under him all the very best?

Look at what is happening in Zimbabwe. An old despot of a leader, absolutely unwilling to quit power. A country that was built and run by white men was taken over by Robert Mugabe and his socialist party about four decades back, to be converted into a messy, chaotic and pauper state. Everyone including Mugabe knows that nothing can be done by him to set right the maladies. He may need to have super human powers to restore normalcy in the country. The best is that he goes. But will he? One can only sympathize with the people of Zimbabwe.

The question therefore is, if there is a system or controlling power in the world (call it God, Allmighy, Godhead or whatever), which is supposed to take care of the villains and bring prosperity and happiness to the toiling masses, how come the villains are ruling the world now? A confounding and agitating thought indeed. What runs the world? Where is love, kindness and empathy gone? Where is the world leading to? What will happen to its people? Will truth, meritocracy, sincerity and hard work came back to prevail?

My guess is as good as yours. Amen!

FORTIFIED COMPANIES & FACELESS EMPLOYEES

One of the big disadvantages that the Internet/Telecom revolution brought to a customer is on dealing with companies when he has a difficulty with them. If you have a complaint on the product bought or service received, you are asked to call up a toll free number. The Tom and Jerry exercise starts thereafter. You will talk to a Toni or Moni or Soni (obviously, that is not their original names) and you have to give all the details (of purchase, serial numbers, warranty details, your details etc. etc….) before you get some response to the problems that you face. If it is resolved by this guy, you are indeed lucky. If not, God save you! You will be told that they would get back to you. Most of the Indian companies do not keep the promise. The escalated calls go and fall in the Arabian Sea! You call again, you hit the same Toni, Moni & Soni and you are nowhere. You ask them to connect you to their reporting officers but they are trained well to dodge the request. You ask for details of company’s higher ups and then you would realize that these Toni/Moni/soni is addressing your calls from an outsourced call center and do not have any connect with the company from where you bought and do not know anyone in the company. You hit a wall!

Recently I had an experience with the Internet broadband that I was using at home, provided by the largest business enterprise in the country, famous for ethical standards and customer focus. The service was disrupted totally and we had made 8 calls in 10 days to the same Toni/Moni/Soni, but of no use. They were parroting the same lines all over again. Even droppinging the name of the big man of the enterprise did not help. Several times in the midst, I called the regional office of the company to register the complaint and I always got directed to the Toni/Moni/Soni’s number. I went to the company's website to lodge the complaint and got a default reply stating that my complaint is registered and it would revert to us soon (never did that happen). Eventually I get the broadband connect back, after 15 days of the disruption of the service. In spite of being the ethical company with customer focus tag, this company did not take the escalation. You just are just a number and whom they have got to address you is the pappus, the Toni/Moni/Soni’s.

A professor friend recently narrated the story of a computer problem that he faced. The computer was sold by the company that claims to be closest to the customer. Two days after registering the complaint through the Toni/Moni/Soni route, an engineer landed up. He resolved the problem but by then there were two more subsequent problems which the engineer refused to attend stating that he was sent only for addressing the cited problem and nothing else. So the professor again went through the Toni/Moni/Soni route to have the next of the issues resolved. In all, it took only 10 days to resolve a set of minor problems which otherwise could have been resolved in one day through a normal direct route!

At our office, the commercial broadband connectivity went down seven days back. Compliant was registered with Toni/Moni/Soni of the company and nothing happened. This company is run by one of warring sons of the greatest of the entrepreneurs the country had produced. Since we had some business connections with this company, we talked directly to some of the senior officers there. Not only that nothing happened, one of them even justified by telling that it is possible for the DNS Servers to go down once a month!

The wonder of wonder is the notice issued by the same company in yesterday’s newspaper. If a big notice like this has to come out in the paper, one has to assume that it must be undergoing many challenges in this front. The notice looked very funny to me. It says once you register a complaint, if within seven days it is not resolved, you could call up a Nodal officer (whose details are given) and if within 10 days complaining to the Nodal officer nothing happens, you could go to the Appellate Authority with a written complaint.

What does this mean?

In this Internet age, in this nano-second based century, this company will still take so much of time to resolve matters. Therefore, if your line or website or broadband or billing or any service is down for seventeen days or more, you are advised d to suffer without getting any assistance from the company. Great!

God save us all from these fortified companies having faceless people!

THE GAMES MNCs PLAY

Most of you who had read my resume would know that I dwell in IT space, directly managing two companies, one in System Integration and the other, in software development.

Some of the recent developments that had happened in the SI Company that I run propel me to post this blog.

There is this MNC whom we represent in this part of the world. Though times had changed, this company is still in colonial mode. It will effect business only after receiving hundred percent advance, be the customer private or government. However as any other self-conscious company, it doesn’t mind going directly to the customers, bypassing the dealers. On one such occasion this company went to a major Bank and negotiated prices at ‘bone marrow’ levels. The Bank wanted multiple installation of the product across 150 branches and would pay only after completing the installation. In the fairness of things, it would take minimum ninety days to complete the process to receive payment. But how can our MNC supply without getting hundred percent advance? This was where the play came to effect.

The company’s local area manager (AM) calls me and asks me to attend a conference call with the regional manager (RM) based at Bangalore. Now the RM comes on to the line and very condescendingly tells me that he, based on the recommendations of the AM, he had decided to gift us this order worth INR 6 million. For us to execute the same, we would be given four percent commission. Whereas my principal would take the order directly, my company has to pay full amount as advance to it as coverage money. The money would be credited to us after we install the items at all these individual branches located at Godforsaken places across the country and after that, collect the payment from the bank’s HO and send to it. Many times in the conversation, he mentioned the GIFT aspect to me and the New VALUE that they had seen in us (!)

At the lowest rates of 1.5 % per month, by the time we collect the payment and get reverse credit from the principals, we would have incurred 4.5 to 6% expense on the interest itself (for three months). Now add the cost of installation, travel and follow up expenses. That would be another 2 % minimum. In effect, we would spend 6.5 to 8 percent to earn 4%. HOW DOES THE EQUATION LOOK? So much for its channel management! What are we, guinea pigs?

There is yet another case:

Some time back, we went into a jam with an institutional customer to whom we had supplied the most well known MNC IT company’s product. One year later to the supply, the customer realized that they ordered the item with a particular component but what had come inside was another. After verifying this, we went back to the company but it said that there is no chance for the mistaken delivery from them. Having not bothered to open up and verify at the time of delivery, with great difficulty, we organized the entire bunch of documents and communications of the past and submitted to them and then only the company relented. But said that it is a product technical issue. We asked as to why we were not taken into confidence when they decided to supply with a wrong component, they gave us a lame excuse which we are yet to understand. Now what? The customer wants the replacement (mind you, there are 50 numbers).We were advised by the principal that we buy this component from it by paying upfront and give to customer and it would compensate us just half of the amount (the other half is our share of the penalty) over a period of time in the form of commissions on new deals. It was unable to help us in any which way.

Now, we are the ones who had billed the item to the customer. If there is litigation from the customer, we are the one who will face the music. It is our goodwill that goes into dustbin. Eventually we had no other alternative but to oblige the customer. How does it look?

Before starting my entrepreneurship I had been working in IT marketing for about 15 years in reputed Indian companies and I too had handled dealers and channel partners. If there was a deal that had gone wrong due to our mishandling, I had always fought for the customer within my system. I do not know if that is ever possible for these MNC employees. These sales guys are paid fat salaries and immense incentives and they are used to the comfort and therefore, they have no other alternative but to sing the song for their companies all the way. ‘Customer, go to hell, dealer will take care”, That is the dictum these companies and its managers adopted.

And all these MNCs, in their annual reports will mention in BOLD GOLD letter about the highest customer satisfaction index that they had achieved over the year (who does the audit for them, I wonder!). And also the CSR (corporate social responsibility) that they have undertaken for the poor and for the environment, the earth, moon and the stars. The stakeholders sing ga ga for these MNCs and it’s shares goes the bull way!

Who suffer? The small time, small town reseller & dealer for whom this is the only livelihood. He is always sandwiched between the customer & the principal. He is the doer, sufferer & of course, the sucker.

Amen to that!

THE INNER STRENGTH

Yesterday (31/07/08) evening, I attended the inauguration of the kick-off activities of Kerala Management Association for the year, at the KMA hall at Cochin. The honor to do so went to Mr. S Mohan, Director-HR, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL), who is also the current President of Bombay Management Association. Mr. Mohan is a renowned HR professional and had put yeomen efforts in enhancing the professionalism within BPCL. One of the key objectives that he achieved there was the competency mapping of the personnel of the Corporation.

In his speech, he mentioned an initiative undertaken by his team as a part of the competency mapping exercise. This was to collate/compile the qualities and competencies of well-known CEOs in India, present and past. This required one to one interaction with business/management doyens such as Vindi Banga (HLL), Krishanmurthy (Maruti & SAIL), Naik (L&T), Rajinder Singh (NTPC) and many others of the same class.

While comparing the qualities and competencies of the above people with the western counterparts such as Alfred Sloan, Jack Welch, AG Lafley etc, Mr. Mohan said that many of the qualities and competencies matched very well. This confirmed that the essential qualities, values and competencies of efficient CEOs, are more or less the same, wherever they are. Though there are cultural differences between India & the western world, the running of a corporation requires these qualities and competencies, that is.

What attracted me in his speech was the additional quality/value that the Indian CEOs have over their western counterparts, which his team noticed. He called it as the INNER STRENGTH, which the Indian CEOs possessed. It dose not mean that the western CEOs did not have the inner strength but that was not an essential element of the CEO personality there, whereas dwelling in a developing economy called India, besotted with its pronounced diversity of culture, language and living, this inner strength played a major role in them coming through successful in their endeavors.

This element of inner strength takes us to the bearing of an Indian. For a nation which was highly spiritual from its genesis, a nation where Vedas and Upanishad’s originated, a nation in which multiplicity of thought processes on the way life such as Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Sufism emanated, a nation that had pure leaders such as Gautama, Bodhi Dharma, Mahavira, Adi Shankara etc in the earlier times and Gandhi, Vinobha Bhave, JP, Amte etc later, is bound to have this INNER STRENGTH in every one of its citizen, by default. You could call this inner strength many names. Call it Self, Atma, Consciousness or whatever; the inner strength lies in every individual of this great nation.

The Indian CEOs mentioned by S Mohan, realized their inner strength and relied on it to a very great extent, in the execution of their vocation. No wonder they came to be noticed as very eminent CEOs of the country. The fact is that, in all of us lies this great INNER STRENGTH and it is unto us to realize it, bring it to the forefront and rely upon it in the execution of our own Karma.

Try it, people.

22ND JULY 2008, A WATERSHED DAY FOR INDIAN DEMOCRACY

The 22nd of July 2008 will be remembered as a day of turning point for Indian parliament democracy.

The UPA Government led by Mr. Manmohan Singh sought the vote of confidence in the parliament after the left parties withdrew the support on account of the Indian Government proceeding with the nuclear deal with the United State of America. Politics makes strange bedfellows and with the help of Samajwadi party, the Congress led government won the vote of confidence with 275 votes coming in their favour as against 256 votes polled by the opposition, which include BJP, NPA allies and the left parties (again strange bedfellows, the BJP & the Left!). About 10 MPs abstained from voting, a majority of those came from the opposition parties.

For the last two weeks, the media was agog with the horse-trading that was happening in New Delhi, the capital of India. The rate quoted for each Member of Parliament (MP) went up to the extent of INR 250 million. Every party (not the congress party alone, it includes Samajwadi party, BSP, Left parties ...all) had tried its luck to buy the MPs. The total number of parties in Loksabha including the eeni meeni local parties (having single MP!) comes closer to 50.

Yesterday was indeed a day of shame for the Parliament and the Indian democracy because of the dirty act that happened in the afternoon. Three MPs belonging to the Bhartiay Janta Party smuggled in a briefcase containing INR 10 million brandishing it as the bribe received from the Secretary General of Samajwadi party, Sri. Amar Singh, for cross voting or abstaining. Whether there is truth in it or whether it is trick played by the BJP to malign Congress Party and the PM Mr. Manmohan Singh, one does not know. But suffice to say that 22nd of July 2008 will be written in the annals of Indian parliamentary democracy as the black day.

The Congress had won the trust motion with more votes than it expected (the expectation was 272 votes, Congress got 3 more). The margin was 19 votes and it really looked pretty good for the party. With the help of the rule that the speaker will not admit another non confidence motion for the coming 6 months, may be, Manmohan Singh could take up the courage to complete all those pending decisions that he did not take due to the pressure from the left parties in the past. One does not know how long will Manmohan Singh will want to rule before dissolving the parliament. It looks like it is really not an appropriate time. Developments in the coming months in the polity will decide the election dates for Indian Loksabha.

With this, Manmohan Singh had indeed emerged stronger. From a bureaucrat to the Finance Minister and then to the Prime Minister, every body called him a lucky person. But now he had really become a politician. His speech in the parliament (not made fully, it is available in PM’s website) is an indication of it. He spared no words to malign the opposition leader L K Advani and Prakash Karat, the Gen Secretary of CPI(M). Let us hope that now he can take decisions without pressure (of course, Sonia is there!). For a man who wrote India’s turnaround story in 1991, it is the ideal time to take the country from strength to strength. While people admire him, all that he lacks is grass root support within the party and probably it is time for him to work towards that.

At this rate, one is not sure if Mr. L K Advani will get an opportunity to lead the country. For a person in politics for close to 6 decades, PM-ship is the only thing that eludes Advani. The saying that you cannot get everything you wish, is quite apt here. Here is best wishes to him!

There is yet another person who will have to work hard and do a lot of explanation and that is Prakasah Karat. It is his steadfast tough stand that precipitated matters and led the situation to this extent. One is not sure if Harkishen Surjit was the General Secretary of the party, things would come to this pass. Karat is not flexible and inflexibility is a bane for a politician. The Bengal gang led by Jyoti Basu, Somnath Chatterji and others will haunt him for sure. He is definitely not on a strong wicket and has to play his cards very carefully for consolidating his position in the party and among the left front constituents.

It also looks like Congress party had finally found a partner more appropriate than the Left front and the BSP. Amar Sigh of Samajwadi is a perfect foil to the Congress veterans. His shrewd game planning will do the Congress a world of good. Though one is not sure how much will it cost the Congress to keep him.

One also hopes that that the ding dong parties having one MP, two MPs will get wiped away by the electorate in the coming elections enabling the ugly horse trading practices to come to an end and also for the smooth forward movement of democracy in India. The Ajit Singhs and Deva Gowdas must see the writing on wall and retire gracefully from politics or align with larger parties after throwing their ego in the dustbin.

Having watched the parliamentary proceedings for some time yesterday, I must admit that the quality of debate in it was above average. One enjoyed the speech by Rahul Gandhi and Omar Abdulla. Lalu Yadav, as usual was in his elements (all said and done, one must say hat’s off to this guy for his ability to lighten up any tough and difficult situation)

How is it going benefit the India? Nothing in short term. In fact, inflation still is galloping to reach 12 mark and beyond. Cost of living indeed is getting hotter every day. There is no immediate respite in store. On long term, the aftermath of the agreement delivers energy security to the growing country and probably that should help the growth faster and easier.

Though we are the largest democracy in the world, this free for all democracy style must come to cease. It is time India matures as a strong democracy.

Here is hoping for a better and stronger India, both economically and politically

THE GEN.Y AND THE VALUE SYSTEM

India is the land of youth. In no country of the world will you see such high percentile of youth to the total population. Consider the ageing west and many other nations in different continents, including the mighty China; it is India that has the largest number of youth available. A curse that we called as population explosion in the past, today turns out to be our distinct advantage!

The question is, what would we do with so much of youth? Our government and planners have to make available career to them as they come of age. Idle youth could be as good or as bad as the sparkling flame, for while the flame can give light, it could also burn-up and destroy anything around it. If there are no jobs in the country, will the nations of the world allow them to migrate to other countries? Tough question. No answers now. It is something yet to evolve.

Currently, educated youth is really enjoying the advantage. The country as the IT super power, is also gaining name as the back office of the world. ITS & ITES is going great guns and most of the youth is in it, and they are on the roll.

In the course of these developments, I am also watching the changing values displayed by the youth. Take it as the lamenting of a man belonging to the past, I cannot help but post it to seek the reaction of my readers.

I see the youth today running after the materialistic things. In matters moral, our youth is slipping very badly. As said by Mr. D R Nagaraj, Former Chairman NIPM, the “boys and girls” of today are full of selfishness, greed, disrespect to systems, carelessness, disloyalty and impatience. Aping the west in style and living, they are into cohabitation, dating, LIR and making merry. And on matters of global priorities, they show scant respect. Things as urgent and important as global warming, waste management, child labor etc do not figure in their thoughts. Actually they have no time for these. It is as if world is going to end tomorrow and they are trying to make the most of it, toady.

One does come across many students and job seekers. It is surprising that most of them are not nursing any dream. They are not planning their career. They drift from one job to other without weighing the worth of each.

In matters of spirituality they are nowhere. Good living to them is not of deriving of happiness but frolicking in materialistic comforts, the ACs, PCs, mobiles, iPods, automobiles and parties and all. There is no attempt to gain purity of body, mind and thoughts. (Neither do they understand that attaining these qualities will lead to good living, happiness and peace). All are part of the whirlwind. Life is indeed tumultuous for them. I could see the attendant stress writ large on their faces.

I took the attention of a friend of mine who had spent more than one and half decade in USA and is now back in India, to this aspect of Indian youth. His observation is as good as mine. I then asked him whether the youth in US is like this. His answer was a firm no. He says he see lots of dreaming and planning in the youth in US. Perhaps things such as recession and realization to the fact that many other countries are catching up with them is giving them some amount of apprehension, enabling them to resort to planning and activities to reach their dreams.

Sages and Gurus of India had been predicting a renaissance and growth of human qualities. Aurobindo said that man in the course of time would evolve into a Supramental being with higher level of intellect and purpose. Osho Rajneesh with his radical thinking (while chewing up religions and Godheads), said that man would evolve into Zorba the Buddha (someone who will enjoy the vivacious pleasures of this life but will eventually prepare himself to achieve enlightenment). In both, there is an understanding of a new generation of human being, active at achieving higher levels of intellect and mental well being.

Looking at the current generation, I reserve my comments. While I would desperately want the higher evolution to happen in people, I am disappointed at the loss of values and the degeneration of life.

Perhaps I am getting un-necessarily worried. Perhaps this is a passing phase. What we see now may be the indulgence in the windfall that had unexpectedly reached our doorsteps. Post this, may be things will get back for the higher evolution to happen.

Here is hoping that the Generation Y will realize its true potential and strive towards reaching higher mental growth and attain peace and happiness.

As a father, and as a well-wisher of the youth, I pray this happen.

A HECTIC WEEK THAT WAS

It is some time that I made a post. Both at personal and professional front, I have been quiet busy over the last fortnight.

In fact, last week was full of activities. The week started on Sunday the 22nd with the KMA Golden Jubilee valedictory function in which I received an honor award from the Kerala Governor, H.E Shri. R L Bhatia, for helping to build the institution of KMA and for contributing to the management movement in the state, it was indeed a soothing moment to have it received in front of friends, colleagues and corporate chieftains.

Later in the week, on Wednesday, there was the seventh installation meeting of Rotary Cochin International, a club I chartered in the year 2002. It was more happy an occasion because the seventh President is my colleague in Team Frontline Ltd, Mr.V. Prashanth Menon. I got the opportunity to introduce Prasanth Menon and from the feedback of the audience and from Prashanth, it seemed every one liked the intro.

On Thursday evening, with the President of ‘Better Cochin Response Group’ Shri. S Gopakumar, I called on the District Collector Mrs. Beena. I had known her earlier through our association with ISTD. Our President laid before her the catalytic efforts being put up by the Group to help Cochin manage of traffic issues and solid waste management issues. A project related to reducing the traffic jam at South over bridge was detailed to her.

On Friday morning Better Cochin Response Group had a breakfast meeting at Sarovaram Hotel on the NH Bye pass. In addition to 15 members from the group who are drawn from various walks of life, other personalities who had attended the meetings include the Deputy Mayor (the defacto Mayor) of Cochin, The Chief Town Planner of Cochin, The Executive Engineer of State PWD in charge of the city roads, The Engineering Section heads of Greater Cochin Development Authority (GCDA) and Cochin Corporation. The discussion ensued regarding the projects on the reduction of traffic congestion at South over bridge, a cross-over bridge at Shanmugham Road, bus shelters with public convenience stations at MG Road etc. We also had the representatives of a major signage company based at Delhi who were invited to present their plans of helping out at these projects on Build Operate & Transfer (BOT) model. It was indeed a very fruitful meeting.

On Friday afternoon, there was the Core Group Meeting (CGM) of TiE Kerala Chapter. This was a good meeting with much improved attendance. Charter member retreat and other SIG functions came for discussions. As in other years, this time the Charter member retreat is planned on August 2 and 3rd at Marari Beach Resort Alleppey. I look forward to the same. It is quiet long that I spent some quality time with the Charter members.

Same day evening, we had the election and Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Kerala Management Association. This year’s election had been very tight and well fought between 15 nominations for eight seats; most of the nominees were big wigs of the State on the management front. Most of the members whom I had cast my votes had won, particularly, Dr. Jyan of BPCL, Mr. K N Shastry our current Secretary, Rajmohan Nair of LIC, S Gopa Kumar Head of the Factories of Apollo Tyres Ltd Kerala and Jayathilakan, formerly Chief Engineer of FACT who was my Secretary when I was the President in the year 2003 . I am very glad about the results. I also got an opportunity to felicitate the President & secretary, M/s Ravi and Shastry. Normally this is not done in KMA as our managing council members and past presidents are very miserly with words of praise. I wanted to break the tradition and I am glad that I did it. In fact, we gave a standing ovation to the President for successful KMA Year in 2007-08. The dinner at KMA was attended by more that 150 managers and I got compliments from many senior members for taking a bold step of felicitating the President and the Secretary.

All those things had happened in addition to my work front where there was series of meeting both internal & external. Our Sales Quarter is coming to an end by this month end and now we need to schedule quarterly review meetings and so on. At the office I got an opportunity to mentor Mr. Avinash Krishnan, CEO of Qanta consulting, a start up company trying to specialize in e-commerce, SEO and web based marketing. We have to meet again for some more times.

One event I missed was the Board meeting of Kerala Venture Capital Ltd. at Trivandrum on Friday last week as it clashed with other Cochin based activities.

Overall, it was a jam-packed week, full of activities. What made this week more special was that I could undertake or be part of lots of meaningful activities that are looking to meet some noble objectives. I do feel happy at the turn of events.

THE SPIRITUALITY CIRCUS

In the last posting titled “My Mumbai Visit”, I had cited our experiences during our visit to the ‘happening city’ of Mumbai including that of the day when we had taken for Mumbai Darshan. I had mentioned how disappointed we were with the Mumbai darshan. The last part of it was visiting the Hare Krishna Mission temple @ Juhu/Versova. A small experience therein, I thought it worthy to be mentioned here. Honestly, I do not know if this temple really qualifies to be a darshan point. There are so many historic spots that the travel agency could have taken us to. Anyway, we were there at their mercy. 

 It was indeed very crowded at the temple. We were queuing up to see the Deities. The main one was Krishna & Radha together and there were so many other sub-deities. That day, in the evening, there was this special prayer and pooja connected with Narsingh avatar of Vishnu. Having nothing else to do (we were given more than an hour for the temple visit) and being pious people, we decided to sit through the prayer for sometime. There was the ‘homkund’ and some of the Hare Krishna sanyasins were sitting around that. At another side, there was this main prayer singer with his harmonium surrounded by sub-singers (again, Hare Krishna sanyasins). And there were some more of them hovering around, the very look of them showed that they were senior sanyasins. They had a managerial look about them. 

The prayer was about to start. Then there were special dignitaries who were the invited guests of the mission. I saw about thirty of them, all decked in costly silk cloths, both men and women, sweating profusely. Behind these VIPs, were their ‘chelas’ (ADCs) with a requesting look of “Saheb / Sahiba is here, please get him/her to be seated properly please”. 

And then I saw the politics of the body language. There were these ‘yajman’s of the Pooja (the senior managerial swamis) who were giving scant attention to the VIPs. ‘Who is bigger, you or me?’ was in their eyes. The junior swamis were trying to accommodate the VIPs but were embarrassed because the approval of the senior swamis did not come about. The VIPs were sweating and standing awkwardly not knowing what to do. The VIP chelas were getting terribly pale on their face because their bosses were not getting accommodated well. In between, the main prayer singer swami started singing the bhajans and the sub singers and other disciples started their accompaniment of that. There was this Pooja swami looking very angry because his chanting was not heard by any. Around the whole premise were so many people with high decibel noise around them. 

Suddenly one heard the main prayer singer swami announcing that a missing boy was found, requesting his parents to come and take him home. There was this small child with the security guards wailing loudly for his mother. It was indeed chaotic. It was the last place where one could feel the ‘bhakti’. All of it looked like a circus with lots of clowns around, doing things in their own way, without any synergy. Being from a background of very conservative and orthodox temples and rituals, I was really amused to see this expression of ‘bhakti’ by a movement that is very well known for their stereotype culture. 

My impression of the organizational skills of the Hare Krishna mission seriously took a dent. “Let us get out of this circus”, I told my family and we vacated the scene immediately. What I saw was an over-expression of the materialistic definition of spirituality. Definitely this is not what our saints meant through the Vedas and the Upanishads that they created, to make the man a spiritual being. What is practiced by the cults is exactly opposite of what was preached by the Rishis. Any thinking person will be shocked to see the ostentatious, materialistic expression of spirituality that we see in places such as above. I worry that these things only will degenerate man into lower beings.

MY MUMBAI VISIT

It is after a fairly good gap of time that I had visited Mumbai. During the Time I was employed, I had plenty of opportunities to visit the city and get kicked by the sheer vibrancy that Mumbai (then Bombay) has to offer.

Mumbai is called the financial capital of India. Mumbaikar takes pride in calling the city as Shanghai of India. Mumbai city never sleeps and runs all time. Like it is said in the old Akbar Khan Movie, Hadsa, ‘Yahan roz roz kahi mod mod par hota hai koi na koi hadsa’ (At all times, somewhere, some incident happens). Mumbai has the good, the bad and the ugly in it. And above everything, Mumbai has Bollywood. The dream factories churn out hundreds of movies and TV serials every year with songs, dances and big melodrama in each. People get their nirvana by seeing from outside the homes of the Bachans, Kapoors, Chopras and the Khans (there are so many of them, all claiming to be King Khans!)

I went to visit Mumbai with my family. I told them that I am taking them to the largest yet the most industrious city in the country. My pep talk to them included comparisons such as ‘if you had not seen Mumbai, you had not seen India’, ‘before you see any mega polis, you must see Mumbai’ etc. I believe this really set up higher expectations!

I do not know whether there was expectation mismatch or there is true degeneration in Mumbai, we were not very impressed by what we saw. After seeing the city from the top and from the sides, my daughter said that all the apartments of Mumbai come with a free slum view. Very true indeed! Earlier, it was sea view! From time immemorial, there are chawls and the shanties in Mumbai. All are still there, growing big. Nothing had improved, really.

When you are in Mumbai, you spend maximum time for traveling. Time flies inside the buses, trains and the taxis. On a worse day, one could see morning, noon and the evening of the day, sitting in a taxi at Western (or Eastern) Express Highway of Mumbai. The wise men said, enjoy the journey. How true when you are in Mumbai! (particularly when you don’t have any other option). More than half your life in Mumbai would be wastefully spent on travel.

We spent a day for Mumbai Darshan. We did book in the top end Volvo bus run by Neeta travels (we were advised that they are the best). We chose a Sunday for the darshan so that we could avoid the traffic and see more. I must say it was very disappointing. The bus had a guide who was insincere and lazy. Though it was full of outsiders (including Chinese & westerners), he went on with his low tone in Hindi on a mic that was defective. He never accompanied us to the monuments to tell us its history. Thank God, I knew little bit on Mumbai and that saved the day for me, with my children.

During my interactions with a variety of mumbaikars, whether he is shopkeeper or a driver, an officer or a doctor, I saw a level of impersonality in everyone. And a level of insincerity too. Their body language tells that they are here to make a living and are not concerned with anything else. Whether it is a service or a product, it is delivered in an uninvolved style in Mumbai. Not serious. Not very concerned. The attitude is ‘theek hai, lelo na to phuto (OK, take it or leave it)’ like. Mad world it is, nobody has time for anything.

There are thousands of people everywhere. As soon as the sun rises, people come out of their foxholes. Every place, every road, every junction is a sea of people. If you would you like to see worthless lives all around, come to Mumbai. There are plenty of them. In fact, the majority of the sixteen million of them - the official population figure of Mumbai.

We squeezed in a day to travel to Pune, primarily to see OSHO’s ashram, and that is another story. On the way to Pune, sitting in the bus, a view that I had seen at Nerul, will everlastingly stay in my memory, that of an old (very old, wrinkled) woman cleaning her utensils in the black dark open sewage water that flows through in front of her hutment. That says it all, about the life and its worth!

It is true that Mumbai is the place in India that offers the best opportunity, for money to be made and to make dreams come true. Huge conglomerates are headquartered here. The big corporations, the banks, the stock exchanges, the ports, the bollywood, all are there to help make your day. However, there is plenty of scope for improvement for Mumbai, in everything it has. At present, Mumbai is nowhere near the city that it is compared with (Shanghai), For that to happen, Mumbai has miles to go and of course, that requires a big change in attitude too.

THE ‘POLICE RAJ’ IN KOCHI

There are still countries in the world controlled by military and armed forces. One understands that living in countries such as Myanmar is such a misery for its people. However, in a democracy such as India too, there are several instances of the police raj, employed by brutal undemocratic rulers, in many States. The exploits of police in places such as Nandigram in Bengal and many parts of Bihar & Orissa still break our heart. It is either the over-action by the armed forces or their absolute inactivity, which gives warmongers a free day.

I see something similar happening in Kochi, Kerala. This has been there for more than a year. Everywhere one sees cops. This doesn’t mean that they are everywhere trying to keep up the law and order or catching the thieves. They are everywhere on the highway, the traffic junction and at different unobtrusive places in the guise of trying to catch drunken driving, for using mobile phone while driving, wrong parking etc.

Some time back I was driving back to home after picking up my German friend from the airport. It was night. On the way down, which was about 30 KMs, we were stopped at 3 places by the cops to smell us to see whether the driver had (it was me driving) taken drinks. My friend was astonished to see so many cops on the road. Being a regular visitor to Kerala (he visits at least once an year) he was amazed to see this change and asked me why it is happening. I told him about the increased efficiency of Kochi cops in catching people for small and silly trivia and the target that they had taken to increase the state exchequers with money collected from the fines that they levy. It is indeed true. The official collections of fines on these types of offences had increased from Rs. 7 million in 2006 to Rs. 27 million in year 2007 for Kochi alone. Please do not mistake that suddenly the offence went up in Kochi. Nothing like that. It is that the target of collection had gone up. When this is the official amount, you must also take an approximation about the ‘unofficial’ collections that they do. I am not venturing to quantify that. Suffice to say that the amount is nothing small. The only difference is that it gets distributed.

It is indeed a fact that the cops are overdoing it. In many instances, they are causing interruption to public and vehicular movements. The nuisance value is very high. People and commuters silently suffer.

The method employed by the cops to catch the drunken drivers is so un-scientific. Mostly they do not employ the breath analyzer but the cop smells out whether the driver is drunk. Therefore if the driver has taken smaller doses, or he has taken milder forms of alcohol (such as wine) or if he had taken drinks yesterday only, does not matter. He gets caught and then the hell starts for him. It takes not less than 24 hours to complete the process of booking (the traffic cop station, the hospital, the FIR etc all). To top it, the misbehavior of the lowly placed constables! These guys never know a good word to speak. It looks like that it is mandatory for one to know all the foul word in the language for one to become a cop. I was indeed amazed by this unique methodology of catching drunken driving. I think all the cops who smells out would immensely qualify to work in the police dog squad, with their amazing lung and nose power!

Today in the local daily I read the lamenting of the Inspector General of Police Mrs. Sreelekha IPS. She had confirmed through writing in the public medium (news paper) that the cops are doing a terribly wrong thing and it does not augur well for the image that the police must keep. If an IG cannot take on the cops, think about such docile and powerless citizens as us?

What we see happening here does not actually happen in any developing society. In fact in countries like US, UK, Singapore etc one hardly sees the cops of the roads. But when there is an offence, they are immediately there. Such is the system and their efficiency. Most of the cops are well behaved and they explain to you everything in details. Compare that with what we see here. People dread talking to constables and inspectors, as they do not know what to expect from them.

It is such a pity, living in cities such as Kochi. All one can pray is “be God with you”

FENCE EATING THE CROPS

For about a week, the Kerala vernacular dailies and TV channels are having a field time. They are behind the story of Santhosh Madhavan alias Swami Amrita Chaitanya. Having plenty of masala, the stories of his fraudulent activities, get rich quick methodologies and his relationship with the higher-ups in politics, cinema and in police are sensationalizing Malayalis (as usual !).

From time to time, plenty of fraudsters had appeared here. They had come in many forms including the NBFC companies, Time Share companies, Jasmine/Teak Plantations, Network companies, Goat/Cow firms…. the list is endless. Most of these nefarious endeavors had received political patronage. In this current case, there are former ministers involved. Political patronage, in turn had resulted in Police patronage. Our friend, a college dropout from an interior village in Idukki, had prospered to a billionaire spiritual person, in less than 8 years. If the press reports are an indication, it looks like Santhosh Swami is involved in shady transactions of above INR 5000 crores. Tremendous!

Like the famous humorist and originator of ‘Ottan Thullal’ Kunjan Nambiar wrote, kanakam (money) and kamini (woman) are interlinked in such cases. Many men and women have been willingly part of it, simply due to the lure of money. But it is always the poor and downtrodden who really suffer out of the misdemeanors of such quick buck fraudsters. The news reports of swami looking after the stay and education of about 8 minor girl students, only to be used for sexual gratification for himself and his ‘highly connected’ friends, are repulsive.

Over the last two decades or so, I have been observing the frequent rush of Malayalis into the waiting hands of swamis, tantrics and God men. Most of them do this out of disappointment in life. Malayali’s expectations have reached unreasonable limits. But he is not willing to sincerely work towards it. Instead, he takes short cuts and quick buck routes, only to lose out in the end. The resultant frustration is what takes him to God men, astrologers, temples, charismatic prayers, group bhajans, evangelism etc. Unreasonable craving and greed can take people only to such directions. To put it bluntly, Kerala is slowly turning into a sick society.

I am deeply worried about the erosion of professionalism in police department. Police is here to look after the law and order. They are here to protect the citizenry from money crazy fraudsters, robbers, terrorists and the like. Instead, one sees, reads and hears stories of senior police officials working as henchmen to fraudsters, unholy God men and corrupts politicians. This is a classical example of fence eating the crop. Any one can imagine what would happen if police and army, who are supposed to protect the citizen, are protecting the criminals instead. This would lead to corruption, nepotism and lawlessness and then to anarchy, and finally to the complete disintegration of the society.

Whither Kerala?

THE PLENTIFULNESS OF NOTHING

A marriage function took me back to my village. Being away from it for long, I was meeting many of my relatives, friends and acquaintances after a long time. I was as happy like them to meet again. And our conversations went back on time, to the extent of three to four decades. Living in a village had its own charms. However, that was not my opinion those days. Then I wanted to get out of it as fast as possible. I considered living in a village as very tough and opportunity less. 

Nothing was big and flashy as in cities; vehicles, fashion, buildings and offices, hustle & bustle etc. I was then very enamored by the city living and wanted to be part of it. Eventually that did happen. Career took me to live in some of cosmopolitan cities and the big metros of the country and the world. After going through the experiences of big metro living, I wanted to move into a city of something of a lesser dimension, and I did so. 

Despite that, one is still undergoing the hustle bustle of the city and there seems no escape. Back in my village, vivid pictures of childhood filled my thoughts. Life was never formal and it had a kind of easiness going with it. Activities and relationships never stressed out one. Life was casual and it did not evince undue expectations. Including mine, many families around us had very frugal living. But we did not feel it as frugal then. Demands were less. No one worried about the food, clothing, shelter. It was simply there, not in its enormity, but in its basic form, of course. The beauty of it was that in spite of the nothingness of the frugality, every one in the village was willing to share whatever they had. In the aspect of giving, there was this feeling of richness and plentiful. We shared as it plenty existed and we had no sense of loss when the resources exhausted. Nobody stored anything for himself before giving. Whatever one had, one shared, that too with complete happiness and surely, without any bitterness. We knew it would come again and in fact, it did. There were no worries on that count. It was good, tension free living, full of sharing and happiness. 

And what do I see in the cities? Here every one behaves as if he is a pauper. This is in spite of the fact that he/she has plenty. People amass wealth and resources in abundance and in extra ordinary proposition. In fact city guys hoard resources, to the extent of inflicting the villagers and the poor. But in the matter of giving, the city guy behaves as if he has nothing. This nothingness of plentiful comes to him by default. He is never happy in sharing or giving. All that a city dweller does is to hoard and amass. For the city guy, who is stressed out, is always anxious and fearful. He fears that his resources would erode fast and he clings on to it. He craves for more and more. Actually, it is the mindset. He is indeed a pauper in the mind. He simply cannot give or share. 

What is the result? He is never happy and contended. Clinging on to his wealth, unhappily, he dies as a have-not. I recollect the writing of the famous poet. Translated to English it goes like this, the city, full of drama and the act, indeed lives in misery and the village is plentiful by its virtues. How true, how true!

EMOTION MANAGEMENT

During my days of employment, I had come across Ms.Ragini Gupta, a smart, conscientious, industrious and caring girl in the marcom dept’ of the company that I worked. In spite of these qualities, she never got invited to parties and get-togethers conducted by her friends and colleagues. When checked, I was told that Ragini had a fiery temper and she was an angry young woman. Nobody wanted deal with her and be with her. Such a caring an industrious girl but got isolated due to her negative emotions!

The other day my wife told me the story of her neighbour Anand Menon, a gifted kid, creative and intelligent. He was such a dream child and every mother wanted him to be her son. But late in life, she found Anand making a living out of repairing electrical appliances in his apartments. What happened, she enquired. She was told that Anand snapped when his father walked out of his house when he was 15.

In my brother’s company there was this brilliant accountant, Ajit Kumar who had an IQ 0f 160+. But whenever promotion came, he was passed over. I asked why. My brother replied that Ajit never cared for others. He is such a selfish fellow that nobody had sympathy for him.

In all these cases, you will notice that the person’s downfall was due to the negative emotions pocessed and expressed by him/her.

What are the negative emotions that are so powerful enough to block the progress of one’s life and career? Fear, anger, rage, jealousy, frustration, sadness, anxiety, depression etc are some of them. These extreme emotions when taken into the head result in spontaneous, irrational decisions and actions that mess up one’s life. Because negative emotions produces negative words and deeds, it dearly affects interpersonal relationship and the social fabric and therefore, it calls for managing negative emotions.

Most of the time, instead of managing the extreme emotions, we try to suppress them.
Suppressed emotions manifest later in life in the form of health challenges such as migraine, asthma, palpitations, BP, ulcer, arthritis, depression, mental aberrations etc. And these are extremely dangerous for one’s health.

Earlier in organizations, in the selection process, intelligence quotient (IQ) was given high consideration. IQ, which is cognitive in nature, is tested through problem solving abilities, logical and analytical skills and is not connected to any social and emotional aspects and therefore do not help individuals in managing people.

David Wechsler, the famous American psychologist, gives the best definition of intelligence. He says intelligence the aggregate capacity of an individual to act purposefully, think rationally and deal effectively with his environment. Not only on IQ (cognitive abilities), Wechsler says that a person must be evaluated based on his/her non-cognitive abilities too.

In the cases of Ragini Gupta, Anand Menon and Ajit Kumar, one could surmise that while IQ is important, what makes one successful with people, group and organizations is the emotional balance that one apply in trying situations. Thus we come to the importance of emotional intelligence.

Emotional Intelligence is defined as a form of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions.

How do we manage with our negative emotions?

Before we go into it, we must have emotional self-awareness. This is about recognizing one’s own feelings and seeing how they impact one’s performance. This leads to an accurate self-assessment of recognizing one’s strengths and weaknesses. The assessment will boost one’s self-confidence. Through studies, it was proved that accurate self-assessment is a hallmark of superior performance. Once we are self-aware, we can deal with our emotions.

After being self-aware, we should start understanding the social awareness too. That needs empathy. Empathy makes us understand other’s emotions. This will give us a service orientation to recognize other’s un-stated needs and concerns and the ability to read undercurrents of emotion and political realities of a group.

Once we are self-aware and socially aware, then we can get into the management of the emotions. This is achieved through applying emotional self-control, showing adaptability, having self-initiative, attending to responsibilities, by striving to improve oneself and by displaying trustworthiness to others.

Management of emotions in social domain is all about relationship management. This is done through developing others, communicating, resolving conflicts, practicing team work and collaboration competencies at group level and by showing leadership abilities (motivating, influencing, inspiring etc),

How do we achieve emotional wisdom?

We need to understand that emotions play a major role in our head. This definitely could mess up our words and deeds. So, instead of allowing emotions to go to the head, take it on your body. This can convert emotional feelings to physical sensations on the body that would not impact on the thoughts. How true is the Chinese proverb when it says that you cannot prevent the birds of sadness from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from nesting in your hair.

To take the impact of emotions on our body, we must have a healthy body lest the body would be affected and that would result in our health going down. It is therefore important to care for one’s body. Physical fitness can reduce the impact of emotions on the body. To acquire emotional wisdom, keeping the body fit is absolutely important.

We should build upon the emotional muscle every day by taking time to focus on emotional experiences. Slowly we should go through the emotions that we feel and by doing so, we must master them. Practicing is the key. It is something similar to swimming. The more you swim and learn, the better the swimmer you are!

We should be accepting of all that we feel. Neither should we suppress our emotions nor, reject it.

By opening your heart to others, you can apply the empathy in social interactions. When you take action, do those things that make you feel useful and relevant in the society.

Forever, create an attitude of gratitude in you. We should be thankful to the world and its inhabitants for making our life worth living.

Applying humour in words and deeds can help increase our emotional wisdom. A person with the highest EQ (emotional quotient) is the one who has the ability to laugh at himself without inhibition and shame.

Examples

US Navy study reveals that most effective leaders were warmer, outgoing, emotionally expressive, dramatic and sociable.

Study in retail segment had found that a store managers’ ability to manage feelings and stress of his sub-ordinates is directly related to net profit, sales per sq ft, sales per employee etc.

A survey of buyers found that apparel sales reps were valued primarily for their empathy. The buyers reported that they wanted reps who could listen and understand what they wanted.

In a research at an insurance major, it was observed that new salesman who were optimists sold 37% more insurance in their first 2 years than did pessimists. When the company hired a special group of individuals who scored high on optimism but failed the normal screening, they outsold the pessimists by 21% in the first year and 57% in the second year.

Research in leadership reveals that almost 90% of success in leadership is attributable to EQ.

Conclusion

The importance of emotional intelligence in people management and situation management is extremely high. Application of EQ had given better turnover and higher profitability to companies. Leaders with high EQ are much more successful than the rest. It is felt that in every field, EQ is two times as important as the cognitive abilities. Based on the cornerstones of empathy and optimism, EQ has come to be identified as the winning intelligence.

THE MEN Vs. WOMEN ISSUE

Here is an eternal unresolved issue. Many had attempted to address it and nobody could ever conclude it, to the satisfaction of both parties. From time to time, this continues to come up. Plenty of ink, paper, energy and time had been wasted on the issue.

I am not a chauvinist. I respect women. I like them a lot. I believe women are the best creation of God.

The Creator is indeed very smart. He proves the advait (non dual) using the dvait (dual). When man and woman combine, fullness results. ‘One’ forms out of two. Similar to Puruksha and Prakruti, the Ying and the Yang and the Raga and the Tala, the two combine to form the real complete one.

Woman is the seat of creation. That gives solemn divinity to her. She is the Devi on whose womb life is formed and from it, delivered. She is the mother, the eternal ‘Amma”.

Who is great, man or woman? I believe men have more strength than women. In every field where physical strength matters, we see men deliver more than women. Feature by feature men are strong (and of course, they are coarse) whereas, feminity manifests in women. Beauty lies truly in women. Both men and women accept that.

Women have real patience (Kshamaya dharitri - as patient as mother Earth) Women do more Karma than men. They have the ability of multitasking. They have higher longevity (for doing still more Karma, may be). They do not complicate thought process. They can filter out the unwanted thoughts better than men. Men call this wonderful ability of women as ‘one-dimensional’.

Men are lazy and proud, in spite of the ability and strength to do more and big. Men have complicated thought process. They have no patience and get irritated very fast. They refuse to adjust with reality, many times. Many often, men go about humbling the women. It is a hobby they enjoy.

Women can live without men, if need be. For men, it is unthinkable. The most pathetic site we see is an old man struggling to live when he loses his wife. Vice versa, it is not all that bad. Women simply adjust.

Men live for women. Women are almost the raison d’etre for men. But will they ever accept it? That is where his pride sticks out. Men say ‘it is below man’ to accept that. Now, what is that?

In spite of all those good qualities going for them, women are willing to be subjugated. Men take full advantage of that. That is the sore thumb of every society, every religion.

Having said all these, one feels that, similar to the river seeking and finding salvation in the sea, woman attains ‘poornata’ (completeness) only after she finds her man and merges with him (something the feminists are unwilling to accept). It is where the strength and the suppleness combine, where unity gets created. And the oneness happens.

To that, let us say three cheers!

THE NECESSITY OF INCLUSIVITY

“India is rocking”. That is the general perception maintained by the literate Indian, the middle class Indian, the entrepreneurial Indian and the non-resident Indian and so many Indians having similar thought processes. The eyes of the world are on India. We are consistently growing @ 8.7% average over the last 10 years. We are the second fastest growing economy of the world. High tech and IT I have been identified as Indian competencies. We have the largest number of youth in the world. India has so many good things going for her.

Is this the reality? Does anyone have a difference of opinion?

Some of the facts that are being published by NGOs openly and by intelligence agencies secretly, are very revealing. You would be surprised to learn that more than twenty percent of about 600 odd districts in India had turned RED already. To be specific, around 130 districts in the country spread in many states as Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Orissa, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Bengal and parts of UP are heavily under the influence of extreme Maoism. Originated as Naxalbari movement some four decades back by Charu Majumdar, Kanu Sanyal and comrades, the movement had spread its wings to the interior villages of India and Nepal. In these districts, these people are taking law into their hands. They are brutally killing anyone who is resisting them; they create fear psychosis amongst public. In many places in Orissa and Chattisgarh, the state administration has come to cease, with Maoists taking the controls.

The rich and the famous do not know this. They do not want to know, is closer to the truth. For them, India is rocking, economy is booming, fashion is spreading, consumer indulgence is peaking, they are frolicking and are moving up and up.

Every country has some people living in poverty. But in India, we have 300 million people who live well below the our own definition of poverty (Whereas internationally a BPL household is defined as one with less than 1 Dollar per day income, in India it is even smaller an amount. Here it is an earning of ten Rupees a day). Opportunities to these people are really lacking. The middle class and the rich hoard the opportunities. And that make them richer and richer and the chasm between rich and the poor is increasing further. Lack of Democratic governance gives the manure to corruption, nepotism and favoritism. The dalits, the tribal and the minority are marginalized in the process. More Nandigrams occur, more farmers commit suicide, more dalit women get raped and more villagers die of dreaded diseases due to lack of medical facilities.

On budget days, every finance minister of the States and Center, with populist offers, plays to the gallery, by announcing this and that yojanas, amounting to billions of Rupees, meant exclusively for the poor. But it hardly reaches the poor, and in the name of the poor, the corrupt politicians and greedy middlemen amass all that. Is there a monitoring system available to ensure that the provisions made in budgets reach to whom it is targeted for? And, if it is really reaching the poor, the downtrodden and the minorities, then why do they take to the arms?

Politicians and leaders use the word inclusivity, started originally by welfare economists such as Amartya Sen, as a mere lip service. In fact the inclusivity was never there, both economically or socially. The dalits are dalits, the poor turn poorer and caste ism continues to be at the core. So what is the aftermath? More and more Maoists get formed across villages and districts. More terrorism, more killing, more administration paralyzing will continue to occur all over. When it reaches the critical mass (has it not reached yet? Twenty percent is not a small number, mind you), emergencies and curfews would get declared, police and army will roll in to the streets, guerrilla warfare will get started and anarchy would come into being. Economic progress would get arrested for good and the country will go to dogs. There are plenty of similar examples, even in our neighbourhood.

Proactive measures are much better than reactive measures. The opinion of inclusivity must gain more and more momentum. It must spread something akin to what is happening to the messages of global warming throughout the world. People should stand up and take notice. Democratic governance must come into being. Corruption must be put down and if governments want to take stern action against the corrupt and the nepotic, it must be done, of course, without looking at the faces.

Friends, inclusivity is a necessity now. If we do not do it now, we will have a big price to pay, in about 5 to 10 years. This is a choice that we all have to make. The sooner it is, the better.