tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58349098545607884092024-03-19T00:18:06.493-07:00Koushik SekharUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger49125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5834909854560788409.post-73238527215118738562022-03-24T00:16:00.002-07:002022-03-24T00:28:37.920-07:00On currencies and commodities<p>Some times it feels like the surplus of what we call news has numbed us and made us forget basics of economics and divorced us from our common sense and intuition. </p><p>Why do we need commodities ? For making things and for daily needs and survival ! Why do we need currencies ? To create a medium of exchange for buying and selling the things we actually need. </p><p>Can we do without either ? No. Each has its due place. US thinks currencies and allied systems are all important. Russia thinks commodities are. There is a tug of war. Each of them have weaponized what they have. If push comes to shove, we may be able to live without a global currency by using primitive techniques such as barter or an ugly currency system but we will definitely need commodities. Hopefully we won’t reach there but there are many indications of it. </p><p>Commodity industries have been vilified by markets leading to underinvestment for past two decades or perhaps more . Non democracies or weak democracies export lot of commodities - Russia, China, Saudi, Iran, Venezuela etc. Brazil is a question mark and Australia is possibly the exception. </p><p>If commodities are necessary and are getting weaponized, then in coming days they will have to be hoarded like forex reserves for food security and economic safety and stability. </p><p>Thus the coming times will force to ask this question - Are commodities also real currencies ? </p><p>In negative real interest rate scenario in a world underinvested in mining, aren’t commodities with inflationary price structure possibly better than bonds and sovereign debt of developed countries yielding very near zero?</p><p>Is it better for nations like India to idle some portion of their forex reserves in commodities they are short of rather than in USD / Euro ? </p><p>Like bitcoin and gold, commodities are also in effect stores of energy values and capital usage . You need a lot of both to make say Aluminium , wheat or steel ! </p><p>Stocking commodities you actually need is nothing new. Indian house holds stocked grains for whole year purchased after the harvest.</p><p>Marc Faber in a recent interview said that commodities such as food can vanish from shelves even whenever they are plentiful He gives explanation of Argentina which produced plentiful food and was experiencing shortages. He asked an Argentinian why was this so and they replied that due to high inflation the farmer preferred to keep his money in the crop harvest form and sell whenever he needed money to buy other things rather than sell and enjoy huge loss of purchasing power by holding currencies. Thus wheat had practically become a currency ! </p><p>In this emerging scenario, will some of central bankers wake up to commodities scenario and diversify out of USD and Euro? India could for example easily keep commodity reserve of copper, potash, oil, aluminium, etc. How will this trend affect commodity markets ? Will asset managers launch ETFs of key commodities ? </p><p>How can nations diversify reserves into commodities without losing money in commodities ? Buy when market prices are below cash costs at which substantial production will be wiped out to restore the price. This may vary from commodity to commodity but is publicly available data. This will ensure that prices cant stay sustainably below our acquisition price of the stockpile / reserve for long term.</p><p>Decades of vilifying commodity industry has had its own results - under investment. Religious fervour in pursuing climate goals through supply side and not demand side have let to under provisioning of capacity for coming years . Just in time has led to lower inventory levels in the quest for investment returns over supply chain resilience. </p><p>As post COVid demand returns and supply chains are disrupted , inflation is rearing its ugly head. Commodities are also getting weaponised as is everything from salads, cats to judo belts and this is further leading to slowing down of production, shipping and payment systems. </p><p>Weaponising currencies by confiscation without due process also has quickly lead to weaponizing commodities in similar style and manner. Once strategically important commodities are weaponized it’s no longer about the cheapest supplier. It’s about self reliance , hoarding , stock piles etc. it’s a new world ! </p><p>The cost of weaponized commodities is no longer it’s cif price. It’s the opportunity cost of of lost production &/or lost sales. When consumers merely have availability of commodities in right time and quantity, they will enjoy huge consumer surpluses ! </p><p>In this scenarios commodities are already showing all signs of becoming proxy currencies. Inflation expectations are getting reset and it will be difficult to put the genie back in the bottle neck without substantial change in attitude to energy production esp fossil fuels and higher interest rates. </p><p>In coming years, outsourcing in food and fertilisers will look like Marie Antoinette designed the policy </p><p>If the two sides don’t see the value in each other the nations with the currencies won’t have the commodities for daily life and the nations with commodities won’t be able to exchange them for other things they need. The makings of a very large recession !</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5834909854560788409.post-87351318818304406072021-07-03T02:21:00.007-07:002021-07-03T04:03:15.509-07:00India's contribution to Efficient Markets Hypothesis<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 36);">"The </span><b style="caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 36);">efficient market hypothesis</b><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 36);"> (</span><b style="caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 36);">EMH</b><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 36);">) or </span><b style="caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 36);">theory</b><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 36);"> states that share prices reflect all information. The </span><b style="caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 36);">EMH</b><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 36);"> </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 36);">hypothesises</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 36);"> that stocks trade at their fair </span></span><b style="caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 36);">market</b><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 36);"> value on exchanges. </span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(77, 81, 86);">A direct implication is that it is impossible to "beat the market" consistently on a risk-adjusted basis since market prices should only react to new information."</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There two sides - broadly the academics and the active investors who vehemently disagree on this hypothesis. The former who have indeed proved that most of the market participants can't beat the stock market and hence go on to say that market is efficient. Businessmen and thought leader like John Bogle went a step further and built on this idea in his thesis on the topic of investment performance and went on to make a hugely successful venture Vanguard which now manages about USD 6 trillion and counting on the basis of his thesis thus validating it an a way no one can really deny it. On the other hand, we have people like Benjamin Graham and his students like Warren E Buffett ( one among many of his students but possibly the foremost) who made it their life time goal of exploring every inefficiency in the market to create superlative returns over such a long period that it cannot be said that the market is efficient.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The people who propagated both sides of these ideas are not fools. They are highly intelligent people who have gone on to produce great value out of their idea. But the issue is that the academia is still at loggerheads and this issue is still largely unresolved leading to confusing things being taught in MBA classrooms to future practitioners. Academia did try to reconcile successes of the polar opposite approaches of Bogle and Warren Buffett by coming up with strong, weak and semi-strong efficient market hypotheses but there needs to be a better explanation.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What can India add to the EMH ?</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">India is an old civilisati</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">on. It reached its earlier zenith much before the industrial revolution and evolution of the stock markets and has been playing catch up with the West in thinking on industrialisation and capital markets. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">However Indian logic is old, more complex and well established and has stood the test of time and it can explain complex things significantly better than Aristotelian logic. In this blog, I shall be applying this to a highly debated issue among academics, researchers, economists, investors and businessmen. </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This is unresolved in my opinion not because of lack of evidence because of shortcomings of Aristotelian logic. In that logic, either something is true or it is untrue. It states that there are only two </span>possibilities- white or black, excluding both or neither<span style="font-family: inherit;">.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(84, 84, 84); font-family: inherit; text-align: center;">"Figure 1: Venn diagram illustrating binary logic</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img alt="Figure 1: Venn diagram illustrating binary logic" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-14165" class="size-full wp-image-14165" height="200" loading="lazy" sizes="(max-width: 320px) 100vw, 320px" src="http://indiafacts.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/11.png" srcset="https://www.indiafacts.org.in/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/11.png 320w, https://www.indiafacts.org.in/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/11-250x156.png 250w, https://www.indiafacts.org.in/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/11-150x94.png 150w, https://www.indiafacts.org.in/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/11-50x31.png 50w, https://www.indiafacts.org.in/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/11-100x63.png 100w, https://www.indiafacts.org.in/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/11-200x125.png 200w, https://www.indiafacts.org.in/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/11-300x188.png 300w" width="320" /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What India can bring to improve the Efficient markets hypothesis is not more evidence for or against, the West has already done enough of that, but superlative logic and logical systems which can explain more complex phenomenon </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The four sided negation - Chatuskoti can explain Bogle and Buffett and give a better, richer and nuanced understanding of stock markets and Efficient Markets Hypothesis. Here is an excerpt from a very good post on this topic and you can read more here on <a href="https://www.indiafacts.org.in/archives/chatuskoti-four-sided-negation/">Chatuskoti</a></span></p><div class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_14167" style="clear: both; margin: auto; max-width: 100%; text-align: center; width: 330px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span><span style="cursor: pointer; filter: grayscale(0%); font-family: inherit; height: auto;">"</span></span></div><div class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_14167" style="clear: both; margin: auto; max-width: 100%; text-align: center; width: 330px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span><span style="cursor: pointer; filter: grayscale(0%); font-family: inherit; height: auto;"><img alt="Figure 3: Venn diagram illustrating Chatuskoti, or the 4-sided negation." aria-describedby="caption-attachment-14167" class="size-full wp-image-14167" height="204" loading="lazy" sizes="(max-width: 320px) 100vw, 320px" src="http://indiafacts.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/13.png" srcset="https://www.indiafacts.org.in/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/13.png 320w, https://www.indiafacts.org.in/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/13-250x159.png 250w, https://www.indiafacts.org.in/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/13-150x96.png 150w, https://www.indiafacts.org.in/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/13-50x32.png 50w, https://www.indiafacts.org.in/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/13-100x64.png 100w, https://www.indiafacts.org.in/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/13-200x128.png 200w, https://www.indiafacts.org.in/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/13-300x191.png 300w" style="border: 0px; filter: grayscale(0%); height: auto; max-width: 100%; word-wrap: break-word;" width="320" /></span></span><p class="wp-caption-text" id="caption-attachment-14167" style="line-height: 2; margin: 0px 0px 30px; max-width: 100%; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Figure 3: Venn diagram illustrating Chatuskoti, or the 4-sided negation.</span></p></div><p style="line-height: 2; margin: 0px 0px 30px; max-width: 100%; text-align: center; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This 4-sided negation creates four distinct zones in the universe Ω. With increasing knowledge, our understanding of all these 4 zones increases, but the zone of “Neither A nor Not A” may remain forever. This is because we may predict that we don’t know something about the universe, but we may not be able to express exactly what it is that we don’t know. Please note that this limitation is due to two things: (1) our understanding of the world and (2) the limited expressibility of language. Even if we allow humans to be omniscient (in whatever finite context for Ω specified by our problem), the ambiguity in the language may never be resolved."</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>If we apply Chatuskoti and use the data already available, we will come to the conclusion that the</b><b> market is thus both inefficient and efficient at the same time. Let me explain.</b></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Market is inefficient for two categories of people - those who can identify reasons why some stocks are seriously wrongly valued - arising from industrial, economic , behavioural, legal or policy reasons and find ways of making super normal returns from it, in a fully legal manner. Not surprisingly, it is the largely the collective effect of the actions of these people that make the market efficient. </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Another is those who can access such people and retain their services at such a fee that a portion of the returns arising from market inefficiency is still left for them after paying their fees. It should be kept in mind that in any society such people are a very small minority and not too many people can indeed beat the market because as the number of active investors who set out to reduce the inefficacy increase the inefficacy reduces drastically. </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">For rest of all market participants who fall in neither of these categories, the market is efficient and they are better off by not trying to beat it.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So if some one asks you "Is the market efficient ? "- it really depends on the person asking. For example , if you are John Doe or the Common Man from RK Laxman cartoon it is efficient but if you are student of value investing and possibly were lucky enough to study in <a href="https://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/valueinvesting/">Heilbrunn Center</a> or under Prof Sanjay Bakshi and can put to practise what you learnt it definitely isn't ! </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Thus the stated position should be that EMH is both true and untrue. It is inefficient for some kind of players with the requisite skills/competences or for people with access to such skills/competences at a right price and highly efficient for the rest of those who are really in one way outsiders to the game. The highest value to society from this nuanced understanding is that EMH should neither be discarded nor taken blindly and players should take actions appropriate to their circumstances.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It should not be discarded, as discarding it will mean you are giving very wrong ideas to a numeric majority who have no access to those who can beat the market up a garden path.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It should not be accepted blindly as it will mean you are dissuading people with real skills whose work can a long way in actually reducing the inefficiency in markets on a continuous basis and keeping it efficient by telling them it can’t be done.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This nuanced understanding will also help us understand the role of active and passive investing in markets. Paradoxically the parts of the active investing universe that make supra-market returns by constantly exploiting inefficiencies go towards making the markets more and more efficient and make passive investing work ! </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In my opinion, it is not either or but a right combination of active and passive investing that will make markets efficient. </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In one way to can be said that sensible active investors are really the ones keeping the stock in check by constantly following process of selling overvalued assets and buying undervalued ones and ensuring that bubbles don't build in pockets of stock markets and may-allocation of capital doesn't occur.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Lastly the role of such active investors and their social relevance is probably in making it more and more efficient. This can go long way in ensuring that people without requisite skills don't waste their talent and time seeking their fortune in the stock market and actually spend the time producing the things of value in society instead of speculating without any understating of the social, economic, or business rationale and relevance of what they are doing in the hope of getting rich quick. </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Before you go, here is a sculpture which is said to be a pictorial representation of Chatuskoti. You can decide it if a bull or an elephant. Is it neither or both?</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://mons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bull_and_Elephant_statue_at_Thanjavur_Airavatesvara_Temple..JPG">Bull and Elephant statue at Thanjavur Airavatesvara Temple</a><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img alt="File:Bull and Elephant statue at Thanjavur Airavatesvara Temple..JPG - Wikimedia Commons" class="n3VNCb" data-noaft="1" jsaction="load:XAeZkd;" jsname="HiaYvf" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/Bull_and_Elephant_statue_at_Thanjavur_Airavatesvara_Temple..JPG" style="height: 487.99999999999994px; margin: 0px; width: 731.9999999999999px;" /></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5834909854560788409.post-56641219710569904812019-07-08T04:15:00.001-07:002019-07-11T03:08:23.882-07:00A new Pune <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Pune is a city with lot of land which is being used the same manner as it was more than half a century ago. The city has grown and become a modern metropolis and many villages which were the edge city of now become the centre of the city. Pune is now getting a transportation infrastructure of metros ring roads befitting metropolitan area with perhaps more than 5-6 million people. There is an opportunity in this transformation to envision the future of the city for the next 50 years and reuse some of the land also accordingly. </div>
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<b>Agricultural College as a Central Business District </b></div>
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Very prime land near the nerve centre of the the metro network where almost three metro lines Criss cross is being used for an agricultural college. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Proposed Pune Metro Rail Network</td></tr>
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There is no ecosystem for agriculture in Pune city. There is hardly enough water even for its residents. It will be difficult even for the students to practice what they learn or to interact with agriculturalist or farmers. What was once the right place place for agricultural university is perhaps now a misfit. Areas like Solapur on Marathwada or Vidarbha which face challenges in creating a strong agricultural economy for which there is an a viable market and which is sustainable environmently. Need this college more than Shivaji Nagar Pune. There is a strong case to to shift this university to the epicenter of areas which require speedy thinking and solutions for creating the second green revolution for Maharashtra. </div>
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<span style="text-align: left;">Maybe one idea may be to shift it to Baramati !</span></div>
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Similarly there is a need to re envision Pune and create a city in which the traffic flows and people movements are balanced. Having two three pockets like Hinjewadi or Kharadi where few lakh people commute everyday in one direction is not a recipe for a balanced development. No transport system can take skewed loads. The mistake of creating Nariman Point at one edge of the city should not be repeated. It simply destroys the life of one generation of people by eating up all their personal time in commute. It is necessary in Pune to create a central district where lots of work can be done by just walking around or by simply sitting on a small bus or an electric vehicle. Perhaps it's time for Pune to learn from what Kuala Lumpur did it and create a City centre. There was a racing track in the middle of Kuala Lumpur rather the city grow so much that the racing track came to be located centrally. When Kuala Lumpur wanted to reinvent itself it took up this racing track and converted into the <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuala_Lumpur_City_Centre" target="_blank">Kuala Lumpur City Centre</a> with modern amenities.</div>
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The interests of entire KL was put ahead of just the Selangor Turf club members and the results are there for the whole world to see. <a href="https://www.selangorturfclub.com/corporate/history/" target="_blank">Selangor Turf Club</a> was an institution of the British Raj in Malaysia meant for the amusements of the British elites. Set up in 1800 it definitely appears to have become an elitist institution by the time Malaysia decided to use its land for the greater good.</div>
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I think it is time to do the same thing with <a href="https://www.edufever.com/mpkv-agriculture-college-pune/" target="_blank">The Agriculture College</a> at Shivaji Nagar, Pune. It has about 1000 students and the college and the farm appears to cover an area of about 100-150 acres. The College is between 200 metres to one kilometre from three metro lines- the locations for which have already been decided. With this infrastructure Shivaji Nagar would become the hub of the city and would have very high public transport connectivity.</div>
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<span style="text-align: left;">The Government should pay fair compensation and take over the Agricultural College and build a very modern city centre on the entire land. If government wishes it will also take over some portion of the military land abutting it and add to this areas. This will create both flow into the City centre and out of City centre using the metro rail network. . For example the line to Hinjewadi will not be like the Virar to Nariman point line, having traffic only on one direction. This line can bring in people to the city centre from suburban residential areas and and can take people from the City centre to Hinjewadi. Utilisation of the metro network and the roads will be high on both directions hereby making life much better for citizens. Viability of the metro network can be substantially altered by such a development as its capacity utilisation will be high along every direction and along every line of the network.</span></div>
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Optimisation techniques such as theory of constraints also suggest that the greatest benefits to any system arise when the usage of suboptimal resources is increased drastically by removing the constraints that limit their use.</div>
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The agriculture University will also benefit tremendously by being shifted to areas in which agriculture is the prime business or occupation. It will get a place of importance in that area and will be in the right in the middle of problems and can find solutions for these problems.<br />
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If this land parcel is developed as a dense CBD then one could expect at each acre would house 800-1000 employees. This new City centre will be very near to the dense but traditional parts of the Pune city and will be an excellent employment generator for the areas in which a large portion of the people live thereby reducing the load on the transport network. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandra_Kurla_Complex" target="_blank">The Bandra Kurla Complex</a> in Mumbai could serve as a precedent and a base upon which Pune could learn and develop this area</div>
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<b>Raj Bhavan Pune</b><br />
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The White House which is the official residence of the US President, arguably the most powerful political leader in the world, is only 18 acres. Pune is not even the capital of Maharashtra. Raj bhavan occupies very large tracts. It is obvious that these were created with very different idea of projecting the power of the rulers of those age. A reading of this (<a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raj_Bhavan,_Pune" target="_blank">Terraces of the Raj</a>) will make it amply clear of the nature of the disconnect of this building with modern India ! Since no Governor of India is new to its weather and we now have air conditioning in buildings and cars these summer Raj bhavans have lot all its relevance.</div>
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The Raj Bhavan at <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raj_Bhavan,_Mahabaleshwar" target="_blank">Mahabaleshwar</a> is even more of an anachronism. It is not relevant to this discussion except to highlight this point ! </div>
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India has progressed a long distance from the British Raj and now there are no rulers and there are now only people representatives who are there to serve The people representatives need to be accessible and not appear disconnected to the people they are elected to serve . We have to evaluate whether the people representatives need to have such large tracts of land which are hardly used in the centre of the city. This tracts of land today can be used for creating centralised business districts in which public services for which there is a large volume of traffic such as stamp duty registration courts can be housed on this premises. Incidentally Raj Bhavan also falls almost at the edge of one of the metro lines. . This may appear to be a revolutionary idea today but logical one and it should be evaluated on the merits of the idea rather than it's being a divergent from the past concepts that we have run with so long.<br />
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It is very classist and elitist to think that only farmers land can be acquired for alternate uses and only their land can be envisioned for a different way a of land use. To be fair every land should be open for such evaluation and should be available to the service of the society upon payment of a fair compensation. This should be true of farmers land or the agriculture University <u>o</u>r the Raj Bhavan. To say that the right to property of the President or the Governor is different from right to property of all citizen is to make a mockery of the constitution. The time has come to have an open constructive debate about these ideas.<br />
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I am not an urban planner but as an user of various city infrastructure and having lived and travelled and seen some amount of cities, I thought that we should learn from the solutions other cities came up with when they faced similar problems. Intelligent adaptation of good ideas is actually good thing and hence I think this idea needs to be put out in public domain and discussed. Its flaws drawbacks could be looked into and fixed and, if the idea is found a viable one may be taken up for implementation. <br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5834909854560788409.post-6048861012990298312019-01-30T03:38:00.002-08:002019-02-04T23:15:14.746-08:00Banaras and Kumbh my first hand experience<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<u>I</u> recently had a chance to visit Banaras and Kumbh for about 6 days. This is a summary of my experiences there. I had gone there to attend the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD -2019) and look around Banaras. The visit to the Kumbh Mela happened serendipitously.</div>
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I had come to Banaras almost 18 years back to assess if the Taj group should buy the Nadesar palace, a very large piece of land with a small palace on it. At the time I did visit the Ghats and the Vishwanath mandir and its precincts and was horrified in the way in which this city was being managed. Air connectivity was limited and the airport very basic. Nonetheless it was evident even to me who was merely an inexperienced 28 year old junior manager then that the time will come for this holy place. So we recommended to Taj to take over the Nadesar palace and maintain it is a boutique hotel and expanded to a very large deluxe hotel when someone will come to give the city its due. So we structured a lease instead of an out right purchase where in the lessor would get share of the revenue for whatever hotel that would come on it for a long time. The local people told me Nadesar Palace is doing very well now and charging upwards of Rs 50,000 per room night on good days ! </div>
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As I landed I found a very modern airport with excellent connectivity to the city that seemed capable of dealing much much more than the 18 flights that land now daily (per the local driver). The airport looks good to take as much as 100 flights a day ! </div>
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Although I stayed with some with some friends I did visit the tent city made in Banaras, for the overseas guests who had come to attend the PBD, to tide over the shortfall in hotel rooms. The arrangement were outstanding and I could not have believe that this is the same Banaras I visited 18 years back. The locals I stayed with were more astounded with the PBD event, the tent city and the ring roads. </div>
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Banaras has now many new facilities including a Trade facilitation centre which can hold many trade shows conferences This is built in the village where Kabir lived (photos below). </div>
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Once the PBD event was over, I was eager to see Banaras with my own eyes. Banaras has now uninterrupted power. In localities where the demand exceeds the capacity to distribute power, temporary arrangements have been made supply more power in those areas in short no excuses where tolerated. Here is a photo showing how the transformer capacity has been boosted using jugaad. This is found in many places and is not an isolated instance.</div>
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When I spoke to the locals they said that their diesel bill for generator has come down to zero. The savings for business establishment was quite significant especially for a low cost City such as </div>
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Banaras and it seemed to have improved the air quality also.</div>
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The first thing that struck me as I walk around the crowded areas was that there was no stench anymore. Conservancy staff where cleaning the streets at much greater intervals. Large proportion of the cups, kulhads, plates were being thrown properly in their designated areas. </div>
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While Delhi still wondering what to do to reduce, its pollution Banaras is moved on and is using electric vehicles for mobility a very large portion of these vehicles are electric vehicles which more than suffice and ideally suited for the small lanes and roads of old Banaras. Photos</div>
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The Kashi Vishwanath temple is being introduced to using modern temple management techniques. This ensures that there is more order and the revenues reach the temple rather than the middle man. Bank of Baroda has opened a facilitation centre near the temple where one can go and pay the fees for any of the pooja or for fast darshan of the temple. There are priests who take you into the temple and complete the Darshan and bring you back to the facilitation centre. The government has recognise that the temple complex is too small in relation to the number of people who like to visit this temple and has taken cognizance of the risks of pushing through more people into such a crowded areas and also the inability of the elderly and the infirm to be able to get Darshan of Kashi Vishwanath so they have acquired land around the temple and are in the process of constructing a large temple complex which will make the entry of people into the temple a very organised matter. Once these changes are made Ma Gange can be viewed from Kashi Vishwanath temple and there will be a long corridor from the temple to the river and all facilities will be there inside the temple for the pilgrims.</div>
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<a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/varanasi/soon-access-kashi-vishwanath-temple-directly-from-ghats/articleshow/64072869.cms">https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/varanasi/soon-access-kashi-vishwanath-temple-directly-from-ghats/articleshow/64072869.cms</a></div>
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It struck me that we need an institute of temple management in India today along the lines of IRMA which was setup to create specific management knowledge in the realm of rural and agricultural management. Pilgrimage and temple economy maybe equal in size to the dairy economy of India or even larger despite the neglect, benign or otherwise for the past 70 years, and requires a specialised body of knowledge for managing the same. There is a serious anomaly in the way in which tourism statistics are computed in India due to the fact that India is practically a continent masquerading as a country (more in this <a href="http://continent masquerading koushiksekhar" target="_blank">blog</a>).</div>
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Expansion of the temple complex may seem like a small matter but the addition of the few acres and superior management of the movement of pilgrims and their requirements could double the economy of Varanasi along with the additional infrastructure of the airport and road connectivity. </div>
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I went round the ghats to see for myself if indeed the river is clean in most regards. There is no floating debris and no odour and at the Dashashwamedh ghat you could even see the stones in the river during such a crowded season. </div>
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You can see that the waters are getting cleaner. Here is a photo of water collected from middle of the Ganga.</div>
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I also visited the Manikarnika ghats where the funerals take place and found that arrangements have been made for proper funerals at these Ghats. Nothing is thrown into the river and seeing this I was surprised that how no one had done this before considering it was such an obvious and simple thing to do. There is something at the funeral ghats of Banaras that makes you realise how transient life is! Visiting these Ghats was one of the best experiences of my visit to Banaras.</div>
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At the end of my trip I did get a chance to attend the Kumbh Mela and decide to extend my trip by one day. The road from Banaras to Prayagraj is being made into 4 lane divided highway which will perhaps cut the commute time from 3 hours to one and half hours when completed. Work is going on at a frenetic place for its completion ! </div>
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Arrangements at the Kumbh were simply outstanding. Law and order, electricity, roads and signages, water and waste management and connectivity was planned and executed very well. Indrapastham tent city by UP tourism has well appointed tents with very good facilities to ensure that Kumbh attracts high end visitors also !</div>
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In the years to come the Kumbh will drive the economy of the places where it is held and in the year it is held economists will say that the Kumbh economy cannot be compared to non Kumbh years and will want to remove the Kumbh effect on the economy of that region ! Some visuals ..</div>
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The morale and the effectiveness of the Uttar Pradesh police force has gone up a lot among their own citizenry and more so among the tourist and visitors to the state. This to my mind is a very deep transformation. </div>
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During my many interactions with the the ordinary people it was clear that they now understood the difference between governance and lack of it, leaders who could deliver and those who can't, and between lip service and walking the talk. In fact many of the common people were cribbing that government was insisting on correcting many of the anomalies and implementing the laws in letter and spirit very strictly. It seemed to me that change in this society was now limited to the pace at which society will adapt to moving to rule of law...</div>
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It seemed that this society was now collectively introspecting as to price paid for their past choices as a collective and whether they needed the rule of law or the rule of "their man" having evidenced the latter for better part of last thirty years ... </div>
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In conclusion I found a new Uttar Pradesh which is confident and capable of finding solutions to problems which had kept them behind. No doubts there are lot of problems and it is a long road ahead but the <u>soci</u>ety seemed to have found the appetite to handle what's ahead ... as a person who has observed Indian economy for last two and half decades and a participant in India stock market it seem to me that the road to India's social, political, and economic future clearly nows run through Uttar Pradesh ! </div>
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Before you go I leave you with more visuals of the beautiful ghats ! Ganga maiyya ki Jai</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com29tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5834909854560788409.post-48372073662379010642017-06-18T01:03:00.001-07:002017-06-18T01:03:37.248-07:00In time whats outside of you is inside <p dir="ltr">This is a story of how things apparently outside suddenly turn into things affecting you. Many years back a leading Indian company was expanding in Chennai and wanted to buy land. The CFO of the company who used to come on TV every result day thought he was not recognizable by public and came in torn jeans and chappals to negotiate for land. He wanted land in hottest suburb at prices of the back of beyond. His logic was when I can get land at Old Mahabalipuram Road outside Chennai for lower rate. For a company making so much money that fact that it's employees would spend 1 1/2 hours daily  extra had no consequence.  Once this mindset of this company was known to all a clever politician decided to make money out of it. He called them to a western Indian city and gave them lot of land "acquired" from farmers cheaply. So farmers paid for this billionaire promoters' freebie . This company was happy that they got land almost free and started creating 1000s of high paid jobs. It left the housing needs of a large employees -_a huge exogenous jump in the market to the market forces aka wolves many of whom were fronts of politicians. The politician sold the industrial land cheap knowing he could make it up in housing. Instead of buying land for both housing and industrial like Tatas did in Jamshepur this company only minimized what it thought was its "cost" little realizing that other costs will sooner or later be imposed on it. As real estate prices climbed 5x and people bought houses in an haphazard way the higher costs of residential real estate, travel costs, higher cosr of schooling, lost productivity, and health of employees have all been re-imposed back on this clever company and its cohorts through ever increasing wage costs. So much for the clever management ! In the end the politician had the last laugh ! Today a similar situation is prevalent in many CSR activities. CSR honchos want to fund tangible activities that are internal to their span of control little realizing that external things can become internal sooner or later.  The reluctance of the highly evolved corporate leaders to fund  initiatives that appear external to their world but will help manage things that will become internal to them is one such.  Today civic planning of cities is one such area. Government due to its past limitations on hiring and current limitation on tenure, training etc of professional skilled professionals is finding it difficult to solve problems in a manner and a time frame expected by society. When such capacity comes up as think tank/ implementation partner if corporates don't fund them they can expect longer commutes, more frequent traffic jams, higher  costs for their labour due to poor government schools, higher safety costs from city unemployment ... And all of this will fund a way to flow to their P&L. Choice is the corporates ..</p>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5834909854560788409.post-351714867420956602017-05-04T04:24:00.003-07:002017-05-04T05:49:22.671-07:00India : A Continent masquerading as a country<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
India is a continent masquerading as a country. We are a de facto continent though we are de jure only a country.<br>
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Most of the world world has not figured this out or at least pretend so. Our population is more than that of Europe. It has as much arable land if not more than Europe. It has more languages than Europe. Its variety of lands and landforms make it one of the geographical diverse "country". The people and their natures, the cuisines are so varied that most foreigners who want to simplify things dont understand India much.<br>
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Even if the whole world is fooled or refuses to see India is a continent we should not be fooled and should base our geopolitical ad economic strategy of the de facto position of continent and negotiate with the world on these terms.<br>
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When we begin to thinking that we are de facto a country we begin to get many things seriously wrong.<br>
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Let me give an example.<br>
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When we compare tourist arrivals into a country say Spain which with a population of 46.4 million gets 75 millions tourists an year and then compare with India which gets about 10 million tourists a year we think Indian tourism is miniscule. But look closer and you will find this<br>
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Most of the tourists to Spain are from within Europe. The traffic count into Spain is like adding Tamilians and Kannadigas going to Tirupati as Tourist arrivals. If you consider for a moment Europe as country then arrivals from UK, France , Germany, Italy , Nederlands etc wouldn't count and would substantially reduce tourist arrivals into Spain to about 5-6 million a 90% + reduction if computed on a like to like basis.<br>
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Thus comparing foreign tourist arrivals into India is the most absurd comparison and making comments about state of Indian tourism on that basis is way off the mark. Indian tourism has many challenges and we need to work on them but we should not think our situation is abysmal. It is very healthy.<br>
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Now contrast Spain with Tirupati a small temple town with just one old temple which gets 30-40 million tourist arrivals a year. If Tirupati were a separate country, by the standards of the numerical illiterate elites it would rank very high on the list of tourist countries in the world. There are at least ten temples like this. If one temple can get ranked so high you can imagine how the rankings would be if we added Katra town - Vaishnodevi, Madurai etc as separate countries in this list.<br>
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Singapore gets 16m tourists a year. So we can safely say that Tirupati town is a bigger tourist attraction than Singapore.<br>
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Let me give one more explanation. Lets say the Eurocrats having a wet dream of Europe as a single nation get their dream fulfilled. Now they are one nation and so FIFA asks them to send one team to the World Cup and gives them money reserved for one team like say Argentina with a population of 43 million. Would it be fair way to share the revenue when Europe brings in say 800 million + audience. If FIFA share of TV rights was main source of revenue to nurture the game in Europe will a country share be enough to maintain the game in a continent ? When asked this way it is obvious that it isn't.<br>
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We should not forget this when BCCI negotiates its fair share of fees with ICC. Even if we are a de jure country we have to nurture the game on a continent basis because thats exactly what we are. Needless to say the TV rights have such high value only because we bring continent size audiences and continent sized value of TV audiences. Our share of ICC revenues thus cannot be country sized. If ICC indeed wants to take continent size audiences and pay us country sized amounts of TV rights then we should send them a team from a country sized area like say Mumbai which is bigger than Australia.<br>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5834909854560788409.post-18686915490111867432017-05-04T03:31:00.000-07:002017-05-04T03:31:00.261-07:00The Great Swimmers of Cooumville<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I am going to tell you an interesting story about a town called Cooumville, its river and its folks.<br />
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There was a clean river flowing through the city. They had an annual swimming contest in the river. Everyone from the world wanted to contest and the local swimmers could not win the races due to competition. So a few cunning locals who had a special skill of swimmimg in sewage quietly found a pliant mayor and brough him to their side and requested him to start letting sewage water into the river. While these few locals swimming ability was not the best no one could beat them in swimming in sewage charged water. Over time the mayor realized that letting sewage into the river also saved a lot of money for the city and he duly pocketed all the sewage plant money and let the entire sewage into the river. The net result was that the chosen locals who were the only ones could swim in sewage began winning all the Cooumville races.<br />
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As the population and economy of Cooumville expanded the races became prestigious. The winners of the races were now global superstars. The locals came to dominate and win the races. The swimmers started buying cricket teams, actresses vied to marry them and their opinion was sought by media on all issues. Ivy league management schools came to study the utter dominance of the few local families in these races. Case studies and books came to be written about the Cooumville technique, the unique approach and the philosophy of swimming. </div>
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Many professors built careers on specializing in giving gyan about the Cooumville way and why these few Cooumville swimmers won all races in Cooumville.</div>
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A lot of time had passed and the next generation of swimmers from these families came in to the field. They enjoyed the stardom and fruits of victory but since they had seen better having been trained abroad etc they wondered why the river had to have sewage water mixed in it. They developed an aversion to the old Mayor who did not want to improve the river. So in the next election the backed this unknown tea seller who lived on the banks of the river who had taken a vow to clean the river. These scions thought that if they could clean the river they could continue to win and have a good life instead of swimming in the stench. The good life they had seen in their overseas education and travels had opened their eyes to better life.</div>
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The elections came and the tea seller won the elections. The public anger at the old Mayor and the old gen of Cooumville swimmers who had defiled the river played not an insignificant part in carrying the tea seller comfortably to the Mayor seat.</div>
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The new mayor set about his work briskly and began cleaning the river in right earnest. As the sewage started going to waste treatment plants the river began to clean up and slowly swimming in sewage no longer was enough to win the races. Locals who could swim started doing well too. The word started getting around that this was going to be no longer about swimming in sewage. The few families of Cooumville swimmers now began to have some serious doubts on the wisom of cleaning the river but it was too late. The public loved the new Mayor who soon cleaned the river thus ending the era of the Cooumville sewage swimmers who forgot that their real skill was swimming in sewage ...</div>
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Sounds familiar ? :)</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5834909854560788409.post-27079121229798813182017-04-08T20:15:00.003-07:002017-04-08T22:58:38.734-07:00Krishna or his army <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Some of the intractable problems sometimes dont require resources to be solved. They are misallocation of resources masquerading as shortage of resources. They require wise, intelligent and practical people to be on your side. Throwing resources at problems when these are not yet available sufficiently is like carrying water in a bucket with a hole.</div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.0625rem;">India has the capability to develop a new model of helping poorer countries. Most of the developmental finance institutors don't understand mixed economies such as India where modern, traditional, everything coexists. They also cannot solve endemic problems that connect poverty and corrupt politics because they are intertwined problems and solving political problems is out of syllabus for them ! </span></div>
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India has found unique solutions to its problems using its common sense and these can be offered to these countries to progressive leaders. Our solutions such as Aadhaar, EESL - LED , Direct Benefit ransfer Schemes, Soil health programme, NSDL for tax administration. GST roll out, demonetization, Electricity reform, water management, AMUL and Operation Flood and many others. In the next few years as we reform schooling we can add more domains to this stack which can collectively be called the Good Governance Stack (GGS or maybe better called the "Vikastack"). Unlike developmental institutions we would have working models with technology and partners who can go and implement and solve them. </div>
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India should also set up OPEC like organisation to extract fair price for agricultural produce which has been suppressed by West. Ex for teas with Sri Lanka and Kenya. Spices Board should lead efforts to develop better prices by working with Sri Lanka and African countries.</div>
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India masquerades as a country but in reality is a continent. It is the project which Europe tried and failed but India has succeeded. So the GGS/Vikastack which is being tested across various types of regions - hilly, river deltas, desert/arid, populated metros provides significant advantage over theoretical models of Western educated technocrats. In this the cunningness of our some of our citizens and their fetish to break and bend rules comes as a great advantage as it makes our systems far more robust than systems coming from countries where citizens tend to obey the law without much thought.</div>
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India should offer this as help to poor African countries and countries such as Afghanistan to rapidly pull them out of their endemic problems. Since corruption and bad politics are intertwined we should identify new age politicians who want to change the destiny of their nations using their own resources. Swami Vivekanand said that all poverty is spiritual and in a way we will cure them of their spiritual poverty and will help them develop their country using the resources saved from waste or plunder. This way we will develop a deep civilisational friendship instead of them developing resentment arising from pushing them into economic slavery like China is doing to Sri Lanka and Pakistan.</div>
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PS<br>
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I urge you to read this example in Corporate charity which highlights the above concept.<br>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/27/nyregion/in-lieu-of-money-toyota-donates-efficiency-to-new-york-charity.html" target="_blank">When Toyota offered Kaizen as help </a><br>
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The Food Bank for New York City is the country’s largest anti-hunger charity, feeding about 1.5 million people every year. It leans heavily, as other charities do, on the generosity of businesses, including Target, Bank of America, Delta Air Lines and the New York Yankees. Toyota was also a donor. But then Toyota had a different idea.</div>
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Instead of a check, it offered kaizen.</div>
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A Japanese word meaning “continuous improvement,” kaizen is a main ingredient in Toyota’s business model and a key to its success, the company says. It is an effort to optimize flow and quality by constantly searching for ways to streamline and enhance performance. Put more simply, it is about thinking outside the box and making small changes to generate big results.</div>
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Toyota’s emphasis on efficiency proved transformative for the Food Bank.</div>
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The Food Bank for New York City is the country’s largest anti-hunger charity, feeding about 1.5 million people every year. It leans heavily, as other charities do, on the generosity of businesses, including Target, Bank of America, Delta Air Lines and the New York Yankees. Toyota was also a donor. But then Toyota had a different idea.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="38" data-total-count="376" style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 1.0625rem; line-height: 1.625rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 60px; max-width: none; width: 540px;">
Instead of a check, it offered kaizen.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="375" data-total-count="751" style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 1.0625rem; line-height: 1.625rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 60px; max-width: none; width: 540px;">
A Japanese word meaning “continuous improvement,” kaizen is a main ingredient in Toyota’s business model and a key to its success, the company says. It is an effort to optimize flow and quality by constantly searching for ways to streamline and enhance performance. Put more simply, it is about thinking outside the box and making small changes to generate big results.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="74" data-total-count="825" style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 1.0625rem; line-height: 1.625rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 60px; max-width: none; width: 540px;">
Toyota’s emphasis on efficiency proved transformative for the Food Bank.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5834909854560788409.post-20486575847152874682017-03-28T03:43:00.001-07:002017-04-07T23:59:05.024-07:00Jobs ..thither ?<p dir="ltr">Lot of discussion these days revolve around where the jobs for the next generation will come from.</p>
<p dir="ltr">While it definitely appears as though the growth in easy jobs and careers that drove the economy may be coming to an end it is not true that job growth is coming to an end. There are massive unsolved problems and unmet demands that exist both within India and outside India and fulfilling them will provide massive impetus to job creation in the years to come.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Here are some massive job creation opportunities </p>
<p dir="ltr">1. Fruits & fruit based products - mangoes, lichis etc are eaten only  by a very small portion of the population typically well off. As the nation gets richer more people will want to consume these products.  Alternately growing more and making these products affordable could vastly expand these markets.</p>
<p dir="ltr">2. Pure food- herbs and spices . today shortfall in production is made up by adulteration in a legal or illegal manner which keeps prices down. As consumption goes up and adulteration becomes difficult this will lead to sudden spikes in prices.</p>
<p dir="ltr">3. Temple tourism and Temple economy is a very huge part of the Indian economy and can be a even bigger part. It is and will be recession free sector and  its demand arises from need for spiritual tune -up. This can provide demand for infrastructure, services and revive arts. It also has potential for pan global tourism. It is also very people intensive. </p>
<p dir="ltr">An immediate doubling of rail passenger capacity will greatly aid this process.<br>
Rebuilding temple towns especially a 2-2 kms area around temples using modern management techniques will help increase traffic that temples can handle. It will also modernize and beautify  these areas and change the entire experience</p>
<p dir="ltr">4. Vegetarian delicacies - India is a continent with areas with different climate . This provides inputs of a very varied nature and has lead to development of tens if not 100s of cuisines of very different nature. The much reviled  caste system  has also expanded the variety of foods made. This is a global opportunity for showcasing through tourism and exporting processed foods. For political reasons our vegetarian cuisine  heritage is not getting showcased in the correct manner and this is a massive opportunity loss especially when we compare how countries like Germany are proudly becoming leaders in vegetarianism </p>
<p dir="ltr">5. Getting water table up again- free electricity has led to over exploitation of water table. Water bodies have not been maintained properly. There is one time work in capturing all tge rain eater and charging tge earth so that water table rises up. There is continuous work in maintaining these water bodies.</p>
<p dir="ltr">6. Green products - India is energy short and has does not have too many friends inrye energy surplus world. There is needless antagonism to India due to its Hindu civilizational roots. We need to develop a very low carbon foot print in relation to our GDP. The solutions like LED need to expanded into fans  ACs, public transport systems. As we drive high adoption rates in India we can shrink our carbon footprint to GDP and  we can export these tested and proven solutions to many countries. This brings us to our next point </p>
<p dir="ltr">7.Quality movement & water tight GST - if we can ensure a water tight GST evasion as a a strategy of business will collapse and efficiency and quality movement will become tge only viable strategy for a very large number of businesses . at that stage these. Businesses will find that they will make very good profits domestically and the absorption of their cost base by domestic operations will allow them to export and make substantial profits leading to good gains in margins. This will allow them to reinvest quality, design, R&D and further climb the value chain. The  Indian consumer base of 1.26 billion is a very large one and will allow for low level of  fixed costs also.</p>
<p dir="ltr">8. Tree based economy -  there is massive unmet demand for sandalwood. It is not grown due to poor law and order. This should be fixed and a grower coop like Amul should be set up and house to house growing encouraged. This has potential to completely change economic fortunes of families over 25 Years. Instead of investment products people can plant sandal wood trees to fund children education and marriages.</p>
<p dir="ltr">9. Afforestation - converting of wastelands into woods and forests could be a very large employment programme. BAIF has run a wadi programme for many years in Maharashtra doing this.</p>
<p dir="ltr">10. Circular economy / Waste recycling till we reach 100%  waste recycling : There are jobs in waste management in collecting segregating recreating  products from waste. If suitable laws are made and investments made in outreach programmes to change the mindset of people this can be a huge employer.</p>
<p dir="ltr">11. Bio-waste fertilizers : Indian soils are now seriously carbon deficit because nitrogen fertilizers were sold way below cost and farmers didn't have awareness of their soil health. If we can create bio waste based fertilizers that will drive up carbon in soil it can be a large occupation .</p>
<p dir="ltr">11. Holistic health <u>treatments</u>: Western medicine has serious limitations. Traditional medicines and therapies offer global opportunities for creating jobs for Indians </p>
<p dir="ltr">12 Flower based and honey based alcohols  essentially non grain based alcohols -mahua flowers could be a good start. India had a wise tradition of never using grains to make alcohol as it would affect food security of the weakest  and poorest. This is very different from Western model. Many alcoholic beverages were created using honey flowers. Recreating this and marketing them globally will create new industries.</p>
<p dir="ltr">13. Non gluten product exports such as jawar, bajra, and ragi. Gluten allergy is rising due to lifestyles. India offers many raw materials that can afford people to eat the foods they like without worrying about gluten allergy. This is a massive export opportunity.</p>
<p dir="ltr">14. Sports leagues to target sports which require ekagrata and have a lot of global money such as golf, tennis. One will provide high financial returns  and raise India's standing among world citizens and among a particular set of population </p>
<p dir="ltr">15.Sports leagues which will have lot of domestic attraction such as archery due to traditional affinity for such sports. This will entertain the masses in sports to which they can have access  at low cost and can hope to excel and become superstars.</p>
<p dir="ltr">16 Governance stack : India is rapidly developing a governance stack which can transform a poor country rapidly. IMF, World bank may have many ideas by they  do not have such tested working solutions especially ones tested in a country which is actually a very diverse continent. Solutions includes Aadhaar, Direct benefit transfer, Passport Seva Kendra, Energy  efficient devices through ESSL, Soil health mapping, NSDL for tax administration, world class stock exchanges, IRCTC. We should sell them to African countries especially to  new political formations which want to reduce corruption, improve delivery and use the money saved for infrastructure instead of going with begging bowl to hostile foreign powers.</p>
<p dir="ltr">17. Creation a workforce with education and skills to tap the above areas.</p>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5834909854560788409.post-5012269004364410732017-03-19T16:13:00.001-07:002022-03-06T09:14:01.845-08:00A moebius strip called Vikaste <p dir="ltr">The 2017 Uttar Pradesh election saw huge debates on whether caste was the driving force or Vikas (development). Many argue vehemently that it is one or the other. This is like making a moebius strip from paper with different colour on both sides and asking what is the colour of the outer layer ? It is not a case of one or the other. It is both.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The truth is Vikas as represented by the building of a modern economy is the current requirement  of a very large number of people and Vikaste is the new class of people who demand growth of a modern economy because their interests lie entirely in that.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Caste, despite all the negatives heaped upon, it is a more flexible institution than it's critics. That's why it has survived and will survive. It allows for death of old ones and creation of new ones much as how you would clean up you address book on your phone. Professions are one of the important  glue that kept castes running. With industrialization, artisanal production is almost dead and many professions no longer exist or even if they do they are very small or negligible and in many cases unremunerative ex Potter blacksmith, well making etc. Trade jobs haven't which defined the castes been taken over by industries. In such situations, the original caste as a collective bargaining device has no meaning as reservations and  government jobs touch a very small as % of population and are just political tokenism.</p>
<p dir="ltr">In some states the economic transition is well underway but the social transformation wasn't but in 2017 UP elections people have realized that since their old castes no longer represent any economic interest and their true economic interest lies in the building of new modern economy rapidly. People have realized that if your career prospects are sales man at a Bata or a Pantaloon showroom or at a  factory making shoes or apparel  or as entrepreneurs feeding into the modern industrial system then it doesn't matter what is your  historical caste. .. that's just what is called Kali perungaya dabba in Tamil (empty asoefatida box). It has lot of smell and nothing of substance inside. </p>
<p dir="ltr">The unemployed chamar, kumbhar and  brahmin have realized that their real caste is now Vikaste ...ie the caste which can only benefit from building a modern economy rapidly by building good infrastructure providing law and order, skilling the population with skills relevant to the modern economy. </p>
<p dir="ltr">We should all welcome Vikaste because it means a genuine negotiation between various groups as reflected by their current interest and standing in society ! In such a situation the negotiation is likely to be very meaningful as the government and political formations can't fool them with "social empowerment" slogans which people have realized have meant little to most. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Vikaste is that beautiful mathematical point on the moebius strip when one side becomes the other and when  development becomes a new caste or a new caste which stands for development is born. Whichever way you look at it, it is an inflection point which could change the trajectory of the India.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Day is not far when many in the <u>country</u> will start saying my caste is Vikaste and till then pundits who refuse to understand moebius strips will remain confused <u>as</u> to whether it is Vikas or caste !</p>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5834909854560788409.post-90172503111331802292016-12-03T01:17:00.002-08:002016-12-03T01:18:02.035-08:00CSR : A beta for national development policies<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is supposed to be a voluntary activity to be done by those corporations and businesses who want to go beyond their calling of making profits.<br />
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One can argue that businesses are not geared up to do this kind of work and the Government should have merely levied a tax and done the work themselves. Viewed in this pragmatic lens, putting the onus of CSR on businesses can be deemed to have a nuisance and a highly negative policy. If they accuse the Kshatriya of asking the vaishya to do his work, they are probably very right.<br />
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But if we pause there may be something of very great value in this intrusion into the life of businesses. The Government collects taxes and uses them for law and order, administration, infrastructure and development. In the last 10 years massive amounts have been spent by the Central and state government in the hope the the lot of the bottom 25% of this country. But most of these funds have not been very productive to put it mildly.<br />
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So this CSR provides an opportunity for corporates to come up with better plans, ideas and concepts to improve the prospects of the bottom 25% of the country's population and implement them. They could use their mandatory CSR requirements to fund pilots of such initiatives and make a success out of them and then present them to the State and Central governments through their industrial bodies such as FICCI, CII, ASSOCHAM etc for wider adoption.<br />
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If they are successful with this kind of CSR effort they will do 2 things - improve the effectiveness of government programs which will in turn either lead to a lower tax rate or it will create a new consumers and market for their goods and products.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5834909854560788409.post-64779531326351173562016-08-04T00:49:00.005-07:002016-08-15T08:58:36.599-07:00What Government of India can learn from Wimbledon !<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I am Director of Company in Pune which is having a peculiar problems in scrutiny. The IT officer is insisting on the company effectively changing its method of accounting from Mercantile method to Cash accounting, He is asking the method of revenue recognition to be made on Cash receipts than on revenue recognition based on period matching concept of accounting. These are so very well established concepts of Accounting that they should not be questioned. I discussed with CAs and I was told that is illegal for Companies to follow cash accounting and yet the Scrutinising officer is pursuing this line of investigation. I was informed that it is a waste of time and the company will win th case at all higher stages as this is the universally accepted method as per GAAP, Company law and also prevailing methods of accounting standards for software industry.</div>
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I was introspecting what is the Root cause of the problem and a positive way of handling such problems.</div>
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In my opinion the root cause of problems is that the IRS officers come from a wide variety of disciplines and have varying skills and aptitudes. I can understand that they make make mistakes.</div>
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They also have to quickly learn everything and give proper judgements on a vast scale of matters. This is quite a task for people say from History or Arts or Medical background.</div>
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I was thinking how do we solve this problem at the root without wasting time of Appellate Courts etc ?</div>
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I got an idea came to me when watching Wimbledon this year.</div>
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Wimbledon situation</div>
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The ball moves at very high speed upto 200 km/hr and the line umpires have to make spot decisions. They have a thousand things on their mind and humans even the best of them are prone to making mistakes due to the mechanism of the mind. These mistakes can make or break a player's career. So Wimbledon a place which values tradition has come up with a solution which uses technology in a restricted manner using Review option. The player calls for a review and a higher technology which is less error prone is used to instantly settle the dispute ! The Review lapses if the player loses the review so he/she can't abuse the system.</div>
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Based on this I would like to propose an idea for tax reform for CBDT.</div>
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During every scrutiny the Assess should be given 1 or 2 Scrutiny Review Options so that any thing technical like Revenue recognition etc can be reviewed by a technical panel based on whose expert opinion the scrutiny can be completed, The online portals can be used for the Review so that time is not wasted in movement of papers.</div>
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Lastly if the Assessee wins the Review he should still have reviews left.</div>
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This measure will use the Adminstrative experience of the IRS officers with the Technical experience of the Central panel which can deliver Reviews that will eliminate wastage of time of Appeals and Appellate Tribunals and High Courts and Supreme Courts. Higher salary can be given and highly accomplished people can be kept on these panels so that these disputes can be resolved at the time of creation. The time of the august institutions can be freed up to use for serious cases so that the series offenders are dealt with harshly and severely thereby deterring people from breaking the law.</div>
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I request readers of this blog to take this idea to as many decision makers as possible so that we can add another mechanism to make Improve Ease of doing business across various government ministries.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5834909854560788409.post-79128948139734083462016-03-05T22:28:00.002-08:002016-03-05T22:28:38.025-08:00Time to say Thank you Europe and America and take back our billions from them<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Many years ago I met a person who worked at an US think tank. They had done a study for the US government in the 1990s and calculated that the cost to the US state of producing a world class Engineer or a management graduate was in the region of US$ 250,000 to US$300,000. So they advocated an easy visa policy for such individuals so that the US could get such easily trained persons at short notice. He also mentioned that this was a strange situation where the developing country was actually subsidising he developed country and getting aid with very high multiplier effects from them<br />
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This person also said that they studied the racial origins of Maths Ph.Ds and found that hardly any US Caucasian was doing a Ph.d in Maths. They realised its importance to the future of computing and recommended to the US government that when person gets a Maths Ph.d degree from a good university the US government should immediately confer an US citizenship on that person.<br />
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This shows the nuanced understanding of the US system on the role of human resources and how to quickly absorb and leverage such resources when they come your way.<br />
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After decades of losing our smart people to the West we are now in a position to reclaim back our prized assets namely our talented people who are now well trained. In unregulated fields like management and engineering this does not require any policy changes. This may partly explain the explosion in new ventures in engineering and technology in India by returning diaspora. However other regulated fields such as medicine require regulatory approval and need policy interventions and procedural changes to make time bound the approval process to include such professionals in our workforce.<br />
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This also includes the need to harmonise the degrees as different countries in Europe, the US may give different names to the same education. Even in India, the Post graduate education in management is called Post Graduate Diploma in Management in one Government institution and the Masters in Business Administration by another Government institution. The same degree in Engineering is called Bachelor of Technology in an IIT and Bachelor of Engineering in some other government engineering college.<br />
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In this regard we should learn from the US system which is very alert to study the various degrees in other countries and recognise them appropriately and harmonise them with their system.<br />
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This requires us to have a fast track method to study and validate equivalence of various degrees and issue requisite permissions in a time bound manner for talented and trained Indians to come back and join the workforce.<br />
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This could be a bottleneck in medicine and other fields.<br />
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This is an issue as I personally found out in the case of one of my neighbours Anirban and Sonali. Anirban is an IIT Bombay graduate and Ph.d from Princeton University. He and his wife Sonali wanted to return to India and work in India and do something for the country. He is a faculty at IISER, Pune Sonali is a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine who practises in India. Her degree is the equivalent of MD in America but it is not accepted in India. As a result she is not able to practice in India. As a result they are living in separate continents despite having a small child also now. The details of this case is in this <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/usdoctorinindia/home" target="_blank">blog</a>.<br />
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The Government should look into this case and more importantly the policy to remove all bottlenecks and make the best of this opportunity. If we are able to get 10,000 highly trained people we could easily save $ 500,000 per individual in training people to this level which would amount to taking a gift of $ 5 billion or Rs 35000 crores from US and Europe . This does not even include the downstream effects of employment generation and taxes generated for the country and the rapid advancement that would be possible within a short time. Needless to say it would take us at least 15-20 years to build up a bank of such competent people if we did it from scratch not to mention the significant costs.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5834909854560788409.post-89466628320886398852015-08-29T20:19:00.002-07:002015-08-29T20:19:25.682-07:00The real tragedy of reservation today<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The real tragedy of reservation today is that in states like Tamilnadu (State Per Capita GDP is Rs 63549) which are very forward in economic development every one is backward barring the Brahmins, Chettiars, Saiva Pillais and few other communities. Compare this with states like UP wiith State Per Capita GDP Rs 23392 where about 40% are "forward castes"and and Bihar ( Rs 17064) upwards of 20% ( I am not able to get accurate data on this - any help will be appreciated) . Tamilians with access to electricity, much better schools, economic opportunities are thus getting disproportionate and undeserving share of the National OBC pie. The fools like Mulayam, Nitish don't understand this and are still dividing their vote bank while the entire fruits of what they are fighting for is already stolen by TN because they are essentially fighting with the politically, economically and socially castes of TN who are backward castes using their political clout. And now they are supporting Hardik Patel little realising if they add Patels to such lists, UPs Bihar OBC will not get much out of this. In Pune in one of the central government institutes due to job reservation for OBCs most jobs are taken by Tamilians and locals like Marathas don't get the jobs - hence the demands from them to be declared backward. There is relative logic in this -if they are on same keel as TN backward why can't they declared backward ? If government jobs are slowly set to get based on entrance exams, soon TN candidates may take very disproportionate share of the same. I am hoping some one will file a case to compare the State GDP per capita with the % of state considered backward ( i.e. OBC+SC+ ST) and cap the limit based on state per capita GDP. Also the same state per capita GDP should be used which are calculated for sharing tax losses on VAT so that some states don't claim to be poor to claim reservation and rich to claim lost VAT compensation.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5834909854560788409.post-59819449353528264852014-10-12T01:04:00.003-07:002014-10-12T01:46:59.487-07:00The beta tested society<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
India is a very old civilization. If astronomical observations in some of the vedas are to be taken, then we have been a civilization for a minimum 6000 years old. We have diverse climate, soils, people and problems which required different approaches to managing our society and civilizations. In complexity, India is more than a continent. Like an old monkey, we have tried every trick in the form of social organization. Our proverbs, aphorism, myths, stories, epics and even humour are testimony to it.<br />
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In the field of management, we try to learn from past practices and mistakes so that we do not repeat the same. So people who want to become experts in management go to a Management School instead of trying everything afresh but in running societies and civilizations the same principle is not applied. Other civilizations instead of learning from us want to convert us into their untested ways. This is like running an Apple Macbook Pro not on Apple software but on a new and exciting software written by some new funded start up in Bangalore that started yesterday. The current tragedy is that you have tested software to run a civilization and from a vendor who is open source and willing to freely give tech support - and yet no one wants to learn and on the contrary they want to impose on us their untested software which is showing signs of great instability and may crash on that vendor !</div>
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In understanding concepts like marriage, family, rights, duties, clan, caste, war etc our understanding is very elevated. Not because we are smarter but we have done more mistakes than others too and moved on. Is it not true that one of our own tried out the ISIS type violence in Kalinga and lived to see the utter futility of violence without any meaningful results and gave it up completely ?</div>
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In the Hindu marriage, for example there is little place for romance in decision making. Romance may happen if you are lucky. Marriage is a institution to carry the family line forward. It is more about demographics and carrying forward genes, professions, knowledge etc than looking into someone's eye and feeling one with them which doesn't last too long. How did this knowledge come from - fiat, practices, observations ? Could the West have learnt from us in this aspect and saved themselves so much anguish ?</div>
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Many of things we consider "not politically correct" teachings of people like Chanakya are now corroborated by social research in America. <a href="http://thefatherlessgeneration.wordpress.com/statistics/" target="_blank">The website the Fatherless generation</a> pretty much says the same thing that Chanakya said i.e, that houses in which there are no men and women are leaders are likely to have severe problems and are to be avoided.</div>
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Why won't it ? Chanakya must have merely observed cause and effect of the same thing when it happened here hundreds of years ago. Is it not highly likely that at some point in time, India had run through same problems faced today by US and Chanakya had merely been a social scientist tabulating the results in pithy aphorisms ! </div>
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Is it a coincidence that our study of health is called Ayurveda and not Aushadveda ? As citizens of this planet, do we really need to again struggle with Aushadveda like the US where medicine accounts for 1/5th of their GDP with no end in sight and then think of finding solutions which eliminate root causes - when this knowledge was present somewhere else a long time back ?</div>
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The objective of writing this post is to not to make the case that we are smarter than other civilisations. It is to make the case that we have tried out more things, run more betas, failed, succeeded and altered things more than others can even begin to imagine due to our long stint as a civilization.</div>
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FDA imposes strict methods on testing new molecules and drugs but rules to run a civilization are run as experiments in which neither past knowledge, experiences or precedents are taken into account ! </div>
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In the same manner we send kids to schools and colleges not because all that they say is right but because they have a lot of knowledge and/or wisdom to offer, other civilizations would gain a lot and reduce their sufferings if they were to observe and learn from our long experience instead of dismissing us as a primitive, backward or unscientific society.</div>
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Even the response to westernization is so different in India and Islamic societies. We are trying to run with Westernization and see how we can fit some of it into our civilization. Our experience in absorbing democracy, technology, food and working with it stands testimony. We have the strength to run the program for sometime and finally even reject large parts of it as we have done in the past with programs that did not work ! </div>
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This is the real reason India deserves to be the Jagat Guru. We are like the Silicon Valley of civilization. We have the openness to try a lot on on ourselves, learn and carry a lot of knowledge which is tested by time, place and numbers forward.</div>
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As individuals, the sooner we try to understand the extent of knowledge available in our country and try to make sense of it the the better for us - else even at a personal level we risk exhausting ourself making old mistakes again and turning ourself into more modern "case studies " for future generations !</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5834909854560788409.post-9750969996791665992014-09-08T19:56:00.000-07:002014-09-08T22:13:01.793-07:00Reform by a thousand cuts<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Recently a friend called me up to ask if I though there was any real reform happening in India since the ascendancy of Shri Narendra Modi to the Chair of the Prime Minister. This friend, who is in the financial markets, said there is currently a view among many that the PM is only doing things which are not good for the country such as giving bank accounts to poor people, freebies in the form of free insurance, loans and is not really doing anything substantial.<br />
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I thought about this and tried to make a list of things that have been done since he has come to the PM's post. Here is a list of which gives a flavour of the kind of things going on</div>
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1. Proposal to merge all hydroproject companies into one big company. This is the kind of decision usually a private corporate group takes. It is based on improving economics, efficiency and reducing costs - all alien concepts to traditional management of PSUs.</div>
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2. Instructions to bureaucrats to reduce all forms to 1 page.</div>
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3. Proposal to accept citizens self attestation instead of notarized documents</div>
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4. Firing of all political appointees from board of PSUs of national strategic importance</div>
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5. Closing tax loophole in debt funds by which the ultra rich were not paying tax on their Fixed deposits and making the country lose thousands of crores.</div>
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6. Cleaning all government offices and making them organized . Incidentally this is one of the principles of Kaizen. When the Gemba (work place ) is clean, many problems become self evident.</div>
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7. Announcing policy to build toilets in all schools and giving clueless corporates a hint and a direction for their CSR programme.</div>
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8. Building relations with enemies of our enemies. Sending a clear message to China to decide if wants dhandha with India or territorial ambitions .</div>
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9. Fast tracking cases against MLAs and MPs. This changes the incentive to stand for elections completely. If you are a criminal, it would be best if you did not stand for elections in such a regime.</div>
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10. Proposal to release under trials who have already served more than half the maximum sentence possible for the crime of which are accused. This has the ability to reduce cases, decongest jails and speed up the judicial process.</div>
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11. Nuanced removal of retrospective judgement provision with losing its teeth. Now the Junior assessing officers have to send their order to a central committee - who will study, vet the order and then issue it. This keeps flexibility to nab crooked companies while removing the powers of junior officers to ruin our nation's reputation by their vile acts/ignorance.</div>
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12. 100% FDI in Railway projects.</div>
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This is just a top of the mind list. I am sure daily readers of newspapers can write many many more.</div>
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None of these by themselves will be great but each of them are a cut on the old establishment. They are a clean break from the old style of doing things. They will have an impact. None of them can be called big-bang but each of them is a small step towards building a new India. </div>
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No one improvement seems to be big but the total will provide massive change. This is very similar to the Japanese movement of Kai-zen - perfection in small steps. Also most of these ideas have come from those who are working in the area and they have buy-in from those who have to implement the ideas and are not something thrust on them from the "high command". Finally each item is small so there is not much resistance to it.</div>
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This way of doing things is to keep making small and steady improvements in each and every activity as you come across them, while also working on the possibilities of the bigger things. In such a scenario there may be no real big Bang which news anchors can discuss at length at 9 pm. These small changes and improvements may work quietly and silently and perhaps the big bang may be heard only during the next election results !</div>
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Till then, all we may see is change of the status quo by a thousand cuts.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5834909854560788409.post-35725101212142711582014-06-05T01:26:00.002-07:002014-06-05T01:28:40.827-07:00Saving the cement industry from itself<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The cement industry is in a peculiar situation. They are having almost 350MT of capacity. They are using only 220MT. Seen in a historic context, this is an alarming situation. Such a low capacity utilization should have led to the industry been in doldrums but somehow that has not happened.<br />
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Despite the low capacity utilization, they are adding capacity constantly - a truly unfathomable move especially by many players across the industry further adding pressure among them to keep cement prices high. In fact this low capacity utilizations, coupled with price hikes and new capacity additions itself may be proof that the industry is now working in an above board manner.<br />
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This phenomenon is causing high inflation in cement prices and waste of national capital. If one takes 85% to be a fair capacity utilization then the industry is carrying almost 100MT extra capacity. This means about Rs 70000 cr of bank loans are being wasted.<br />
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It is time the the government has a dialogue with the industry to make them understand that they are supposed to earn fair rate of return on assets at capacity utilizations of 80%+. Also since we have also enough capacity the RBI and Government of India should ban fresh loans to cement industry until the capacity utilization reaches 80%.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5834909854560788409.post-23751818902000539012014-05-21T03:39:00.000-07:002014-05-21T03:39:08.055-07:00Introducing Indian Cinemas Leading Villain ..<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I was watching an interview with Mr. Arshad Warsi on TV. He said that despite Indian cinema doing the hard work it is not getting the recognition it deserves.<br />
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Indian cinema has operations of a global scale. More movies are made even in regional languages than perhaps in Hollywood. Yet Indian cinema has not become a global powerhouse. Why ? The answer to this came recently when I watched a movie of Arshad Warsi.<br />
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The reviews of the movie and the feedback of the fans on Arshad Warsi's twitter handle made me think I am living in two different planets. The fans loved it, the theatre was in splits but the reviews said something else. The review measured how good an idli was a cup of filter coffee. The movie was reviewed as though it was from some other genre. If you review a comedy as a method film, what would one expect ?<br />
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Who is the villain of the piece here ? Payola - <a href="http://www.fcc.gov/guides/payola-rules" target="_blank">(see FCC website)</a> i.e, paying journalists to get a good review of their product. Payola is not a violation anymore. It is the business model of the big stars and business houses.<br />
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Further more, there is a dharma in indulging in unfair practices too. The big houses can get a good review for themselves and let an honest review be done for other films. I found that is not possible, The big houses insist on good review for themselves and trashing other films.<br />
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So small well made movies have very low real chance of making it unless<br />
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The domestic market is rigged and hence not competitive. So innovation and creativity is being stifled. Few production houses, stars and TV and print journalists are holding the future of lakhs of cinema industry workers to ransom.<br />
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So I say, Payola is the leading villain of the Indian Cinema industry.<br />
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Are there any solutions ? Yes. We have reached the climax scene and in this movie you the movie-goer and movie loving Aam fan is the hero. If you indeed find that the hype of the leading houses and actors too much and the reviews of movies do not match with your assessments, please consciously stop using these sources of information.<br />
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Use other sources of information such as Twitter handle of the stars, hashtags of the movies, friends who have watched the movie and whose taste matches yours.<br />
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If we fix this problem, there is an opportunity to create multi-billion dollar export industry from this.<br />
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I request the Competition Commission of India to treat this as a little birds whisper and take this matter up suo-moto.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5834909854560788409.post-36600532297996722912014-04-28T02:09:00.000-07:002014-04-28T02:09:02.754-07:00Cleaning Pune's voter role<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The problem with Pune's voter rolls (and I guess Maharashtra's too) is that it is made in such a way that the work of checking it cannot be delegated. Every voter has to check his name before every election.<br />
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For example in a building or society of say 200 voters, the Chairman or some enthusiastic volunteer can't check the voter roll as the voters are not registered under one building. As per Election Commission guidelines they are supposed to give a section number to each building and a Part number to the part of the constituency to which it belongs and register the voters under that Section no. This is not done. I have seen that they register a voter under any section or sometimes in some other parts even if you write down the section and part number of your neighbour when you register. In Aundh Pune there is a building which is a bungalow plot conveted to a flat. It has 11flats and it has 1500 voters,<br />
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Our government servants are intelligent people. The way the list is organized is worse than a 6 year old organizing his toys. This level of mistakes suggest that his design. If the section and part no were given correctly any citizen volunteer can scan the voter list and see where additional voters are not registered, locate those voters and make efforts to register them and make a perfect voter roll.<br />
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If it is done in the current way it is very difficult to do it,<br />
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For example, If I know the EPIC number of some one living in my building I should be able to reach that building's pdf files and check the names very easily if the database was right,<br />
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So given these problems how do we go about cleaning the voter roll ?<br />
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We should force the people making the roll to create a section for every building/ society. Then we should collect the EPIC number of all the voters in that society and the Chairman should write a letter stating that there are errors in the roll and asking the EC to add his building into a separate section and add these voters into this Section and delete them from elsewhere. Once this is done for big buildings in each area, we can go on to the next level of buildings. In this manner the voter roll can be cleaned up.<br />
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If this is done politics in Maharashtra will change very quickly and Maharashtra will be on its way to becoming just that - a Great State !<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5834909854560788409.post-29617679838430077082014-04-22T06:54:00.000-07:002014-04-22T06:54:15.851-07:00VSNL land : UPA leaves cash on the table for incoming government<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The inefficiency of the outgoing government has created some opportunities for incoming Central government. One of them is the excess land which was part of VSNL at the time of the divestment by the government, At the time of the de-merged the land was to be returned by Tatas to the Government and the shareholders of VSNL by de-merging it into a separate company.<br />
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It was not visualized who will pay the stamp duty at the time of the de-merger. This issue was not resolved and this land bank was lying idle, If the government can resolve this issue and expedite the sale of the land/holding company it will be a source of funds.<br />
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The government could get funds to the tune of Rs 3000-5000 cr ( see <a href="http://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/surplus-vsnl-land-valued-at-rs-6-156-cr-111101500021_1.html" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://www.mydigitalfc.com/economy/psu-realty-firm-hold-excess-vsnl-land-bank-121" target="_blank">here</a>).</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5834909854560788409.post-61626551596465199042014-04-22T05:25:00.003-07:002014-04-22T05:25:44.822-07:00Oh these kids nowadays ...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">Today's children have scant respect for elders, traditions and practices. From a traditional perspective It is really bad but there is a great blessing hidden in it. They take nothing at face value. They want an explanation. If you can find the explanation and give it to them they will become the greatest defenders of the same tradition. So the question we should ask ourselves is are we going to keep cribbing about the next gen or take up this as an opportunity and find out the scientific roots/ rationale of our culture and traditions and lay a very deep foundation for the future ?</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5834909854560788409.post-33312199275034334172014-04-22T04:46:00.000-07:002014-04-22T05:19:19.079-07:00Taking Indian Heritage to every corner of India<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">One of
India’s unique advantages and great treasures is our cultural heritage
consisting of music, dance and other art forms. Today this is not available to
most of the youth in this country.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;">.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Many organizations like SPIC
MACAY tried to do this by introducing the lecdem
(lecturedemonstration) format to present Indian classical art forms in a
comprehensive manner in front of today’s youth, who have little or no
understanding of it. The meanings of the basic mudras and bhavas and the
structure of the ragas had to be explained. This change in presentation has
been instrumental in popularizing our art forms amongst the youth. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">While such organizations were successful in urban areas and
towns, they have not been able to take our culture to every part of India – they<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">have
not been able to reach villages, smaller towns, and remote areas</i></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">.</i> A lot more
that can be done to present this valuable national heritage to all citizens in
every corner of India, if we can understand and overcome the contraints.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; tab-stops: 318.0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The constraints – The why?<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Our
heritage is taken in the form of live performances by accomplished artistes.
There are many constraints that prevent the scaling up of this activity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 54.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The number of accomplished
artistes is limited,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 54.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Many of them have hectic
schedules and spend many months touring various parts of India and
overeas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of them live abroad
for some part of the year.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 54.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Students don’t have the
werewithal to pay for these live programs. Sponsorship is not easily available
for this kind of activity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 54.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Since the artistes also have to
be economically sustained, the time they have available for giving programs for
small honorariums is limited. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 54.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The population of India is
increasing and we have great geographic spread.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Live performance limit performance to destinations with very
good train or plane connectivity and good auditoriums – this immediately precludes
most village schools.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 54.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Logistics and cost factors also severely limit the ability of
any organization to take to the masses. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 54.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">To have live performances at
different places requires a large on-going organization at every location – a
very difficult and costly affair.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 54.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In many of the cities, parents are working and with the
weakening of the joint family concept, it is becoming difficult for children to
attend these concerts and they hardly get to experience this national
heritage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 54.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Due to these practical difficulties, India heritage and art form is not
reaching areas beyond 300 towns – thus a large portion of India’s children are
growing up without experiencing our rich heritage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is a very unfortunate situation and we as a society
need to find a creative response to solve this problem and we need <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">to
universalize access to our Indian heritage and make it available to one and all</i></b>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">After much thinking, we believe there is a way out and
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">perhaps
it is the only way out</i></b>–<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Technology.<o:p></o:p></i></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The Concept – How?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Today’s
communication technologies namely Radio, TV and internet offer an excellent
opportunity to take this heritage to all corners of our country. We have done
some blue sky thinking and believe that if we as a nation, use technology in
the following manner – we can take the best of Indian heritage to each and
corner of this country.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Create one National AM radio
channel for Indian music and art forms:</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This should be located centrally in a
location like Nagpur with sufficient power to reach all parts of India. This
will minimize management requirement of managing the channel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It should be managed by All India Radio
(AIR). This could be done simultaneous to the opening of national AM channels
to other commercial broadcasters.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 72.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">o<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Why one channel? It will be very costly and difficult to have several
channels across the country and manage them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 72.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">o<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Why AM? AM channels are not favoured these days by commercial
broadcasters as the music fidelity is low and most of demand is for FM channels
which are used primarily for entertainment. Most of India’s AM bandwidth is
unused and there is currently no opportunity cost of using AM channels. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This will also help in increasing
penetration of AM across the nation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 72.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">o<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Why AIR? AIR has adequate staff, studios, technology and infrastructure
which could be used without any new expenditure or with marginal expenditures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Protecting and spreading our national
heritage is a national cause and the right and best entity to do it will be the
National broadcaster.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 72.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">o<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Why simulaneous opening of commercial AM radio channels? Since
infrastructure will need to be set, this will involve costs and fund
outgo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This tower
infrastructure could be used to co-locate more AM channels and the tower costs
could be shared by simutaneously auction of several national AM channels. The
government has also set national goals for using ICT for education.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This will aid AIR economics and the
running costs of this channel could come from the co-location costs and licence
fees from the channels.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 72.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Create a TV Channel or Slot</b>: A similar TV Channel or adequate slots
on existing channels is also necessary because visual arts like Bharatnatyam,
Kathak, and Kudiyattam among others require a visual medium. Since there may
not be adequate content to fill the TV channels everyday, we could have a
dedicated TV channel operating only a for limited hours or alternately we could
take up time slots on existing TV channels. The TV channel should have very
high reach thro terrestrial, cable and DTH platforms. This should be managed by
Doordarshan as they can optimize on all resources such as studios, network and
broadcast infrastructure.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Internet website:</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> This could be used to reach areas which have signal problems or which
have scheduling problems (different school schedules – dailiy timings and
holidays, area with chronic power cuts).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Schools and colleges, parents could download this content and show them
to their children.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Organization structure – How to do it?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">In order
to make it a success, this should be done is such a way that
the entity which has experience take up the right task ie <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">right man for the right task</i> principle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus the Government arms namely AIR and Doordarshan can
fully manage the carriage and the network infrastructure for which they have
the competence and the resources available readily.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">The government should outsource the task of creating content ( Like the program Satyameva Jayate ) to agencies </span> willing and able to take on the task of
creating and providing the content for all the mediums. In today's age it is not enough to high quality content. Presentation has become very important especially for the youth. This is not the time to debate this issue. We have to accept it and use it constructively by creating world class presentation of these programmes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">These agencies will work closely with DD and
AIR in the production of the content.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The management of the website could be given to a competent third party.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Benefits of this arrangement<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Creation of national culture mission with low resources:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This will ensure that we have
created a national culture mission at a very low cost without any duplication
of effort or resources.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We will
create a national culture mission without setting up any more studios, offices
or hiring more management staff or creating more entities. <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">T</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">he assets created for National AM channel could be
used for also increasing national AM penetration goals, raising revenues by
auctioning more commercial AM channels which can be co-located on the
infrastructure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This move will
bring in licence fees, auction fees, service taxes and will actually be revenue
positive to the Government of India. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Meeting larger national goals and better use of resources:</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">
Currently AM is a vastly under-used medium and it is the only medium that
reaches interior parts of the country. The citizens in leading towns and cities
have access to numerous FM channels but those in interior areas have limited
choice. If we set up a national AM channel under AIR, the network
infrastructure set up can be easily used to also open up and auction more AM
Channels and for Educational ICT goals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This will also ensure that we as a nation have greater AM penetration –
one of the goals of the Five year plans. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Better use of AIR and DD resources:</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> The
Government has adequate staff and technology and infrastructure which could be
used more productively.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>AIR and DD
are also the right entity to manage the carriage infrastructure and all other
managerial matters. With provision of news and entertainment by private
entities, many issues are raised about rationale for a Public broadcaster. This
move will create a clear rationale for a public broadcaster.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Outsourcing of expertise in
managing content:</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> In this day of outsourcing,
where Government is<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>reaping the
benefits of outsourcing through higher efficiency, effectiveness and lower cost
( Example: tasks such as PAN CARD processing (very senstitive),<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Credit history maintenance, production
of armanents of high national and strategic import<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>are being outsourced),<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>this partnership will ensure that this program can
effectively run at a very small cost.This will be a highly productive and cost
effective solution for the Government.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><b>Last but not the least: Almost 75% </b>of India is Hindu. So the budget for this should be allocated based on the ratio of population of India belonging to each religion as per the last census. This is not to exclude anyone - the content of each community is available to all but merely to avoid certain sections of society from politicizing this issue in terms of "communalism" and "secularism." </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
<!--EndFragment--></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5834909854560788409.post-75022498836997931742014-04-22T03:47:00.000-07:002014-04-22T03:47:36.528-07:00insurance policy for democracy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This is my second post on the postal department (<a href="http://koushiksekhar.blogspot.in/2014/04/creating-crore-post-offices-at-almost.html" target="_blank">See link</a>). The postal department has a deficit of Rs 6000 crores per annum. Yes it is bad but instead of focussing on the negativity in the situation there are a few things we can do which can reap huge returns from even this department.<br />
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When we buy an insurance policy we get nothing tangibly in return for that expense. We can convert the postal department as an insurance policy against undemocratic practices by cunning politicians which weaken democracy and causes losses to exchequer running in to lakhs of crores. How ?<br />
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The postal department can be made in charge of voter registration<br />
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The bed rock of democracy is one citizen one vote. All citizens above minimum age gets to vote. In our country this exists only on paper. Various clever ways have been found to abrogade this right. This <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/219590672/The-Unofficial-Manual-of-the-Indian-Poilitician" target="_blank">document written in 2009</a> highlights the methods use to make democracy weak by rigging the voter rolls.<br />
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The voter rolls are rigged so scientifically. Till these last few elections it was difficult to find out but now with searchable online databases and pdf files. The agency in the country which has some touch with every citizen is the postal department. Letters from children to Presidents and Prime Ministers have found their way to the Presidents table despite having hardly any address where many other parts of the government cant even locate a citizen standing in front of him. Also the post office has an establishment in each PIN CODE of the country. So it makes sense to give this work to the postal department.<br />
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Globally many countries have used postal department to maintain the voter rolls. So this can be easily studied and a top class system instituted.<br />
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There should be a proper information technology back end for this. This should combine with the inque identity database (whether it is Aadhar or called by any other name).<br />
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Good governance will save lakhs of crores and the postal department loss will pale into comparison in relation to this savings. An accurate database of residents will also have many other uses.<br />
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So even the so called loss making department can be a source of great change in India.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5834909854560788409.post-5889357367097440432014-04-10T23:41:00.001-07:002014-04-10T23:56:43.989-07:00A deeper look at todays' problems<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Todays problems in our countries are quite solvable if a person takes the whole picture. Let me give a few examples.<br />
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Problem 1<br />
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We have problems of soil poisoned with excess nitrogen, shortage of carbon in the soil, very high fertilizer subsidy due to indiscriminate use, low yield due to wrong use of fertilizer and also problem of disposal of urban waste, health and sanitation issues in cities, loss making Doordarshan (Public service broadcaster)<br />
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Essentially these appears as very difficult and different problems across geographies, ministries and agencies affecting a cross section of people. But essentially it is one problem. The answers to all these problems are in testing the soil and making farmers understand their soil and what needs to be done. This will lead to lesser application of chemical fertilizers and more application of bio-fertilizers - which in turn will increase the demand for bio-waste and making conversion of city bio-waste into fertilizer which can increase the carbon content in the soil. This will reduce the problems related to fertilizer subsidy This knowledge needs to be disseminated to the farmers - no private channel is going to do this as it is unlikely to be profitable and it will fall squarely in the domain of the public broadcaster.<br />
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Problem 2<br />
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There is problem of availability of high quality education seats in Engineering, Management and Medicine. There is a shortage of doctors so much so that Homeopath Doctors are being used as Duty doctors at hospitals. The shortage of good quality engineering colleges is definitely affecting our ability to produce output and also attract FDI. In the mad rush to some how get into good colleges people spend very large sums of money on coaching for the entrance exams. This in turn affects the development of youth who turn into machines primed to crack exams rather than thinkers, doers and problem solvers. People who have resources and are willing to pay send their children abroad to study bleeding the country of forex and the education sector of its best possible customers. Many of these students do not return leading to brain drain and problems in such families.<br />
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The solution to this problem is to increase the capacity in high quality education by giving admission even to those with resources at a higher fee. More on this in my earlier blog here. Also if we simply change the entrance exam from being simple multiple choice to some thing which requires aptitude ( it is possible even using multiple choices f a more complex variety), the same coaching sector which is helping students crack the exams will be forced to make them think and learn.<br />
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So we need to look at all our problems in a much deeper and wider way and it is my belief if we do so that a way can be found to solve these problems.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5834909854560788409.post-33878651950847801522014-04-10T23:11:00.000-07:002014-04-22T02:55:05.591-07:00Creating a crore post offices at almost Zero Cost<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Indian Post makes a loss of over Rs 6000 crores per year.<br />
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Their traditional sources of business have dried up and their new sources of business are not being developed fast enough. With the advent of email, mobile phones (SMS and and Internet banking the use of post for sending letters has declined but the traffic for parcels has increased tremendously.<br />
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This situation was faced by developed nations too and they quickly created means to deepen the market for parcel post. This was done using software called <a href="http://www.endicia.com/solutions" target="_blank">Endicia</a> which makes every internet connected computer and printer into a post office. United States Postal Service has implemented Endicia's solutions.<br />
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What does Endicia do ?<br />
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It helps the Customer of the Postal Department weigh the parcel and print a poster label. This label is the equivalent of the postal stamp with details of sender and receiver and postal fees. The amount is debited from the Customer's account.<br />
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The postal department gets details of the package and these are in turn sent to the hand held device of postman who icks up the package on his way to deliver the packages. This increases the postman's effectiveness by making his trips a two way exercise.<br />
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Essentially like every net banking user has become a bank teller, every person who opens an account becomes a new post office.<br />
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The Indian Government needs to do the same. They could write this software themselves or buy it from established agencies such as Endicia. This is a make or buy decision that is best left to techno-commerical experts.<br />
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Indian Post covers all postal pin codes where private couriers cover only a fraction of the Pincodes. If these steps are taken in addition to cost management, modernization and widening and deepening of their existing services etc their losses will come down but more importantly they will provide a very good boost for the SME sector, artisans from interior areas.<br />
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This will help Indian post undercut couriers and become very competitive.<br />
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If this is implemented, far from being a fuddy duddy sector, Indian Post will start having hot growth prospects like Internet retailers like Flipkart or Jabong.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3