A CRY FOR THEE, MY MOTHERLAND..........

I had posted earlier on how businessmen make direct connect with politicians and government by becoming Member of Parliament (MP) through the Rajya Sabha route. By doing so, they cut down the middlemen who used to operate in the scene earlier. After becoming the MP and after getting directly connected to the powers that be, how grossly they misuse their position as the Member of Parliament, to take care of their selfishness and greed. The 2G Spectrum scam is a great example, for you all to know.

A Raja, the minister of telecommunication, totally submitted himself to these men of greed and flouted all rules of the country and evaded the best advice, even coming from his Prime Minister, to blatantly accommodate these businessmen.

The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) had now spilled the beans to show us the citizens, the extent of loss to the country’s exchequer. It could be anywhere between INR 60,000 Crores and 1,77,000 Crores, whopping figures indeed! The opposition touts this as the largest bribery scam of independent India.

The CAG cites that the biggest beneficiary of the scam is Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG), headed by Anil Ambani, the second son of Dhirubhai Ambani, who himself had been a master manipulator of the government and its machinery, in his times. Like father, like son. Anil Bhai has to prove his lineage. So he found routes that are direct. He manipulated politicians to get himself nominated to the Rajyasabha so that he could be the closest to the power centres directly, so that he is preview to the country’s planning process at the drawing board level, to identify projects and schemes that are related to the industry that he is part of, well in advance. Dhirubhai must be smiling in his grave as his son outdid him. What more reason is needed for a dad to be proud of his children?

Most of the leading players in Telecom sector benefited with the help of minister Raja, the crook of a number one order. The majority of the bidders whose applications had been passed, did not have any experience or qualification to bid. Most of them were real estate companies. The story of Swan telecom using which ADAG manipulated the spectrum allocation in its favour and the way in which it got licence for combined dual technology (CDMA & GSM) operation well before government policy on it was framed, puts India to shame. Such was the blatant disregard this minister had shown to the rules and regulations of the country. Most of the bidders got the sanction at throwaway prices. Later, they all sold off this license to international companies at huge margins. There has been a flurry of collaborations, tie-ups and M&As in the Telecom Sector, post the allocation. This allowed Telenor, Etisalat, MTN etc. come to India. While the competitive scenario hotted up, the Country became pauper by lakhs of crores of Rupees!

One group that really lost out on the deal was the TATAs. Any company doing business by adhering to ethics and value system at this point in time is only expected to lose out and that is what happened to the TATAs. It is another matter that the group would make it out over a period of time. But on comparative note, it is indeed sad to see the leading business group of the country that had played immense role in the development of independent India , getting completely sidelined.

As a citizen of India, I feel distressed at the way in which things are happening in our country. Everyday we wake up to hear one scam or the other. The country is rocked by the CWG scam, the Adarsh Housing scam, The DoT scam, the Yediyurappa land gab scam and the like.

What is the point in saying that we have a clean Prime Minister? Right under his nose, look at the level of indulgences that are happening on a day to day scale! He is not able to take action on any of the perpetrators. They resign from the post for the time being only to surface again later. No one gets prosecuted for the heinous crime that they do against the nation.

All these talks of inclusivity will come into effect only when India becomes a clean nation. Looking at the way by which things are going on, I have my doubt that inclusivity is not going to be anywhere near.

However, let us keep hoping.

MUMBAI,MUMBAI.......

Nearly two years back, I posted a blog about Mumbai after having taken my family there to experience one of the largest Metropolises of the world. The action city of Mumbai has always been very fascinating, for the right and for the wrong reasons.

What comes to my mind whenever I hear of Mumbai is the title song in the old Akbar Khan movie (Hadsa), which goes something like this:

Eh Mumbai shahar, ek sundar Shahar hai
Yaham roz roz kahi mod mod par
Hota hai koi na koi
Hadsa, hadsa………

Translating the same in English, it reads:

This Mumbai city is a beautiful city
Here everyday, at some places
Something continues to occur
A new incident or a mishap…

One couldn’t agree more!

Mumbai is again in the news. President Barrack Obama had landed there yesterday. He, of course did all the right things to appease the Mumbai crowd. Visited the Taj Hotel where the 26/11 carnage took place, went to Mani Bhavan, the museum on Mahatma Gandhi, met with the industrialists to sign billion dollar deals for the business houses of his country whose chieftains had travelled with him to India, so on and so forth.

Day before yesterday, Mumbai Stock exchange celebrated the bullish high of crossing the Sensex mark of 20000 during the famed ’Diwali Trade’. Mumbai, the financial capital of India, would not have a better reason to rejoice.

A week back, the Adarsh Housing society scam exploded in the news in Mumbai shaking up the political bosses, not to mention the Military brasses. As a result, the Chief Minister is counting his days in the office and the Army Chief is sulking after returning the ownership documents of the flat to the Housing Society. Two or three former chiefs of Army and Navy have come into the news for ‘unnecessary’ reasons, as they say. The funny party is that the plundering and loot of government land and the defying of all building laws of the country, was to bring up private housing society named as ‘ADARH’ meaning IDEALS, the highest virtue that man can have!

As is said, Mumbai is a happening city. It is also a city very famous for crime. Most of the Indian mafias have its head quarters in Mumbai. Many of the Bollywood flicks had eulogised crime and made those villainish heroes the sweet darlings of the masses, worthy to be emulated. The city which is the engine of growth of the country, because of its loose social controls and due to the indifference and anonymity of its denizens, spew out many criminals. So congested is the place that lack of social and recreational support systems give births to many gangs of the underworld.

I had always seen Mumbai as a city of slums. And the shanties are only growing rapidly, to the extent, the Mumbai statistics shows that sixty percent of the population of Mumbai city live in slums and chawls! What a quality life that is……

Many historians and sociologists had termed India as a land of contrasts. Mumbai manifests this thought at the highest level. A city, where unequitable growth in wealth continues to flourish with the rich and the famous, the chasm between the rich and the poor is widening every day. Inclusivity is the last thing that can happen in Mumbai.

However, with all its contrasts and vagaries, the city continues to be a bewitching urban sprawl. To experience it, one has to be in Mumbai, to live it out. With all its ugliness, no mumbaikar would ever want to trade place with any other city of the country or the world.

And that is the charm of amchi Mumbai!

INDIA - THE DYNASTIC DEMOCRACY

Recently, I had an opportunity to be with the former Chairman & Managing Director of FACT Ltd, one of the largest fertilizer manufacturing companies of the country, located at Cochin. We were together at the office of the Head of BPCL - Cochin Refineries, related to a function being organized by the Cochin Chapter of Indian Society of Training & development which I am chairing this year. At the reception of the corporate office of the Refineries, we saw a photograph of Mrs. Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India, inaugurating the company. Seeing this, the former FACT CMD said that at his corporate office, there is an unique photograph of four Indian PMs in one snap, taken during the inauguration of FACT Ltd. Upon my checking up, he said it was Pandit Nehru, the first PM of India who inaugurated the Factory and on that occasion, he was accompanied by his daughter Indira Gandhi and grand son Rajiv Gandhi (both of whom became Indian Prime Minister later). Of course, the fourth person on the photograph was Lal Bahadur Shastry, who became PM after the demise of Nehru. Shastry was the Agricultural Minister then under whose purview came the fertilizer manufacturing.

This sets me thinking. We have had a father, daughter and grandson as our Prime Minster. And of course the fourth generation (Rahul Gandhi, son of Rajiv & Sonia Gandhi) is soon to take over. He is already being projected within and outside the Congress Party as the heir apparent. In fact, if he wanted, he could have become the Country’s PM during the beginning of this Lok Sabha in 2009, but he chose against it.

Though we have had other Prime Minsters (Except for A B Vajpai, other Such as VP Singh, Chandra Shekhar, Narsingh Rao, Deva Gouda, Inder Gujral etc had very brief stints), Nehru & Indira Gandhi ruled India for the longest duration. Rajiv Gandhi was PM for only one term. He could have continued for more but the LTTE decided otherwise by assassinating him.

India is a country touted as the largest democracy in the world. But in this democracy, we have no problems in appointing father, daughter, grandson and great grand son as its Prime Ministers. Do we know of any other democracy which had done this in the world? For a country which holds one sixth of the population of the world, do we have dearth of personalities and leaders who could head our democratic system? Are there not better, credible leaders within Congress party and outside who could be groomed to take over? Why is it that we are so happy to have the same family rule the roost? How could India, a country which had hundreds of local kingdoms before the British took over, which had plethora of languages, varied geographical culture, with so many indigenous and outside caste and creed inside, still accept one family to control its democracy? So many questions pound my mind……..

One reason is the subservience mentality that the Indians display. He is happy to have a God father controlling him, be it the King, Queen, the head of the family or the Mafia Dada. Though so many monarchies had given way to democracy in the world, and with so many of the democracies display matured norms in its election process, Indians are yet to mature to start doing a kind of ‘stand alone’ independent thinking. It could also be that many Indians are yet to understand democracy and are still on the State/Raja/King as the ultimate accepted choice to rule over him. The ‘Raj’ mentality is yet to go away from our mind and thoughts, that is.

Secondly, with so many sects and sub sects of religion, caste, sub caste and their hierarchies strongly existing continuously, our political system does not want to upset the apple cart by having new upstarts to take over the polity. Though there are so many such upstarts coming up now as regional political parties based on the caste/geography/language hierarchical system, they are yet to get the country’s mandate. By retaining the same family to head our country, the Indians are trying to keep the status quo which they feel will not splinter the country. Good thought, I must accept.

Above all, our attitude is that of ‘chalta hai’. The average Indian is not unduly bothered if the family rules or regional parties rule. He has so many things to bother about, including his own very existence. He doesn’t have any time for indulging to think of maturing the democratic norm of the country. He has no interest to control things. He is happy to be what he is. For him, ‘sab chalta hai’.

On this thought, I rest the case!

COMMONWEALTH GAMES (CWG) NEW DELHI 2010

And finally the CWG is on! It got inaugurated on the third of October jointly by The Prince of Wales, Charles (representing his mother, The Queen of England) and The President of India, Madam Pratibha Patil. My family and I sat through to watch the full inauguration on the TV. The organizers had worked hard to make the inaugural function colorful. To a large extend, they had succeeded in it.

CWG New Delhi 2010 has been the major news item for the last few months for all its negative (majority) and positive (Minimum) news. Probably, the good show at the inauguration will rub off some of the negatives. The smooth conduct of the games during the next fortnight would probably take away all the bad publicity that the organizers had been receiving from all quarters. Finally, everybody had been forced to involve in the project, the PM, the Council of Ministers, the Bureaucrats and the Army; in addition to the sports administrators who were originally handling the affairs.

As an Indian, I am happy that Indian could hold the Commonwealth games. It is after 28 years that an international sports extravaganza of complex nature is coming to the country. The only nation outside England, Canada, Australia and New Zealand who hosted CWG had been Malaysia. Slowly, Indian aspirations are coming to the fore. With this, maybe now India could aspire to hold the Olympics in the near future!

One of the Special Director Generals of the CWG, while presenting the games to an invited audience in Cochin months ago, had said about the opening ceremony of the games that the ceremony itself would be a INR 200 Crore function. Since then on, as a citizen of India, I had been feeling guilty of the lavish ceremonies being planned in the name of the prestige of the nation. Two hundred crore Rupees is too much of money. Spending the same on a single function is quite ostentatious, I felt. In a country where a substantial percentage of people are living below poverty line, with so many Indians going hungry every day, I felt it as criminal to throw away such huge amount of money. No doubt, CWG is a prestigious thing but does it call for spending this huge a sum for the inauguration? The function was akin to our rich politicians or corporate leaders spending lavish amount of black money for the marriage of their children.

There is also another side to the story. And that is about the rampant corruption that the organizers had been indulging during the makeup of CWG 2010. If the media reports were to be believed, more than fifty percent of the allocated amount had gone into the pockets of the organizers, middlemen and their cronies. Does that include the Chairman of the organizing Committee? Who knows?

With such rampant corruption and ostentatious spending, the question to ask is whether India really deserves to hold the CWG 2010. If we reduced the splendor of opening ceremony by half, would we have received flaks? Can you belive, it costs INR 40 crores to fill Helium in that floating platform!

It is not that growing India should not take up such projects. We must and we should show the world our capabilities. The only thought is whether we could get the projects done without cost overlay and without corruption and of course, by applying experience, wisdom and with cost optimization in mind. Many often, these things are camouflaged to amass wealth by the concerned. Only recently have we been reading about one Lait Modi and his rag to riches story through the IPL league. As India progresses, one is saddened to see the color and quantity of corruption also going up.

There must be accountability. Today, that is the last thing to come by in India. And so long as accountability takes the back seat, whatever we saw and heard about CWG, IPL etc would continue to happen.

And that indeed is very shameful for growing India!

THE ANATOMY OF AN ENTREPRENEUR

While getting connected to an old business associate of mine who is an entrepreneur in US now, I happened to read his blog wherein he had recommended for reading a report of the Kauffman Foundation on entrepreneurship, Kansas city, Missouri, USA. Titled, The Anatomy of an Entrepreneur, it centers on the entrepreneur’s family background and motivations. Researched and prepared by Vivek Wadhwa, Associate Director, Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization at Duke University and Senior Research Associate, Harvard Law School, Raj Aggarwal, Dean and Sullivan Professor, College of Business Administration, The University of Akron, Krisztina “Z” Holly, Executive Director, USC Stevens Institute for Innovation, University of Southern California and Alex Salkever, visiting Researcher, Masters of Engineering Management Program, Pratt School of Engineering, Duke University, the report through structured data, had given deep insights into entrepreneurs and their family back ground. I reproduce below the conclusions from the last page of the report:

“The core findings of this research are straightforward and contradict some prevailing stereotypes. In the industries we researched, entrepreneurs are more likely to come from a middle-class or upper lower- class background, and very few come from backgrounds of extreme wealth or extreme poverty. These entrepreneurs are usually well educated, with only 5 percent reporting having less than a bachelor’s degree. They also are likely to be better educated than their parents were, with half their fathers and a third of their mothers having at least bachelors’ degrees. They performed well in high school and in college, with the vast majority ranking average or above in their respective institutions. Entrepreneurs don't always come from families of entrepreneurs; slightly more than half of the samples were the first in their families to launch businesses. On average, entrepreneurs tend to be the middle child in a three-child household. They are significantly more likely to be married and have children when they launch their first businesses. Entrepreneurs are far more likely to have worked for an employer for more than six years than to have quickly launched their own businesses. Their primary motivations for launching a business are to build wealth, to own their own company, and to capitalize on a business idea they had. The findings perhaps provide some clues about what conditions might be helpful in supporting entrepreneurs and helping them become successful. Entrepreneurs typically are well-educated and experienced. In other words, they largely come from the existing workforce and not from college. They have ideas they want to commercialize, are motivated to build wealth, and like the idea of being their own bosses in a startup. These observations are based on initial analysis of the data. But these observations could perhaps be useful guideposts for the next round of inquiry that attempts to understand not only the background and broad motivations of entrepreneurs but also the deeper formative factors that influence this select and incredibly important class of individuals.”

A full report of the same can been viewed at http://www.kauffman.org/uploadedFiles/ResearchAndPolicy/TheStudyOfEntrepreneurship/Anatomy%20of%20Entre%20071309_FINAL.pdf

What I immediately did was a comparison of their findings with that of mine and almost 95% of my entrepreneurial odyssey matches with their findings. I felt it necessary to do this post with the executive summary of the Kauffman report so that it can motivate and guide young budding entrepreneurs. They could find the critical success factors from this report and plan their entrepreneurial journey accordingly.

Happy reading and all the very best?

THE BUSINESSMEN POLITICIANS

Lately we see that many prominent businessmen had joined politics and had become elected members in Lok Sabha, Rajysabha etc. Names such as Anil Ambani, Vijay Mallya, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Suresh Kalmadi, Naveen Jindal are very prominent among them.

The question that one would like to ask is whether these personalities have joined politics and became MPs, MLAs etc to satisfy the last of the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Need theory;viz. Self actualization? One would like to believe so. However the experience and observation of these people tell a different Story.

No doubt, Businessmen need to represent themselves in the parliament. They could lobby for the Industry and Commerce; they could share their experience and get an empathetical view of things on Industry and Commerce from the law makers. They could contribute their learning, experience and resources for the welfare of the country. There goes the list.

But is that what we see them do really? One is forced to think that these people are there only to further their own personal and business interests. Most of these people are not very service minded, nor are they very charity oriented. Mostly, the parliament has now become a place for these previleged people to share the plunder of the country. These businessmen by virtue of their abilities and resources can loot and plunder more. Needless to add that in Parliament, they can mend relationship with the political animals and by virtue of being the MP, they are privileged to get all information prior to anyone in the country, so much so that they could prepare their plunder/loot plans well before it becomes public.

Look at L’affaire de Kalamadi. If one believes the reports that have been appearing in the Media and Press, in the name of sports and games, he had been able to amass huge wealth for himself and for his cronies around!

None of these people had resigned from chairmanship of the companies that they own before becoming MPs and MLAs and they fully indulge in their business while getting the best of both worlds.

Our Prime Minister, while being a honest person is a lonely man indeed. In any case, he has no political base. He had become PM only because of the benevolence madam Sonia Gandhi, the powerful Chairperson of the Congress party (he shows his everlasting gratefulness to her at all times). Though he is the third longest serving PM of India, one hasn’t seen a meek Prime Minister as him. Though from time to time, he keeps on uttering inclusivity of all Indians in the affairs of the country, the sad fact is that the chasm between rich and Poor is only increasing. The total blame of the same must go to the country’s opportunistic politicians and the canny businessmen who use these guys for their betterment. What about the country and its people? Oh, they can go to hell, of course…

Most of the Sports organizations in India are either headed by wily politician or shrewd Businessmen. The nexus between them is so deep. What is the result? The country is yet to produce a gold medal winning athlete or take the top position in any of the popular games (Except for Cricket, but isn’t it a game played by only 12 commonwealth nations!)

How can Man Mohan Singh control and lead such cunning bunch of politicians and businessmen? He is simply not able to command their respect, particularly when the real power is not held by him in any case. All these look like a big tamasha. One is eternally grateful to the nature for holding the equilibrium of country in such a manner that nothing untoward happens to India.

What if it happens?

God save the country…………

K M MATHEW

K M Mathew, Chief Editor of Malayala Manorama, the doyen in the field of Journalism, passed away at the ripe age of 93 in early morning of the 1st of August 2010. Respected by both friends and foes, he was a sincere newspaper editor and an astute business man. Under his leadership, Malayala Manorama grew multi fold, spreading its tentacles both at the vertical and horizontal space around it. His was a Midas touch, for whatever he started, grew into huge success.

I have had some interactions with him. When I was the Honorary Secretary of Kerala Management Association (KMA), we chose him for the KMA Management Leadership Award for the year 2001. I remember hearing from the Award Committee Chairman Mr. KT Chandy (Founder Director of IIM Calcutta & Former Director Hindustan Lever Limited) who was speaking very high of Mr. KM Mathew. “He excelled in all forms of Leadership, more so in man management” said Mr. Chandy. It is indeed true, in this extremely competitive journalism field, the loyalty displayed by Manorma employees is something exceptional. Only a true, selfless, considerate leader could rise to the level of commanding this organizational loyalty from its employees.

While receiving the award from the then Kerala Chief Minister Shri. A K Antony, he simply said that he did nothing but allowed people to work. He nostalgically remembered himself starting the career in Bomaby as a Balloon salesman (balloons were manufactured by his brother’s fid gelling company; Madras Rubber factory – Presently, the well Known MRF Ltd.) and the circumstances that lead him to come over to Kottayam to assist his Brother Mr. K M Cherian in the running of the Newspaper and later taking over the mantle in 1973, when his brother passed away. Yes, by simply allowing the people to work and by utilising their creativity, he grew the Malayala Manorama Group into a great newspaper empire. Heavy dose of application of technology gave the group unattainable leadership – It is known that Manorama group was the first Asian media company to have implemented SAP ERP solution, more than a decade back.

Later when I became the President of KMA, I requested him to be the Chairman of KMA’s Management Leadership Award Selection Committee for the year 2004, which he agreed. With the nominations in hand, along with the other committee members, I went to meet him at his office in Kottayam. Though we were to meet him at 9.30 AM, we could only reach his office 15 minutes late. I knew his reputation to be a person who keeps perfect time. To my apologies of delay, I remember receiving a minor chiding from him “yes it is always the traffic or the roads, but the fact is that you are late”. However he did not carry forward the irritation in to the job of evaluating the credentials of the candidates to choose an appropriate winner for that year.

In my interactions with him he came through as a simple, straight forward and considerate person. I found it difficult to take that he is the one who grew the enterprise many fold, because his attire and actions defied any businessman propositions. I realize now that perhaps his success was in keeping everything very simple. And being considerate must have attracted people towards him. In the simple attire of a white dhoti and Jubba, there existed a splendid human being whose discipline and work ethics must have invigorated the thousands around him to work hard and take the organization to still greater heights. And that indeed was his success.

Journalism, the mighty forth estate, is at the cross road today. The lure of visual electronic technology is very tempting. There are the challenges such as paid news etc. The specific agendas of the News barons in other forms of business are another greater challenge (Compare a News Editor having a diversified area of business interest, say, real estate!). In this melee the essence of people like KM Mathew is extremely significant. He was the Colossus in the field of Journalism. He maintained values and discipline. Five to six decades of legacy that he had created in the organization will stay put for ever, one is hopeful.

Here is final PRANAMS to him. May the noble soul rest in eternal peace.