THE NEED FOR A STORNG OPPOSITION & THE SELF DESTRUCTIVE CONGRESS PARTY

All agree that democracy works best when the opposition to the ruling party is strong. There is an absolute necessity for a balance in governance that can only be provided by a strong opposition party. We have seen that in nations when the incumbent party accumulates excessive power without a strong opposition, it goes autocratic. There are many examples of it across the world and at home.

Huge incumbency & concentration of power in the hands of few individuals in the parties of yesteryears had given birth to many regional parties. In many Indian states viz: Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, MS, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Punjab etc., we see very strong regional parties; many of them ruling the states now. However, at national level, these regional parties have not been able to make major impact, as their focus is on their respective states.  

The Indian National Congress (Congress) that ruled the country for many terms continuously, is a sick party today. Most of the regional parties of the country are actually those splintered out of the Congress. Still the party then had enough strength to play at national level to form government, even if in a coalition format which is no longer the case now. Over the years, the Congress had become rudderless. The Gandhi family, without much accountability, had failed to hold the party together. Even within the mother-son-daughter, there are differences on many issues. The elders in the party (Manmohan Singh, AK Antony, Motilal Vohra, Pawan Bansal etc.), have no opinion and acts as ‘yes men’ to the family. Leaders such as Chidambaram, Oommen Chandy etc. are there but are indifferent. Within the organisation hierarchy of Congress, many had established ‘checkmate’ between each other to protect self interest and stop others going up. With gross inactivity and incumbency at its peak, some ‘thinking’ (?) people;  Kapil Sibal, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Manish Tewari, Sashi Tharoor etc had formed a Group of 23, asking questions and seeking remedies from within which is not taken kindly by the acting president and the family and the group is being strongly resisted. At every state, be it Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan etc. where Congress party is ruling, there is huge dissent within, things are unmanageable now. 

All these being the case, the ruling party which wanted to obliterate the Congress, doesn’t need to do much, because the party is on a self destructive course by itself. All BJP did was to choke the money sources of Congress. Today, nobody needs to destroy the congress party, it is destroying by itself. That is good for the BJP as it could go about with the  ‘Hindutva’ agenda while enjoying absolute majority, without even having an opposition leader in Loksabha. 

At this rate, in the next union election, the ruling party can take out one D (Democracy) out of its 3D slogan and make it simply, 2D (demography & demand) ! 

THE DOUBLE EDGED RELIGIOUS / POLITICAL LEADERS

മനുഷ്യൻ മതങ്ങളെ സൃഷ്ടിച്ചു 

മതങ്ങൾ ദൈവങ്ങളെ സൃഷ്ടിച്ചു 

മനുഷ്യനും മതങ്ങളും ദൈവങ്ങളും കൂടി 

മണ്ണു പങ്കു വച്ചു, മനസ്സു പങ്കു വച്ചു.

These lines are written by Vayalar Rama Varma, for the Malayalam movie ‘Achchanum Bappayum’, way back in the year 1972 and it won the best song in the national movie awards for the year. 

Loosely translated, the lines go as under:

Men created religions

Religions created Gods 

Men, Religions and Gods combined 

To divide the earth, and the minds.

When parochial polity joined the fray, it became a potent explosive proposition. Election after elections in the country, the combined trio (politics, religions and the Gods) began impacting society/state/nation so much that today we hear the salvos fired by it, far and wide. Too bad, too bad for the country and its people…..

They make statements, they put the blame squarely on each other, they use words such as ‘jihad’ to combine with any other word (love jihad, narcotics jihad), to demean the others. 

And after the words penetrate into social fabric and after the rhetoric shakes the very foundations of humanity, to appease the idiotic masses who simply follow these trio with utter emotional confusion, the trio convene മത സൗഹാർദ മീറ്റിങ്ങുകൾ (religious amity meets) and embrace each other, give joint press statements blaming those forces (????) who are behind destabilising the nation! Ha ha ha! 

പൊട്ടന്മാരായ നാഗരികർ, നമ്മൾ (we, the stupid citizens) applaud them and take a sigh, thinking that all ends well. 

BUT, IS IT? 

Abraham Lincoln said, “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”

EVERYBODY WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD – SURVIVING AND THRIVING IN A WORLD OF DIGITAL GIANTS - A Book Review

When well-known author of a widely read book, ‘Disrupting Digital Business’, Ray R Wang, the Founder & Principal Analyst of Constellation Research Inc., a sought after research & advisory firm based in Silicon Valley California began writing his second book, his thoughts must have been on the 1985 top of the chart song, “everybody wants to rule the world” by the band, ‘Tears for Fears’! The song depicted people’s desire for control and power. Of course, much of Ray’s new book published by Harper Collins, ‘Everybody wants to rule the world – surviving and thriving in a world of digital giants”,  is about controlling the trillion dollar market out there, by constructing it through the means of data driven digital networks (DDDN).

The book tells the reader the power of DDDNs to drive the most successful companies of our times. The book cites the trends in business where big time consolidation is changing the global landscape and shows what this means for businesses of all types and sizes to fit into the value chain. It offers insights about the actions taken by innovative companies to position themselves in the new dynamic market place and it advises businesses to move from status-quo to market leadership.

This exceptional new guide shows you the ways to adapt your business to thrive among digital giants like Google, Facebook, Apple & Amazon. Drawing on sizeable original analysis and case-studies from his own research firm, the author directs you on the way to bridge business leadership & technology adoption, to create a future-proof company of your own. 

Everybody wants to rule the world’ is published very recently (July 2021) and therefore is cites even the latest developments & trends.  For e.g., Ray Wang says in the book, “It’s true that between March 2020 and August 2020, what would have taken five years to accelerate to digital, happened in 5 months of COVID”

The book reiterates that data is the foundation and uppermost priority of each Digital Network that wishes to grow. Therefore, it is necessary to know how the data is shared, monetized, and controlled. So, it is important to identify quality data from the huge cesspool of data available and to understand how it is consumed by the user. Data supremacy is not about having huge quantity of data but having well-curated, high context data. If you can find out how the data interacts with each other and develop the patterns, you are certain to succeed in business, using the same. Winning DDDNs are those that identify the patterns that emerge from the interactions. These patterns result in ‘precision decisions’, like how to price a product and what product / service should be suggested to which customer groups.

Digital giants like Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google & Microsoft have shown the ability in dominating markets and moving on the far side of digital transformation. Upcoming digital giants, the types of AirBnB, Disney, Grubhub, Lyft, Spotify, Uber & Walmart have shown significant growth in the post-pandemic markets. Some of the Indian successful examples are Byjus, Zomato, Ola, Paytm etc. All these giants have applied digital business models, engineered distinctive digital monetization models, and improved their business channels.  The rising digital giants mirror the characteristics mentioned below for creating protracted and sustainable data driven digital network (DDDN) platforms:

• Build-up the biggest business network of active member community, say, greater than 50 million registrations, in case you want to be a global player.
• Take ownership of the relationship with your customer by cutting the intermediaries and taking control of customer account, and by delivering the best customer experience directly through continuous engagement.
• Have data dominance by designing superior data driven digital networks to derive decision speed and to create competitive advantage.
• Deploy more than one digital monetization model, may be to have a multimode revenue channels like advt., search, goods, services, memberships, and subscriptions.
• Have a strategic growth mind-set by trading profits for market share growth and immediate gains for long term investments that allows you to dominate the value chain

Reading Ray Wang’s book took me to memory lane of reading a similarly titled book by Prof. Jagdish Sheth and Prof. Rajendra Sisodia, “The rule of three, surviving and thriving in competitive markets” published in 2002. Based on extensive research of the market forces, the authors argued that natural competitive forces shape the vast majority of companies under “the rule of three” where 3 strongest, most efficient companies control 70-80 percent of the market, be it globally, nationally or regionally. The book had cited many examples such as Nike, Adidas & Reebok; American, United & Delta Airlines; McDonald, Burger King & Wendy’s etc. On an Indian context, a good example is; Reliance Jio, Airtel & Vodafone-Idea triumvirate on the mobile telephony market.

Analogical to the findings on ‘The rule of three’, in this book, Ray Wang takes us to the new trend of ‘digital duopoly’. A duopoly is a form of oligopoly, where only two companies dominate the market. The companies in a duopoly tend to compete each other, reducing the chance of monopolistic market power, only to the extent possible. Visa and Master card are examples of a duopoly that dominates the payment industry. Digital duopoly is all about using DDDN, thus, gravitating to become part of a duopoly. Wang writes in the book, “Can I choose to quietly run my business in my small niche, without the backing of a DDDN and without provoking the giants? The answer is no. If you want to survive for another decade, there is no other choice. Like it or not, the options are to build your own duopoly or join a coalition that can hold its own against the dominant DDDNs in your market, or give up and wait for the grim reaper.” That is a terse advice, but coming from his experience, it is better that we lend our ears.

Paul Daugherty, Group Chief Executive - Technology & CTO of Accenture says about the book: “Everybody wants to rule the world’ provides essential insights on the post-digital world. All leaders will need to understand the role of data and new monetization models and why networked organizations will compete on decision velocity and signal intelligence. Ray shows us why digital transformation alone is not enough.”

In time to come, globally, maybe we could expect 100 players in 50 distinct DDDNs representing more than 70% of global GDP.  In India too, we are seeing it. In the recently concluded IPO of Zomato, we had seen the valuation of the company skyrocketing, not because of higher revenue or profitability that it has achieved (in fact, it had none) but only thanks to its DDDN effect. In the coming decades, we could see at least two prominent players in each market where the first proactive player benefiting from a first mover advantage by taking more than 50% of the market.  Thus, we await the times of digital duopolies to dominate the markets in future.

CHINA-WATCH, FROM TWO THOUSAND FEET ABOVE

The names that come to mind when we think of leadership in modern China are Sun Yat-sen, Chiang Kaishek, Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping and Xi Jinping. 

Sun Yat-sen, the first president of the Republic of China is considered as the father of the nation and the forerunner of the ‘Revolution’. His political party Kuomintang (Nationalist) has the distinction of ending monarchy in China. He is widely respected both in the mainland China and Taiwan,

Chaing Kaishek has the distinction of being one of the longest serving non-royal heads of state in the 20th century. He created the National Revolutionary Army which had both Kuomintang and Communist Party (CCP) members in it and he became the Generalissimo of the army. Kaishek’s role in unifying China by defeating the northern warlords was significant. Later, he fell out with the CCP and went through tumultuous times, settling in Taiwan as it ruler, when the communists overran the mainland. 

Mao Zedong is credited with the creation of modern China. The ‘Long March’ and the creation of ‘People’s Liberation Army’ by him are legion. He ruled the nation brutally and closed his eyes to the sufferings of million of Chinese of famine and diseases. He was instrumental in making the party as the supreme being and declared that the people, army and the government must be unquestionably loyal to the party. In the latter half of his leadership, the nation and its people went through huge distress. 

Deng Xiaoping was considered by the world as a pragmatic leader who opened up Chinese economy by taking it through the principles of ‘state capitalism’. Without diluting the supremacy of the party, he steered China out of the huge mess created by Chairman Mao. His initiatives stabilised the economy and ensured its fast growth, year on year. He gave good attention to south China (the Cantonese region) and converted it as the manufacturing centre of the world. While all these progressive developments were happening, he advised the nation to ‘hide the strength and bide the time’ (and that is precisely what Xi is now doing - biding the time). The last  40 years of unprecedented economic growth of China is the result of Deng’s policies and the Chinese never had it so good and rightly so, he is called the ‘Architect of modern China’! In the same way the Chinese describe Chiarman Mao, Deng Xiaoping also came to be is called as the ‘Paramount leader’. 

The man who is poised to become the greatest of the Chinese leadership is Xi Jinping. He had created the necessary regulatory ecosystem for him to let it happen. Coming into leadership in 2012, he maintained firm grip on the country and the party. In order to win the people’s empathy, he acted brutally on the corrupt people within the party and government. With policies such as ‘belt and road initiatives’ he ventured into the neighbourhood nations and other continents and in the process, made most of the developing nations economically dependent on China. China being the factory of the world, it also helped to maintain trade surplus with almost all nations. In about 10 years, he had put China almost on the top of the world both militarily and economically. His latest move is taking control of the emerging Chinese technology entrepreneurship that had made its mark globally, with a view to destroy monopolies and to create competition. 

It is actually on the strength of the economic foundations laid by Deng Xiaoping that Xi Jinping is riding the China wave. Xi has this unwavering ambition to establish Chinese supremacy over the world. He is unwilling to brook any inside resistance or competition to reach his aspirations. By doing all these, Xi is about to ensure his place in Chinese history, as the ‘Supreme leader’, above that of Mao. Towards this. there is also a move within the CCP to discredit Deng Xiaoping, the nation’s economic saviour. 

In a Covid world, many nations, including USA, have turned against China and realise Xi Jinping’s global designs. Leading countries now doubt that Corona Virus pandemic was a strategic initiative of Xi towards meeting China’s global supremacy. Energising alliances such as QUAD etc.by US is to counter any such move by Xi. 

Will Xi’s ambitions fructify? Only an internally stable China without dissent can let it happen. Xi also realises that and is trying his right earnest to keep it so. 

Let us continue our China watch……..

THE AMERICAN MISADVENTURE IN AFGHANISTAN, THE NATION OF WARLORDS

There is a Panchatantra story about a ‘mooshika’ (mouse) lady. It is about a sage converting a mouse into a lady (called Mooshika) and then trying to marry her off to the strongest man in the world and then going to sun and from sun to cloud to wind to mountain, requesting each to marry his daughter. Finally, the mountain tells him that the rat is more powerful than him. Thereafter, the sage marries her off to the rat after converting the lady back to a mouse. 

 Mooshika lady has now become an adage, used whenever anything gets converted back into its original form. 

 Isn’t this happening in Afghanistan? Taliban, a movement that began in 1994 in Quetta of Pakistan of Pashto madrasa students which becomes a militia to join Afghan civil war with the help of ISI, then confiscate power from the warlords to become the nation’s rulers. After being in control for five years, they were overthrown by the US led invaders as a reaction to the 9/11 episode, and thereafter trying to to bring democracy in the country. That was in 2001. Two decades later, the US, still not able to finish off the Taliban insurgency, gets tired of its responsibility of resurrecting democracy in a clannish warlord country and started vacating the troupes. Taliban is back with a vengeance, except for Kabul, it had taken control of almost the rest of Afghanistan. The fall of Kabul in imminent, it looks like. 

So, the mooshika lady becomes a mooshika again. 

 What could happen to Afghanistan is anybody’s guess. The killing fields will come back as Taliban will behave brutally to the enemies within. Pakistan’s control will goes up, China will come in there and the threat to India from that end will double up. Now, look at the United State of America. Wherever the big brother had gone militarily to overthrow governments, it had eventually failed. Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq, Libya and now Afghanistan; all turned into big time misadventures. (It is another story that war is a big business for the American weapon industry) From Afghanistan, with a two timing ally such as Pakistan, America must have learnt a huge lesson. The US had been fighthing a nation without understanding its culture. To top it further, It is now challenged by the emerging world power, China which has the support of Russia & Pakistan. US must have realised that getting out of Afghanistan is the best thing to do. 

 Meanwhile, back to square one, the nation Afghanistan is going to bleed badly.

Dr. P K Varrier

Everyone in Kerala knew Dr. PK Varrier. Many people in India and selected people across the globe knew him too. As an ayurveda physician and head of THE true  Ayurveda therapy institution, the Kottakkal Arya Vaidya Sala (KAVS), he had treated Presidents, Prime ministers, Monarchs and many Heads of the nations. Who could claim such an unique distinction?

My first connect with him was when Kerala Management Association decided to bestow him with its prestigious Management Leadership in 2002. I had the privilege of drafting his citation and reading it out at the award function. The award was given away to him by the then Speaker of Kerala Assembly, Vakkom Purushothaman. 

An year later, I was invited to his organisation to deliver a keynote in ‘Information Technology in Business’. He was there to listen to it with all senior managers of the organisation. It didn’t stop at that, I was again invited to speak to the Board of Trustees of KAVS, headed by Justice Paripoornan, at BTH Sarovaram, Kochi, on why IT is important to KAVS. Post that, KVS started the computerisation there at the right earnest. 

Much later, in 2010, I had the pleasure of meeting him again at his office, when KAVS decided to go in for ERP, a project headed by Dr Murali (such a gem of an individual), his close relative, who holds a doctorate in Physics and was a scientist at TIFR Mumbai, after his superannuation came to serve KAVS. 

My last direct interaction with him was when I called him personally to get an appointment with him for the Admin. Officer of TiE:Kerala, who was having acute asthma challenges. Not only that he gave it but also he treated her personally and looked after like his own daughter (it required longer term treatment) 

He could be many things to many people; a freedom fighter, a doctor, a lover and preserver of art (particularly Kathakali), an institution builder or an industrialist but he will ever be remembered for his positive approach to life and love for fellow beings. 

He lived a 100 years, seen and done it all. Left us to join the creator. May his noble soul rest in eternal peace! Goodbye Sir! 

Prayers 🙏

Rishi dear

A precocious prodigy 

In studies, sports or arts

Or in music or instruments

Your touch made the difference 

Compassionate to the core 

For fellow beings or pets

Being their great buddy

You made the energies flow 

Whenever you chanted or played the violin 

Whenever you ran the cross-country race

Whenever you painted the Warli art

You left such deep poignant impression 

For those small years you lived

Before going back, just like that

To the Creator’s abode, so early

You exuded happiness galore

In another world, another time

We must be meeting you dear 

So long, but keep the radiance 

Forever we long to see ........

(My wife’s cousin Dr Anita Shet lost her second son Rishi in a freak accident in the US,  at the age of 17, a week ago. Ref:www.rishishet.com)