Formal Education?

strait·jack·et also straight·jack·et n.

2. Something that restricts, hinders, or confines: the straitjacket of bureaucratic paperwork.

[http://www.thefreedictionary.com/straitjacket]

The year was 2000, I was participating in high school debate (with my favorite debate partner) speaking against the motion that formal education was not a necessary perquisite to success. I remember arguing quite convincingly that every successful person has had some element of formal education in his life at some point of time or the other, and like it or not this has had a positive impact on the person's life and is a necessary perquisite to success in one's life. I guess I was able to convincingly argue my side of the case because it resonated with my own view of life and formal education. Right upto my graduate course in business administration course, I have believed that any success that has come my way has been largely due to my formal education and my single minded focus in excelling at the same.

I had a family friend visiting today whose daughter is in the twelfth standard, at the cusp of making the crucial decision on the form of formal education to pursue after high school. Couple this with the fact that I have just completed reading the first chapter of "Rich Daddy Poor Daddy" I took some time off to analyze and think of i see in myself today and root cause it to any facet of my formal education.

One aspect that struck me immediately is the emphasis that was laid on and linearity and certainty in the teaching of science. Everything in nature could be explained in a model in which results that were certain in nature were obtained from well defined fomulae. That kind of skewed up my thinking for the rest of my life i guess ... right from high school and through college i believed in the absolute nature of things, about how things would happen with certainty given the model that you superpose on the situation and process at hand, the modeling was always right. I read a lot of scholastic writings that debunked this theory, but the only action I would take is to feel intellectually stimulated with these thoughts and then get back to the safety net of my fixed and linear model that worked well for me.

This linear and certain way of thinking worked well for me until a few years back, i knew the model for a given situation, and i knew the result that would come out as a consequence of my action, because i was trained to believe that the model was always right. The formal system for science education never gave me a chance to appreciate the randomness and non linearity that is the characteristic of everything in life. The real problem lies in the fact that i continue to place this "straitjacket of linearity and certainty" in my thought processes. It has been tough for me to make the transition and freeing my mind from these shackles, from this stifling "straitjacket" . All my life things have fit so perfectly into my view of the world that I never gave a thought to the possibility of things working outside of "my way" which to me was the right way.

I am not discounting the usefulness of a formal education, but what I certainly feel very strongly about the shackles that this has placed on my thought processes. Thinking out of the box does not come as easily as i wish it would come ...

The important thing is that i have been able to identify this drawback, and I am working on it. It is not easy and very often painful! I am reminded of a quote that was oft repeated in the Services Marketing class in college :

"Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one's self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all"

Thomas Szasz, author, professor of psychiatry (1920- )

Its time I got out of the straitjacket of "certainty and linearity" once and for all, it is going to be a painful process, but a necessary right of initiation into the other endeavors that beckon me in life.

New Paradigms in the mobile handset market

While recuperating from a viral fever scare, i was quite surprised to read the news that HP had bought out PALM.

A new paradigm seems to be emerging in the wireless handset market...

It used to be the war of brands in the early markets, Nokia Vs. Motorola Vs. Samsung Vs. LG ... People made their choice of a phone on the basis of the brand, need and functionality in that order. This started changing, with innovations in industrial design, i.e. better looking phones, the paradigm shifted to a combination of design and functionality with the brand now sharing priority with these criteria in the decision hierarchy.

With the advent of the software powered smartphone, a new paradigm is emerging - that of the Operating System! With the emphasis more on the software platform and application availability, it looks like every manufacturer worth his/her salt is pushing for a proprietary OS that can be independently controlled, distributed and attract a slew application developers for a sustained competitive advantage in the market.

Of special interest is the story of Apple and Google. Two firms that chose different OS models in line with their strategies to capture a large part of the market share. While Apple went proprietary, they made no mistake on the part of application development. The support shown by Apple to early application developers for the iPhone has paid rich dividends. It did not matter whether the core Operating System was Open-Sourced or not (incidentally these two share the same initials OS ... ;) ... Perhaps this new paradigm can be called the OS2 paradigm, with an Operating System and an Open-Source application development strategy).

Google went one step ahead and Open-Sourced their operating system and application layer completely while making it available for all mobile handset vendors. The Google Android platform had arrived. This seemingly attractive option for vendors came with its own perils. Whilst the code was Open-Sourced, the usage of the code in devices for sale to the customer was controlled by Google. What seemed attractive at first as an Open-Source alternative and possibly the ubiquitous way ahead for smartphone manufacturers may not be the only way ahead.

Smartphone manufacturers are in a certain sense business smart and know that their competitive edge lies in differentiation. If everybody were to offer an Android or a WinMoble phone with nearly the same look and feel of the User Interface and User Experience, where did the differentiation for the manufacturers brand really lie? The risk is the manufacturers brand taking a backseat in the face of the larger brand of the Google touted Android or WinMobile.

What handset manufacturers are probably scared of is to have a single OS (be it Android or be it WinMobile) take precedence over the brand which would mean that the pie (smartphone market) could easily be divided equally.

This is clearly coming out in the strategies that are coming out of all major manufacturers. PALM went ahead and developed WebOS (perhaps the biggest reason why HP bought them out). Samsung has its own smartphone platform dubbed as BADA. RIM has always had its own OS. LG depends on opensource Linux. HTC is talking of setting up its own Operating System.

What is clearly emerging is that handset manufacturers wish to keep the market fragmented from a business perspective. They want to own and control an OS that allows them to differentiate their phones and attract the application developer community. The future business direction of these companies could be driven by the need to maintain competitive advantage in the operating system.

How does this affect hardware vendors for smartphone handset manufacturers?

Handset manufacturers would like to prefer a standardized Operating System on smartphones, since this reduces their costs and also reduces the strain on the development organization to support multiple software platforms on the same hardware. The direction in which the market is moving could prove to be a potential risk if customers start demanding full system support for all available software platforms.

There are three ways to mitigate this risk at the hardware vendors end ...

Option I: The costlier and more complex option of supporting all the available software platforms.

Option II: The more balanced approach of picking and choosing the right software platforms to invest in while totally ignoring the others.
Option III: A mix of internal and external development on the vendors hardware - internally invest in and work on the most promising software platforms and outsource the development of the other software platforms.

There are a number of challenges in coming up with the right decision amongst the available options -

While each of these options have their positives and negatives, is a tabulation of positives and negatives pitted against the corresponding costs the best way ahead for hardware vendors to make their decisions?

What is right from a market strategy point of view? Will the company's view of the market strategy pay off or will the market go completely to the contrary? How can the decision of picking the right Operating System Platform (for options 1 and 2) be made? Are current market pointers sufficient to indicate future trends?

Will a strategic tie-up with the software platform vendor be beneficial in the long run, how painful would the relationship be in case it is unsuccessful, or for that matter even if it is successful!

An interesting thing to note is that while handset manufacturers consider the upstream activity of developing Operating System Software to be a vital part of their competitive advantage, the actual manufacturing of the semiconductor chips required to run these handsets is not seen as a strategic advantage to have in-house. This is most likely due to the higher fixed and operational costs associated with the semiconductor manufacturing business and also the high level of technical expertise that is required to run the business. The real value as perceived by the customer lies in the tangible things that the customer can feel and use as a part of the product which include the user interface and applications exposed to the customer. The underlying hardware is not visible to the customer and is therefore not very high on the list of must haves for handset manufacturers.

What are the emerging trends in the market for handsets?

One of the smarter things done by the handset manufacturers is the development of unique User Interface software that has a strong association with the brand, eg- Nokia's S60, S40, HTC's Sense UI, LG's S6 UI platform etc. With the uppermost layer of software under their control, the differentiation possibilities are almost maximized. The reason why i use the term almost maximized and not maximized is because the maximization of differentiation comes if the lower levels can be standardized to meet all the functional requirements of the upper levels. If something that differentiates the upper level of software is not available in the lower layer of the software, there there is no real differentiation possible. This is possibly the reason why all handset manufacturers would want to have an underlying Operating System of their own.

The main risk that handset manufacturers might face is the lack of interest that may be shown in porting the proprietary system onto specific hardware platforms by the vendors. What if Qualcomm refuses to port Samsung's Bada Software OS platform onto its Snapdragon hardware platform in the belief that the maximum value for Qualcomm is derived from the porting of Android on Snapdragon. The opportunity associated with this risk lies with the hardware vendors, if there is a segment that is not served by a particular vendor there is always scope for competition to come in and port the custom software platform onto their hardware.

Concluding Thoughts

All in all the fragmentation of the hardware and software platform in the mobile handset market may be inevitable.

Whereas Google is seeing a surge in demand for the Android software platform this surge can be sustained only if handset manufacturers continue to see value in having a unified system like Android and avoid excessive investments in their internal Operating Systems and software platforms. Google's success would also depend on their ability to simultaneously entice semiconductor vendors to port Android onto the platform and sell a good value proposition to the handset manufacturers. The adoption of Android applications in the market and the subsequent popularity and indispensable predisposition to the customers of this platform could also prove to be a critical factor in locking in both handset manufacturers and semiconductor vendors to the Android Software Platform.

Google might run the risk of being a "staging" platform used by the handset manufacturers till they have developed a software platform of their own. However the development of a mature application market will ensure that the demand for Android phones will continue to spur handset manufacturers to have an Android offering as a part of their product portfolio.

Thoughts on corruption

"Corruption is the market mechanism for privileged access" - C K Prahalad.

I came across this quote/definition while reading a chapter extract from C K Prahalad's "Fortune At the Bottom of the Pyramid". It has been a long time since i have given corruption some serious thought and this statement made me think quite a bit. At the end of an intense thinking session I had number of perspectives and insights into the economic and ethical implications of corruption as we deal with it in our day to day lives.

While thinking of the economic implications of corruption I got the following insights into the nature of corruption:

• As long as there is a consumer surplus in a price regulated environment (most government services are price regulated so as to make them affordable to all strata of the society), there is always a scope for corruption. Those consumers that hold a higher surplus are more likely to seek a more privileged access (be it in the form of reduced processing time or a higher evaluation in a dispute like situation) and are more likely to encourage the practice of corruption. Even people who enjoy the slightest of a surplus may give in to corrupt practices. Any form of governmental price fixing or supply restrictions on privately provided goods and services can also lead to a market for "privileged access" (read corruption) in the private sector.
• According to C K Prahalad, the most important factor that aids corruption is the lack of transparency in government processes, which in turn makes the completion of a transaction with the government a highly time consuming experience. This in turn causes the people at the "bottom of the pyramid" to consider the time value of money and therefore forces them to add to their costs in two more dimensions, one the price paid to the broker or intermediary who is getting the work done, and two the bribe needed for the government official to perform his duty. I couldn't agree more with his analysis on this subject.
• As much as private enterprises could raise the the cost of essential goods and services, given the flexibility that they hold in differential pricing, they may turn out to be a better alternative than fixed price government services. Public perception is very forgiving towards the private enterprise in providing a differentiated service/good at differential prices. Effectively private enterprise in a slightly regulated market could possibly reduce the need for corruption in a society where there is a high differential between the haves and the have not s.

These are not observations that have no technical basis, these can be proven using various economic models of demand and supply and i am quite convinced of the truth in these arguments.

On a more philosophical note, i found quite a few ethical applications of the term corruption as taken in the context of "privileged access".

When we tip the security guard so that he sorts our mail more carefully than that of our neighbors, or we tip the waiter a little more so that we get the most prized "romantic" seats at the restaurant, or when we pay that extra tip to the gas delivery boy expecting a more prompt delivery of the gas cylinder, aren't we all giving in to our perceived need of a "privileged access"? In effect are we all being corrupt in these simple actions that we perform day to day without giving it a second thought!

There are a lot more personal and professional scenarios in which i could try to apply this definition of corruption, focusing mainly on the words "privileged access" and i find it fascinating that so many routine actions of mine fall into the bucket of "corruption".

Perhaps there is a different definition of corruption when it comes to ethical and moral actions that I need to seek out ... but for today my quest stops here ... more perhaps sometime later in the year ...

10 years of the internet

I got my first computer in May 1999. It was a smart looking Compaq Presario with a 333Mhz Celeron processor, 32 MB RAM, 4 MB VRAM, 128KB L2 Cache, 4GB Hard Disk, a state of the art machine which cost my father a fortune and most importantly came with an inbuilt 56Kbps modem!

The new machine came bundled with a Satyam internet starter pack that gave me a total of 25 hours access to the internet.

It was any 15 year olds dream come true, a gadget for games, music, movies and fun along with a chance to get online and have my own e-mail account!!!

As we entered 2010 i remembered the most crazy thing i did at the fag end of 1999 (or atleast i thought it was quite a crazy thing to do). It was the year of the Y2K bug, doomsday was predicted and i was expecting the worst ... It was the last day of the year, being in between my pre-final exams the only celebration was with the family and at precicely 11:00 p.m. everybody retired to bed to prepare for a long new years day. I remember my first real encounter with the internet was around 11:45 p.m. December 31st, 1999. Inspite of all warnings from my parents to stay away from the computer, i thought "wtf", what could go wrong? After all billions of dollars were spent on fixing the Y2K bug right? A thought struck me, i should be celebrating my entry into 2000 by getting into a chat room and seeing what could go wrong ... would planes really come crashing down all over the US, would Russian ICBMs be triggered off due to a faulty code patch or would the internet fall apart at the precise moment of 00:00:00 hours!

Those were the days when chat rooms were really chat rooms, untouched by bots, real people discussed real issues in a common window. I think i logged in to Rediff Chat and entered one of those general rooms. The mood was quite light and everybody was talking of what was happening ... there were folks from Japan, Singapore, HongKong where dawn had broken in the new year and things were going just fine ... and slowly as the clock inched to 00:00:00 IST there were wild jubilations around and there was nothing that seemed out of the ordinary!

I went to sleep at 12:45 a.m. after getting a confirmation that Pakistan too has survived the entry into Y2K ...

It has been 10 years of using the internet since then, from being a tool to keep in touch with friends, to a source of all those adolecent porn, to being a source of all my music and movies, and culiminating in being my indispensible companion in all my college projects, it has been a faithful comapnion and perhaps the most useful tool i have used in my life ...

Here's a toast to the greatest technological invention of all times that has served me well for the past 10 years!

Global Economic Recession - Lessons and Impacts

[This article was originally written as an essay by my friend, teacher and guide on all things related to economics – Devanshi Madan. A quick guide on the financial crisis of 2009 along with a unique view on the principal-agency problem makes this a very interesting article for the average person. I have added a few lines, deleted a few and modified a few more before reproducing it here, all the matter published here has been the original work of the above mentioned author …]

Recessions and business cycles

Recessions are the outcomes of business cycle fluctuations. Business cycle fluctuations are naturally occurring crests (positive growth) and troughs (negative growth) in the revenues and growth of a business. These fluctuations in the business cycle have been well documented. A progression from a crest to a trough leads to a slowdown in economic growth and in extreme cases, as it was in 2008; cause a deep economic recession with global repercussions. Whereas slowdowns and recessions have been around as a naturally occurring economic phenomenon, the global recession of 2008-2009 was exacerbated by the fact that the fundamentals of the financial markets were thrown to the wind in the face of uncontrolled greed.

The global recession of 2009

The origins

It all started with the housing loan crisis, more commonly called the “sub prime mortgage” crisis. American banks and agencies started indiscriminately issuing housing loans to people who did not meet the required eligibility criteria to secure such loans. They slashed interest rates on these housing loans and the demand for these loans shot up. Banks ignored the “credit worthiness” of the applicant and gave loans which were backed by the house bought as the underlying security. These loans were offered at 3% the same rate as the inter bank rate!

The modus operendi of the lending banks and agencies was to lure people by showing much lower variable interest rates on housing loans for a certain period. However hidden behind this promise, as per the fine print, by the time the loan reached its maturity, the total amount repaid would have been the same as the total amount that would have had to been repaid in the case of a high interest fixed rate loan.

This process of ensuring that total cash flows were large and yet it looked to be small in the initial period was done by the process of “negative amortization”. As opposed to normal amortization in negative amortization the principle balance and hence the interest keeps increasing every month. With the lure of lower EMI’s in the initial years, the banks managed to play with peoples psyche and lead them to believe that they were actually getting a very cheap loan. This in turn led to a dramatic increase in the demand for housing.

After a certain amount of time the housing bubble burst, people were unable to pay back these loans and abandoned their houses. As a result, the supply of houses far outstripped the demand for houses, this drove the real restate prices down. The mortgaged houses were redeemed by the banks, albeit as non performing assets. The house prices were much lower than the loan value plus the cost of maintaining the houses would have had to be incurred.

In such a scenario, banks were collapsing due to the large number of non performing assets being added in the form of foreclosure of housing loans. In order to save the banks from collapsing, they were bought out or taken over by other banks and the Federal Reserve. The government intervened later with bail out packages running into billions of dollars to save the banks from bankruptcy.

What are the key lessons to be learnt in analyzing the cause for such a financial catastrophe?

In my opinion it is the misperception and the mismanagement of risk, the low level of interest rates and the indiscriminate de-regulation of financial systems leading to a skew in the market demand that is biased towards a price increase which is artificial and unsustainable.

Today’s world is highly interdependent. Instability in one institution will cause instability in many others. It’s the case of the “ripple effect”. It’s the human psychology around risk perceptions. Individual actions, such as the decision to forward loans to non credit worthy individuals, cannot be viewed in isolation. A global perspective is required in assessing the potential long term impacts over the short term gains that are achieved.

Too greedy in the present - future repercussions

The primary cause for the authorization of risky short term financial decisions would be the greed of the management to show phenomenal revenues and expected future profits. I would call it a managerial greed and callousness. CEOs and other senior managerial personnel rely on compensation received from the companies in the form of salary and other perks. They do not hold any significant stake in their companies. The banking and insurance companies are joint stock companies which have the system of collective ownership.

The “Principal Agency theory”, where the management top teams are just the managers but not the owners, comes into play here. They are the decision makers but they do not bear the burden of the losses incurred by the company. The risk is borne by them and the shareholders, who are collectively the “owners” of the company. The management team earns a percentage of the profits/sales of the Company. Incorrect and greedy decisions made on the part of the management for personal “short term” gain without paying any heed to the long term implications of such decisions, has lead to the financial meltdown in the “developed” countries. There needs to be a principle change in the laws that govern the structure of business institutions at an international level. There is a need to redefine the laws of management and ownership.

Given these observations, it is imperative to have a balance in the principal-agency relationship. Short term profits should not be the sole driver to determine the compensation of the top management team. Shareholders need to be more vigilant and governments need to introduce more stern rules with regard to the regulation of management compensations when linked with the performance of the company.

Experienced Trade-offs !!!

Experience is the biggest asset a manager has on his side. As much as I learn the nuances of "business" and "management" at my MBA course (the PGSEM) at IIMB, nothing will ever be able to take the place and role that time learned experience would play in shaping the characteristics i would like to develop as a good manager (and leader).

I believe that making the right decisions in the face of available trade-offs will always be an art that will be the most visible source of differentiation between managers!

Simply put, trade-offs are choices that need to made between available alternatives in scenarios where the consequences of the choice that is made is not fully known. Decision trees have been used extensively in many of my classes to define evaluation of alternatives at decision points in a business flow. It all looks hunky-dory in a classroom scenario where the consequences at each decision point are well defined and the end result neatly mapped out by the professor on the whiteboard!In the real world, there is absolutely no way of knowing the consequences of each decision! Not only are the consequences not well defined, it is also impossible to really know the full breadth of alternatives that can be taken at a decision point.

As we move deeper into the information world, it is not the owner of the cache information who has the ultimate edge as a manager, rather the one who knows how best to derive results from that huge cache of information that holds to key to future managerial success.

My management education provides me the tools and frameworks that help in gathering the required knowledge and information along with the partial ability to derive some form of results from the information that is gathered. However it has to be experience that will enable me to take the right choice more often.

Given that experience is time bound, i am reminded of the classic dilemma that a fresh graduate faces. Every employer wants to recruit someone with a minimum threshold of experience for exciting roles that involves certain amount of responsibility. A fresh graduate wants an exciting job of responsibility, and is possibly capable of it, but has no way to satisfy the "experience" requirement of the potential employer.

If I were to draw parallels, as a manager, the ability to make the right decision choice (in a world of imperfect information) would rest largely on experience gained while having made a large number of decisions in the past. Failure is but a small price I will have to pay in order to gain the "experiential wisdom" that I require for the long run. I will have to take risky choices knowing that the consequences may or may not be favorable, and not be afraid while facing the consequence.

Gandhian Thoughts

I had a chance to attend the Gandhi Colloquium at IIM Bangalore. The theme of the colloquium was “Gandhi, Governance and the Corporation”. I was impressed by some of the thoughts that the eminent speakers (Prof Dwijendra Tripati, Prof N Balasubramanian, Prof Peter DeSouza, Prof Pratap Bhany Mehta) put forth as a part of the introductory session in the morning.

Key takeaways from the lectures:

- Gandhian philosophies have not had a widespread acceptance in the corporate world

- The philosophy of trusteeship is focal point for corporate embracement of Gandhian thought

- Trusteeship involves a sense of debt to society; an organization exists to serve the society and the context of the society in which it exists

- Gandhi believed that an individual or a corporation had to earn just as much as was “reasonably” required and any amount earned in excess of this was expected to be returned to the society, since it was “excess” wealth that was accumulated unduly and it belonged to the society and not the corporation or the individual (Contrast this with socialism, looks like Gandhi’s philosophy was geared towards voluntary actions for equitable distribution of wealth unlike the “socialist” thought of Government enabled distribution of wealth!)

- Gandhi was perhaps the only political figure who was aware of the communal tinderbox that India could evolve into at the time of independence

- Gandhi placed a great emphasis on the aspect of friendship, friendship across groups to which an individual belonged

I find myself resonating with a lot of the thoughts that were put forth. I believe that socialism, an excellent concept, can never be imposed. Voluntary socialism as espoused by the “trusteeship” philosophy is perhaps sustainable. It is perhaps necessary that this philosophy is inculcated as a way of life in Indian society. Is it going to be successful? Gandhi was convinced that it would succeed, yet today 50 years after his death there is still no clear answer. Even I am not fully convinced of the efficacy of “trusteeship”.

To get a wider perspective on trusteeship:

http://www.gandhi-manibhavan.org/gandhiphilosophy/philosophy_trusteeship.htm

Summed up in one paragraph:

“Supposing I have come by a fair amount of wealth—either by way of legacy, or by means of trade and industry—I must know that all that wealth does not belong to me; what belongs to me is the right to an honorable livelihood, no better than that enjoyed by millions of others. The rest of my wealth belongs to the community and must be used for the welfare of the community.”

The Conversion Dilemma: A Possibly Mishandled Situation?

Of late there have been a lot of attacks against Christians in India on the supposed issue of forced conversions. There has been a huge hue and cry raised against the practice of conversion as is supposedly followed by the Christians of our country.

Before going ahead I would like to clarify my stand on the moot point of conversions. I believe in a personal God (whatever is the form that he or she takes, a force, a presence, a higher conscience, nature) and I am of the opinion that religion is just the means to achieve this end. My opinion on conversions derives from this; to me conversion is a change in the way in which an individual seeks to find God. It is an intangible value that aids an individual to perform better on more tangible things like, work output, social interactions, etc.

I have always been an admirer of the Christian mission work in India; missionaries that I have interacted with have been selfless individuals who have truly believed that it is their moral (and not religious!) duty to bring about social development in the backward regions of India through education and primary health care. Mind you, I use the word moral and not the word religious, because that describes the motivation of a true missionary; religion just gives him/her a platform. In the course of a missionary’s work, if those that have benefited from the mission choose to have a conversion in their quest to find God, what moral right does anyone have to stop an individual from pursuing his fundamental right in the secular state of India?

(This does not endorse money induced conversions; rather this defends conversions that are of a different nature. I will always be against money endorsed conversions, and to be honest I believe that money induced conversions will never cause a major demographic shift in the religious break up of India, it is simply not sustainable economically!)

(When I use the word missionary, I think I imply any person who does good for another human in the forgotten rural lands of India, without expecting any tangible benefit in return. Religion, be it Hinduism through ISKON or Christianity through Missions, offers a platform that could also be provided by a non religious organization like the IRC, Medicine Sans Frontiers etc. Atheists too could be missionary except that they lack religiosity ;) …)

This brings me to the events that have transpired in Karnataka and the subsequent handling of the situation by the Chief Minister of Karnataka and the arch Bishop of Bangalore.

Firstly I am angry with the Chief Minister (CM) of Karnataka. The first thing that a man of political wisdom would do in a situation like this (desecration of a church and vandalism) is bring the culprits to book and then make any statements of bravado. The path taken by the CM is one of brazen offense in which the Christian community is made to look like the villain! For crying out loud perhaps he has forgotten that it is a Christian church that has been desecrated by vandals! Given the history of Christians in India, a grave (in terms of religion) event such as this will never be met by violence, why then has the CM issued warnings against the Christian community for making statements that he claims are inflammatory?! Bring the culprits to book Mr. CM, it is only then that you would have the moral high ground to warn the Christian community on anything!

(On a side note, I realize that the statements made by the CM were directed more against a former BJP MP who happens to be Christian!)

Secondly I am confused by the way in which the archbishop of Bangalore reacted to the situation. Giving the CM of a state the cold shoulder in full media glare may have been a good tactic to express the ire and frustration of the Christian community, but it is also a strategic blunder. In a secular country like India, whenever there have been incidents of violence against Christians, the collective conscience of the nation has been pricked by the calm and humble resolve with which Christians have reacted to the situation. By showing open aggression I believe that the Bishop has hurt that perception, a perception that serves the Christian community in India really well (Christians end up holding the moral high ground!).

The PR officer of the arch diocese of Bangalore made a public statement on a TV news channel stating that the state government has failed and called for central intervention in this matter, another strategic blunder! The right way ahead should have been to convey the message that the as much as the Christian community is perceived to be calm it will not tolerate a soft attitude of the state government towards the perpetrators of the crime. The wordings of the public statements that were made should have been chosen very carefully! The threat of central government intervention should have been done at a much later stage; it would have held a lot more credibility. Overall I am disappointed by the public statements and actions of the arch diocese of Bangalore. In the game of political strategy I believe they have lost.

This is a political game, and a game that should be played with calmness and a certain amount of guile, the Christian community needs to understand that. A short term victory will not lead to a long term solution, but could easily turn into a tit-for-tat cycle that could easily spiral out of control. Our (yes I am a part of the Christian community!) tried and tested methods of holding the high moral ground through a calm and dignified reaction is best way in which we can get a lasting solution to the current problem. Play politics the right way, the way in which we know we win with minimal losses!

An EPIC queue

A new initiative is underway in India to provide every single eligible and enlisted voter with photo ID cards. It is quite an ambitious and good move on the part of the election commission.

For those in Bangalore, details on "the hows and whys and whats" of the card can be found at:

http://bangalorevoterid.org/

As much as i believe that the every eligible citizen must exercise his/her right to vote, this post is not about the ills of voting/not voting. This post is to highlight an interesting incident that occurred when i went along to collect my voter ID card.

I had taken the day off (well not technically off, since i was working from home, using a fairly trustworthy and fast VPN connection) and at around four i decided to go and stand in queue for the voter ID card.

The scene was one of organized chaos, there was a queue, and queue looked like it comprised of three to four lines. It took me a while to realize that this was due to the fact that people were standing in line as proxies, as and when a known friend or family member came along, an extra space was created for them in the line!!!!

My sister had left half an hour ahead of me in order to get her photo ID done, by the time i had reached the place, my sis was quite close to the actual issuing counter. It was quite tempting for me to jump ahead and behave like the general crowd by taking up a proxy position in front with my sister. However a very interesting reason (other than my principled approach to such situations!) prevented me from doing so!

If you observe the inserted photograph very carefully there is a gentleman who has been circled in red. The gentleman who is highlighted in this photograph is none other than Mr. H. T. Sangliana, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.T._Sangliana) member of parliament (MP)!

It was heartening to see Mr. Sangliana standing in the queue just like any ordinary citizen and waiting his turn to collect his photo ID card ... very uncharacteristic of an Indian politician!!!! During the last election i had voted for this man inspite of his affiliation with the hindu nationalist party BJP; a party whose religious ideology does not strike a chord with me. It was the sheer stature of this IPS officer who had done so much for Bangalore city that had influenced my choice. Looking at this man, stand in queue just like any other ordinary citizen gave me a sense of satisfaction that i have never experienced before; I voted for the right kind of human being (i am not going to go into the details of his performance as an elected representative, this post is not intended to do that).

Mr. Sangliana (and his family, wife and a nephew) waited patiently for more than an hour in that queue before collecting their id cards.

Side Note: I am proud of Mr. Sangliana's stand in the no-confidence motion against the incumbent national government on the nuclear deal issue. As my elected representative, he did what i would have wanted him to do. Thank you sir!

Carbon Credits - Emission Trading - The individual - The Farce

This post is not to elaborate deep on the issues of carbon credits, emission trading and the deep intricacies of trade in such a contentious industry. You can read about these things by visiting the following links:

Carbon Offset:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_offset

Carbon credit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_credit

Emission Trading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissions_trading

Carbon Trade Watch (recommended):
http://carbontradewatch.gn.apc.org/


Carbon trade, carbon markets, carbon colonialism, CDM (clean development mechanism), free market trade of pollution etc. are complex issues. I am not going deep into the ethical, moral, and long term risks that this dangerous market poses to mankind, i need a lot of time to complete my assessment of carbon markets. However i can make one comment with certainty, there is no price that can be associated with our environment!

I have an interesting situation in mind in this futuristic world in which carbon emission units (CO2) can be bought and sold as a commodity not just by large corporations but also by individuals. I create a hypothetical future world in which carbon credits have been extended to individuals too, i.e. regular blokes like you and me have all our activities linked to the carbon trade market and we are able to buy/sell carbon credits proportional to our needs and requirements.

Hypothetically it would be right to say that if i own a car, there would be a carbon offset unit (equal to one tonne of CO2 emission) that would be associated with my car. Now i can buy a car and claim that i use the public transport to reduce CO2 emissions (to satisfy the condition of (sic)additionality) though i would have done so anyway in order to save money! Effectively depending on my car make and model i could save up to three carbon credit for every 1000K (assuming my current car emits 300g/Km of CO2). For every 1000K traveled in the public transport system i rake up 3*355 = 1065USD = ~ 45000 Indian Rupees (carbon unit costs can vary between 10 - 700 USD, taking an average i get 355 USD!).The average cost to just make a trip around bangalore's ring roads (~100Kms) on a BMTC bus would be about Rs30. Cost to travel a total of 1000Kms in BMTC buses ~Rs300. Earnings for having traveled in BMTC on the carbon exchange Rs45000. Whoa i make a windfall profit of 44700! In such a hypothetical future i would love to buy the most polluting car, second hand ofcourse, use it once in a while, become a travelling salesman, and use the public transport for my travels! My income over and above my salary would be ~Rs44700!!!!

Well i must say that the situation that i have described is not a practical one; a lot of simplifications, assumptions and exaggerations have been incorporated. However I believe it does serve the purpose to show why a "carbon market" really does not work out as an "economic incentive" based method to reduce CO2 emissions.

There are a number of contradictions, a number of ethical and philosophical implications for us in making the future of our environment a tradable commodity. It may never work!!!!

Two years of owning the Fiat Palio

This is the email i have posted on the PUG forum describing the ownership experience of my Palio 1.6 Sport. On a side note, one of the biggest reasons behind my passion for my my car is the exclusivity that it offers me on Indian roads :) ... i don't think people in general are ready to buy FIAT as yet!

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Posted on the 30th of July 2008
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Two years and 25000 kms later I am glad i never paid heed to the "good" advice of my parents, colleagues and "well wishers" ... My Palio 1.6 rocks!

Car Details:
Model - Palio 1.6 Sport
Color - Formula Red
Date of Purchase - 25 July 2006
ICE - Blaupunkt Muai36 HU + Blaupunkt THx 693 rear ovals + Blaupunkt front
speakers (not really good, but a decent system!).
Odo reading - 25560
Tyres: Michelin XM1+ 185R60 OEM 14inch alloys
Fuel Efficiency -
With AC : Highways - 14-15 City - 8-9
Without AC: Highways - 15-16 City 9-10
Race mode on highway without AC - 11
Max Speed achieved: 160Kmph on 175R65 tyres - Mysore road.

Service Details:
All services done at Concorde Motors Hosur Road Bangalore. The first two services were disastrous, however all the other services and repairs done at Concorde have been good to excellent. The improvement has been close to 100X i would say. The staff is comfortable with FIAT now, the washing and cleaning is almost at par with a Maruti service station and the delivery time punctuality has improved (this service saw me waiting just 30 mins extra compared to the 2.5 hrs on the first service! ;))

Major accident on the 7th of Dec 2006. The front part of the car was severely damaged. After three months of legal wrangles (with the traffic cops) and endless follow-up calls with Mr. Mangesh, got the car out of Concorde Motors fully repaired as good as new (only my beat up old number plate and a slightly misaligned bonnet provide any indication of a major accident). Parts replaced - right panel, bonnet, front bumper, windshield, headlamps, fog lamps, radiator fan, condenser, power steering rod and a host of other parts. Cost of painting
the bumper bonnet and right panel 10,135. Overall costs incurred ~68000. Insurance claimed from TATA AIG covered a major portion and i had to shell out ~10000. Color difference almost none.
Contact persons at Concorde:
Service Lead - Mr. Vijay Kumar
Lead Mechanic - Mr. Adi
Body Shop - Mr. Madhu

Latest service done at Concorde yesterday; spark plugs replaced(OEM), throttle body cleaned, MAP sensor cleaned, wipers replaced (OEM), brakes cleaned and checked.

Car feels and handles as good as new!

Usage and Experience:
The move to buy a 1.6 sport was purely instinctive, on the day i had planned for a XETA test drive i happened to glance at an ad for the 1.6 sport in the papers, twas love at second sight (had fallen in love with the palio at its launch in 2001!). Financial prudence was just thrown to the wind in favour of sheer driving pleasure. I remember the first time i went full throttle against a merc on the inner ring road ... the adrenalin rush, the sense of exhileration and the
thrill of knowing that i kept a merc in my rear view mirror for the entire stretch of the road ...

Have done 4 trips to Udupi, 2 to chikmagalur, 1 to Pondi(with PUG), 1 to ooty and innumerable trips to mysore! Overall i'd say its 50-50 between city and highway driving. The car has never let me down, be it pulling up with ease on the ghats or cruising past bigger vehicles on straight stretches or off-roading on the village "roads" of South Canara! There have been one or two "heart in the mouth" moments thanks to the lack of ABS, but now i have learnt to live with it and drive slower on the highways!

One of the biggest pillars of support in my ownership experience has been PUG! You guys have given me the confidence of knowing that there are people who know the true worth of the FIAT and have not been afraid to make a stand and buy differently to own an exclusive and handsome car on Indian roads. A big THANK YOU to all PUGers with whom i have shared my experiences and had a chance to partake in your experiences albeit via the medium of e-mails!

I guess the car looks good and feels good, good to go for a few more years atleast ... yup, gonna keep this baby with me for a while.

One Helluva happy Palio owner!
Amith Dsouza

Yet another blog - The whys ...

I already have a blog - http://searchingthru.blogspot.com, why the need for another.

Perspectives, Paradigms and Critical Thought is my personal blog. It is something that i update as and when i get a really deep insight into a significant behavioral/attitudinal change in my life. This blog is different, this is where i would like to post my random musings ... usually on work, my academic interests, society in general and my volunteer activities.

What triggered the creation of this blog? I had a message in my inbox from a very dear friend asking me for my opinion on "sting operations" and "carbon colonialism" and i suddenly realized that when i have an opinion i could communicate it to all through the medium of the web! If somebody wants to read the random thoughts and opinions of a "mindless thinker", who am i to stop them :D!

This is not going to be a journal or an open diary, i don't think i would ever put up those everyday thoughts online. I will be updating this blog more often than my personal blog!

Hope my visitors enjoy the content that i put up on this site!

There is a classical dilemma that my boss (hey Srini you are my boss :D !!!) and i were discussing over lunch yesterday ...


The problem: How do we stop Bangaloreans from breaking traffic rules?

Possible solutions discussed:
1) Make the fines really large, increase them by atleast 5 times over current levels. This will dissuade current motorists from breaking the law.
2) Allow policemen to keep 25% of the fines that they collect. This will motivate the policemen enforce the law more strictly.

While both approaches have their tactical merits, in the long run i feel these will prove to be detrimental to the task they wish to achieve!

If the fines are made really large, then there will be more motivation for the public to bribe the policeman to escape payment of such large amounts.
If policemen are allowed to keep 25% of the fines, it would be very difficult to put in place control mechanisms which will ensure that policemen don't misuse their power and harass innocent motorists to make more money for themselves.

For a hard day of thankless work, a traffic policeman is probably paid Rs8000 (USD200) per month along with free departmental housing. The conditions of traffic police station are just short of pathetic.
Contrast this with salaries that are paid in other professions (fresh grads get paid upwards of Rs10000 (USD250) per month) along with benefits and a swanky (mostly) air conditioned environment. It becomes evident that it is this lack of "financial motivation" that could perhaps be the root cause of the whole "corruption-breaking traffic rules" cycle which is the main factor behind such madness on Bangalore roads today.

Our final conclusion at the lunch table, tackle the problem head on, increase the wages that are paid to our policemen, give them better benefits and working conditions. In the long run, this will be more viable than any short run benefits that other solutions bring about.

Disclaimer: Every statement made in this post is debatable and does not represent an absolute unchangeable line of thought! :D ...