THE ALL POWERFUL ‘PATRIOTIC’ COMPANY; FINALLY GETTING CAUGHT

He was every body’s man. Irrespective of political ideologies, he was every party’s favorite. He is ‘Dada’; the big brother to all.  He advertises Bharat Mata as his mother. His hospitality is legion. His company sponsors Indian Cricket team, Hockey team and many more. His Son’s marriage was attended by the entire Bollywood, transported to Lucknow by charter flights.  From a Peerless employee, Subroto Roy had come a long way. Today he jets around the world and buys up global companies with global finance. He had a say in many matters of the nation. He is deemed respected by all and sundry. Though the corporate name of his company resonates the largest desert on planet earth, actually the name Sahara in Hindi means something that stand by you, some sort of a major help.

One had always wondered where did it all start!  This group always had huge quantum of funds available with it at all times.  Mostly it has been ‘benami’ investment, coming from corrupt politicians belonging to all parties of the nation. This group has been laundering money for close to three decades, with absolute impunity.  No wonder he was the darling of the powers that be. And no wonder every rule of the nation was bent to accommodate his wishes. The finance company’s business has been either MLM (multilevel marketing)  or Ponzy models which is not on the right side of the law.

Things came to such a head that the company floated many group companies and started collecting money from the masses (or in that pretext) with absolute disregard for the law of the land. Mind you, over the last two decades SEBI and RBI have been watching many financial companies undergoing meteoric growth. Sahara evaded the radar for very long, of course under the connivance from his friends in power.

It took an upright Civil Servant from Kerala (Dr K.M. Abraham, presently Additional Chief Secretary of the Govt. of Kerala) while he was the Executive Director of SEBI, to find out the company undertaking illegal means to float debentures without  taking permission from the regulators. Meticulous study and analysis by him over a period of time unsheathed the company’s ploy of amassing INR 20,000 Crores . Sahara group tried all it’s trick to get off SEBI’s clutches. Persistent and diligent follow up SEBI Chairman and the Supreme Court of India had now finally nailed the Chairman of this Group, Mr Subroto Roy. After evading arrest, he finally surrendered to the police and is now kept in police custody. He employs the finest and costliest legal brains to fight his cases (lawyers such as Ram Jetmalani!). But I feel that the nemesis is catching up with him now. One cannot say anything yet, with powerful friends in all walks of life, one wouldn’t be surprised if he goes scot free.

The judiciary played a major role in catching the Group. At this point in time, in India only Judiciary could do such an act as our executives and bureaucracy had completely lost its teeth.

These are case studies of how corruption permeates in all walks of life and how people at high places evade law and engage in fraudulent activities under the cloak of Patriotism.

One thing is sure. What goes around, has to come around. It is only a matter of time.

ENABLING INDIA; EXPLORING OPPORTUNITIES

It is well-known that progress and growth of a nation not only depend on economic factors but the political, cultural and geographical factors as well. Additionally, it depends on many external factors in which the country may not have any control. The last four to five years of the Indian story is intertwined with both the global and the internal challenges. Global meltdown & Eurozone crisis had well augmented to the coalition political pressures that the Governments have been undergoing here. Further, corporate greed, corruption, nepotism and collusion between executives and the corporates; and the resultant policy paralysis had negated our forward movement considerably. Industrial slow down, unemployment, and inflation too had added to our agony. The year 2012 and 13 had been extremely bad for the country. It is in this background that we are now exploring the opportunities to enable India to surge forward.

Enabling India

It is very critical to have a positive ambience prevailing across, to enable growth. The confidence of the populace is a major factor for them to get empowered. Though currently there is nothing to write home about in this front, it is hoped that the impending national election could turn things for the better. The country is seriously looking forward to a stable, strong government at the center, to enable the nation. While it is anybody’s guess, if the leading political parties of the country go by their past experience in handing coalition, there would be good learning to manage the political equations. It is imperative that we need to have a stable government, if we have to grow as we did in the nineties and beyond till the last three years. Experience suggests us to keep our fingers crossed!

Exploring opportunities

While every difficulty brings down the confidence of the nation, it poses an opportunity for us to catch on.  What is important is to identify and tap the opportunity. These opportunities may not expose themselves well to be seen and therefore one needs to search for it and bring it out of the quagmire of complexities under which it lay. It is easier said than done but the indications would be there and an experienced eye could decipher it.  In order to do so, let us look at the following inputs and see if  the inputs help us identify the opportunities that we get to tap, for the country to progress better.

India’s Demographic dividend

No nation in the world has the level of demographic advantage that India has and that is its youth population that the nation possesses. India has more than 50% of its population below the age of 25 and more than 65% below the age of 35. It is expected that, by the year 2020, the average age of an Indian will be 29 years, compared to 37 for China and 48 for Japan and still higher for America & Europe. That is the people at their productive best. To get them into employment and entrepreneurship is the major task. Not everybody is equipped with the skills and knowledge for getting into employment and business. For a country which lives in the villages, among our youth, large percentage belong to lowest educational and technical skill level, for taking up meaningful employment. Thus, skill development becomes the single most important means to enable India’s youth. Our institutions meant for imparting skills loitered a lot during the last 3 decades. Whereas countries like China had developed close to five thousand distinct skills for its people to get employed, the Indian story is very dismal. It has to be the top most national agenda for India to develop and impart skills to the youth for making them employable.

Entrepreneurship

Undoubtedly, the corner stone of any nation’s economic progress is the entrepreneurship that happens within it.  Entrepreneurship is all about creating value and through which, creating wealth and distributing the same, of course staying within the ambit of our laws. The last two decades saw the start and mushrooming good number of IT and software companies in India and it had brought laurels to the country, not to speak of the high export growth we achieved with it. Employment possibilities also increased in this sector. We now need to replicate this story in other verticals; be it in service sector or manufacturing. For a nation of more than a billion people, we still need many more productive enterprises to cater to the needs of its citizens. While enterprises are concentrating on meeting the requirements of the middles class and high class categories of the society, it is at the bottom of the pyramid (BoP) that the entrepreneurial opportunities abound. To many segments of Indian society, which is predominantly agrarian in nature, entrepreneurship is a taboo. Risk averse population looks forward to jobs than being entrepreneurial. It is a cultural aspect that we need to overcome. Such cultural changes have to be brought about by recognizing and celebrating entrepreneurship. From the school level onwards children must be made aware of the possibilities of entrepreneurship. They should read, hear from and get inspired by the stories of successful entrepreneurs, say the Narayana Murthys of the world.

MSME & Start-ups

The story of MSME is nothing but the extension of entrepreneurship. Almost close 40 percent of the manufacturing in India takes place in MSME and this sector is the largest employer in the country, after agriculture. As most of the enterprises start-up in the Micro and Small sector, adequate attention is required to MSME. Nurturing a startup is the beginning of developing an enterprise.  It has to be an ongoing endeavor to motivate, train and assist people to start-up their enterprises. Funding and marketing are critical for the proliferation SME companies. While financial institutions speak a lot about giving assistance SME sector, in real sense, it is nothing much. Separate SME centric policies, though exist now, the implementation of the same is not done with the sincerity that it deserves.

Manufacturing

It has been the strategic achievement of rich nations over the last several hundred years to create a high-quality manufacturing sector in order to develop national wealth and power. As indicated by the rise of the US, Germany, Japan and the USSR in the 20^th century, to the newly industrializing countries like Korea, Taiwan, and now China; manufacturing has been the key to prosperity.

The most powerful nations in the world are those that control the bulk of the global production of manufacturing technology. That is, it isn’t enough to have factories that produce more goods, it is important to have to know-how to make the machinery that makes the goods. The key to power, therefore, is to make the means of production. About 80% of the world’s production of factory machinery has been controlled by the great industrialized nations. The growth of manufacturing machinery output and technological improvements in that machinery; are the main drivers of economic growth. So in order to improve and our manufacturing capability we should master the art making the production machinery ourselves and greater attention needs to be put in this area.

Research & Development

It must be clearly understood that future economic progress will be driven by the invention and application of new technologies. Research & Development has to be major area of spending, in order to develop and drive the new technologies. Private sector firms are prone to focus their R&D on applied projects, where the payoff in terms of profit is likely to go only to them. Industry does not undertake broad R&D for the general benefit of the nation. In contrast, Governments can sponsor the basic research projects that seek wide ranging scientific understanding that can impact entire industries. Globally, government research funding has been critical to many technologies of everyday importance. Many of the government-sponsored technological advances have been instrumental in driving economic growth and raising the living standards for the citizens. It had created new industries and high paying jobs that have benefitted a wide-range of regional, state and local economies.

It is very unfortunate that the India’s role in R&D and innovation has been dismal, particularly in the industrial, technological, medical and agricultural front, notwithstanding the umpteenth number of national laboratories that are operated across the nation. These research centers today dwell as white elephants that consume the national wealth without creating anything worthy enough innovation to benefit the country and its people. There sure exist opportunities for India in R&D.  R&D delivers the knowledge that is of highest economic value and the knowledge, that is otherwise called as ‘intellectual property’, can go a long way in establishing leadership in many spheres.

Agriculture

Agriculture in India is the means of livelihood for almost two thirds of the workforce of the country. It has been India's most important economic sector. Though the role of agriculture as a percentage of our GDP is diminishing gradually and secondary and tertiary sector are growing up considerably, it has to be understood that great majority of Indians;  particularly those in the rural sector, which is considerably large in number,  agriculture continues to be their means of existence.  Most of the agricultural land is in the form of small holding owned by impoverished farmers who, even after 65 years of Independence, are still at the mercy of the Monsoons with no scientifically implemented irrigation or water management policies laid out for them. Access to credit is very poor and most of them are controlled by loan sharks. Middlemen plays huge role in reaching the agricultural produce to market, thereby taking away the real profits of the efforts from the cultivators.

Women employment in Agriculture is high. Looking from a gender perspective too, women and self-help groups formed by them benefitting out of the agricultural activity, should be considered as true empowerment of them.  Really, plenty of opportunities exist in the sector which has been yearning for good leadership to come by to help them out.

Whither India?

The attempt so far has been to bring out the areas where opportunities exist in plenty. As mentioned, every difficulty offers an opportunity. The planners and managers of the country in various sectors may have to peer through the situations, in order to identify and tap the opportunities that lie under. The country has to shake off its complacency and indulge in positive policy making not only for the welfare of its citizens but for the economic progress that every society need to achieve. For a complex nation such as ours, the efforts and plan may have to be much more than the normal, for us to catch up the opportunities that would enable and empower our denizens. Let us remember, we are the creators of our own destiny and therefore the dream, the thought, the realization and the efforts have to come from within. Good luck to us!

WANTING TO HAVE THE CAKE AND EAT IT TOO

Handsome person, celebrity author, central minister, former UN honcho, global citizen,  richie rich, intellectual and above all orator par excellence.  Really he is everything rolled into one. Very rarely could we see such a personality. For ordinary mortals, he is such an enviable proposition. And then, he adds a trophy wife, a vivacious beauty of Kashmiri origin (the Kashmiri penchant is strong, for his first wife was half Kashmiri).  A person of her own mite, who had seen enough, dealt with many powers that be, a true global socialite whose presence every man worth his salt would cherish.

And they were supposed to live happily ever after.

And that is not be! His troubles started with that. He lost his minister-ship, People of his own party started plotting against him but he had enough ampere to regain the lost glory to come back as a minister. She lost the sweat equity from Rendezvous consortium. Once the passion of the marriage was over, fissures developed. She suspected his roving eye, for him a ‘thing of beauty is a joy forever’. He not only wanted physical companionship but intellectual companionship too.  Probably she couldn’t have given the latter. When he got caught in intellectual companionship with beautiful women, she was distressed. To add to that she had this secret illness, something so bad,  that could damage her long term.  It looks like she never trusted him with beautiful mature women. She went into depression, physical exhaustion and created enough tantrums in the social media, did her bit of interviews with the press and then, she is gone, forever, to nether world, never to return!

The inquest and the autopsy say it is ‘sudden unnatural death’. He is devastated. The media is now going all over with so many theories and rumours. The opposition is clamoring for his ouster from the cabinet. Things aren’t looking good for him.

It is noticed that people who are writers, artists, intellectuals etc., there is a maverick aspect that becomes very pronounced in their behavior and often that also becomes their Achilles heel. Is there anything like that in him? Is it the roving eye? Or is it the need intellectual companionship with beautiful mature women? Or is it both put together?

Washing dirty linen in public isn’t the right thing, we all know. But today, Social media enables that on a very high degree. One of the causes that accentuated the distress and the depression in her is the social media. How many more celebrity lives will the Twitters and the Facebook take further? We will wait and see.

For him, it is time to take stock. For a public figure, a politician and central minister, certain discretion is a must. Too much of transparency and the naivety displayed in emails and twitter must be regulated (remember the ‘cattle class’ tweet!).  And before tying the knot again, he need to decide what types of companionship is needed for him.

Because he has to realize, ‘you can’t have  the cake and eat it too’.

NOBODY CALLS HIM SRT, HE IS SIMPLY SACHIN!

Millions of pages, photographs and terabytes of info have been made on him. This ‘Little Master’ has almost all the records of the game of Cricket in his name. Actually the nickname originally belonged to his favorite and revered elder, Sunil (Sunny) Gavaskar and Sunny must be ruing to have lost the exclusive title. One feels that the title ‘little master’ should have stayed with Gavaskar and he could have been  appropriately called as Master Blaster.

Sachin is his first name. Sachin comes from Sachchai and Truth is the English of Sachchai. Yes, there is a lot of truth in his batting and he had been truthful mostly (barring the intrigue of  ‘monkey gate’, of course). Independent India’s motto is ‘Satyameva Jayate’ (truth alone prevails) and in Sachin, the entire nation of 1.2 billion people (a little more than one sixth of the Planets’ population)  wants to see only the truth. And, truth is God. Whichever way you look at it, Sachin is God.

In the terabytes of folklore written about him, all his records are highlighted and one sees no point in reiterating it. Actually everyone knows his records. So what is that one could write about him? May be things that ‘aam’ people do not know about him?…….

Sachin is a Maharashtrian Brahmin. In India’s cast hierarchy, Brahmins do represent the God. Many of his illustrious predecessors are Brahmins. Gavsakar, Solkar, Wadekar, Vengsrakar are some names that immediately come to mind. In a deeply caste infested country of India, it is the Brahmins who were the upper most and in cricket too, the brahminical supremacy continued, only to be changed by the backward class boys who are now entering into it from the interior cities such as Ranchi, Saurashtra, Meerut etc. The winds of change is happening, indeed!

Not sure how many people know that Sachin is ambidextrous. Both hands of Sachin are equally powerful. And that shows in his master piece shots and his ability to carry a heavier cricket bat with élan.

Sachin’s wife Anjali Tendulkar, nee Mehta is a full 6 years senior to him. And that’s interesting. A country that predominantly goes by arranged marriages, it is almost always that the bridegroom would be senior to the bride by an average of 5 to 6 years. Here it is revers! While Anjali may find it difficult to catch up with him as the couple moves into the plus side of life, one should remember that  God is eternal, for his age could be as old as the age of the universe. Surely Sachin carries  wisdom much higher than his actual age and she carries a persona that looks much younger to her actual age. Good for them!

Sachin isn’t a great leader but he is a great motivator. His leadership skills as captain did not result in any major wins for India. Had he continued the captaincy, cricket would have lost Sachin much earlier. Wisdom prevailed with the selectors and they preserved him by taking away his additional stressful responsibility. Mind you, with players coming from as diverse a background of unrelated languages, cultures and values systems, it is never easy to lead Team India.

Had he been a transformational leader, with his popularity and his new found position as the Member of India Parliament, he could have easily cleaned up the dirty stables of BCCI, when the opportunity came up recently. He never tried, actually he just didn’t bother. One truly wonders, why didn’t you Sachin?........

Sachin is a thoughtful, peaceful guy who respects the power. He is orthodox in his thoughts of Cricket being a Gentlemen’s game. He wouldn’t like its decorum to be lost but at the same time, he accepts the variations that time brings to the game (Test to ODI to 20/20). He brings peace wherever he goes. He always spoke with a language of respect and you wouldn’t find a humble cricketer like Sachin, comparing his tall achievements.

Such is the popularity of the game in India, almost all of the Indian cricketers openly or discreetly had experienced the Casanova phase. Though one had heard some, no one would believe any negative stories about him. He is Sachin and Sachin is Truth and Character. He can’t do any wrong. Let it stay that way. Good for all……

In the modern game of Cricket, it is simply not possible to have a player stay on to play 200 test matches in his lifetime (you add the ODIs and other form of matches into it see how staggering could it be). It isn’t that easy to break his records and also the record of his longevity in the game. Players like Ricky Ponting tried, but to no success. So it looks that the records on his name are going to stay, most probably forever. Though there are talks in hush of pretenders like Virat Kohli, one must admit the impossibility of anyone coming near. Look at it, a long standing player like Chanderpaul of Windies, at the age of 39, is playing only his 150^th test match!

Mumbai is the most happening place of India. One of the most populous cities in the world! The financial capital of the country. Surprisingly Mumbai is where dreams are made too. The Bollywood, the single largest move-making town in the world, in which the Kumars, the Kapurs, The Bachchans, The khans and the hordes of dream girls and Villains and  vamps and what not; live it out in pomp and show. And in this city was born a brahmin boy, four decades back. He had the talent, the discipline, the hard work, the focus, the character and above all, the morale. And probably that’s why he never got called as SRT, but SIMPLY SACHIN!

Adios, Sachin! May you live in interesting times!

LIFECYCLE

Transient, the trivia

Day in and day out

In living, working, procreating

Feeling, seeing, experiencing
Pain, pleasure, fear
Wakeful state view

Rest, sleep, dream

Prelude to unconsciousness
Rapid eyes, abstract views
Tremble in fear or roar of laughter
If you wake up, just to
Ambivalence uncertain
 
Deep slumber thereafter
Of nothingness, real dark
Of uninterrupted peace
No fear, no feeling
Safe, devoid of senses, except
An unconscious working body

Wake back to trivia

From unknown to known
Safety to danger
Of tumultuous world
A big stage, the playground
You are back to act, play

In time, you  grow

Into your inabilities
Know the futile worth
Of your creations and you
A short life in planet’s long endurance
Realizing maya – the illusion

Bhaja govindam, bhaja govindam

Govindam bhaja, Mooddhamate

WHAT FREEDOM?

When

The Leaders of masses

And dealers of its hope

Plunder and loot the nation

To add on to existing riches

 

When

Businessmen, the creators of wealth

Than distributing 

Aggregate much more of it

Through corrupt illegal means

 

When

Bureaucrat hands over, in servitude

The governance and the control

To selfish, clever, goon leaders

For a promotion or  small favors

 

When

Judiciary indulge in activism

With unreigned  power  backed by

Byzantine archaic complex laws

For one-upmanship, whether right or wrong

 

When

Media house sells its soul

To corporates and politicos

As paid news and advertorials

In lieu of wealth and power

 

When

Currency depreciate, investment evaporate

Growth and jobs stunt

Inclusivity is only a lip service

And the Country is coming to halt

 

When

Quality, innovation, leadership

Knowledge, integrity

Do not come to the fore

And truth turns into casualty

 

When

Aggression, arrogance

Muscle power, money, nepotism

Prevail and influence the mind

With no going back to the values

 

Then my son,

On this Independence day

How do I explain freedom

As a state of mind of no inhibition

And a privilege to live, to love, to aspire

To excel, to grow and to fulfill your hope?

THERE IS HOPE FROM THE NEW POPE

1.2 Billion Catholic Christians from across the  globe can rejoice now ,for they have a new pope, Pope Francis, formerly, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio from Argentina, however of Italian origin. It is almost 1400 years that a Pope came from outside Europe. The 266^th Pope of Vatican who is 76 years old has not been in the contention and had his return ticket booked to come back to Argentina for leading Easter mass. It is also a fact that the newspapers predicted more chances for Cardinals from Italy, US and Brazil. So for all devout Christians, Pope Francis, actually is a surprise package.

But as more news started coming out, it turns out that Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was destined to be the Pope. In the last election of Pope, where the German Cardinal Ratzinger went on to become the Head of Vatican, as Pope Benedict the 16^th, the little muse tells that Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio ran close to him and eventually prayed to the congregation of Cardinals then that his name be taken away from the contest. It is also a fact that when he turned 75 he had offered to resign from Cardinal’s post and the Papa had rejected his offer. In a way, one could call him a reluctant Pope.

Francis Pope came into priesthood little late but rose in the hierarchy very fast.  There is another specialty about him as he came from the Jesuit order which is normally overlooked when selection of Pope happens. He was truly committed to serve the poor and had shunned the Cardinal’s palace in Argentina to stay in an ordinary house and he took public transport to travel.  No wonder when he was elected to be the Pope, he took the name of Francis, taken from St. Francis of Assisi, the Saint who always worked for the poor and the downtrodden. Some year’s back, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio made history by washing the leg of 14 HIV patients in, prior to the Easter celebrations.

There are many things unique to Francis pope. During his childhood, due to health reasons, one of his lungs was removed and our Pope therefore is one lunged.  Francis Pope is a person of great humour. During the first dinner after he was elected as the Pope, he is said to quipped to the Cardinals, “Now that you had made the mistake of electing me, you must bear the brunt”!

In his approach to Christianity, Francis Pope is said to be a conservative. During the times when he was priest and Bishop, he was against Gay marriage and abortion. There is school of thought in Argentina that he did not fight for the lives of the young radicals who were disappearing from Argentina when the Military was ruling Argentina. He also said not to have high relations with the current Argentinean President, Christina. Argentina being a devout Christian country; however that would now turn out to be the problem of Argentinean President and not his.

It is generally believed that Pope Benedict the 16^th could not do much as the Pope due to the intense flux that the Catholics the world was undergoing. Though he had cited health reasons to abdicate the throne, this disillusionment also was said to be the reason for the former Pope to step down, something that happened after 600 years of Pope-dom.

Everyone believes that Papacy is in transition. With the world order undergoing rapid changes, and with people wanting inclusivity in all walks of life, it should be the endeavor of the new pope to concentrate his efforts for the upliftment of the poor. This is one message that the Francis Pope had already taken to heart. His initial announcements to the world had been “Church for the Poor” and therein lay the hope.

I am not a Christian and I am empathetic to all religions. I would like to highlight a comment of my wife when I opened the newspaper that day morning that carried the news of Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio becoming the Pope.  Looking up at his foolscap photo on the vernacular daily, she instantaneously said, “What a saintly looking person”! That is something I readily concurred. Here is a Pope who in every sense is very saintly.  For someone who requests when meeting people “pray for me”, now he has responsibility of praying and working for one sixth of the world population. And that indeed is a tremendous responsibility for the first pope from Latin America

.

By the way, what will happen to Mr. Francis Pope, an investment banker of Toronto, Canada and Dr Francis Pope, an Atmospheric Scientist from Birmingham University, UK? Someone had taken their name away. It won’t be life as usual for them. Looking at their business cards, eyebrows will get raised from now on and that is something these two gentlemen have to live with, though it would be a pleasant experience for both.