Switch over to a basket of fruits

Yesterday, a student of mine came to collect her MBA degree certificate. It is one of the more gratifying moments for a teacher - a student getting graduated.

For this student, this was a double celebration, for her husband had also just completed his MBA.

She was nice enough to bring individual boxes of sweets for all of us. Very thoughtful of her.

A recent health scare, unfortunately, meant I cannot enjoy her gift box of sweets. Suddenly, I remembered that we meet the elderly and sick with a box of fruits, rather than sweets. Maybe I am becoming an elder citizen!

But in today's world, is it not always better, safer and healthier to give a basket of fruits in lieu of sweets? We will be doing the recipient a great favour by at least not spoiling his/her health, as eating sweets lead to diabetes and obesity. Fruits, on their part, can be consumed without any adverse health consequences.

Hence, switch over to a basket of fruits next time around.

Caricature of modern manager in Mahabharatha

Modern Management can learn a lot from the varios personalities in Mahabharatha. Each character conveys a particular trait so essential for an Organizations success. It also conveys that an organization has to have multiple skill sets blended together by a common thread to succeed.

Yudhishtira embodies ethics and value system. He attaches lot of importance on propriety and sets high personal standards. Bhima is the executor. For Yudhishtira, both 'Lakshyam' (Goal) and 'Margam' (Path to achieve the goal) matters. Bhima, on the other hand, believes only in attaining the Goal using might at any cost. For him, the end justifies the means. Arjuna is the multi skilled General Manager Strategy & Operations. He, with his key adviser Krishna, plans and executes with precision. He is the charismatic leader everyone looks upto in the battle-field. The man for a crisis  and the one, the subordinates are in awe of. Sahadeva is the dreamer visionary knowledge bank. Even Yudhishtira turns to him for advice in times of need. Nakula is the service provider, who offers support services to others. The quintessential backroom boy. Even the eldest of the Pandavas, Karna, can be likened to the skilled executive who is blinded by the loyalty to his superior, which led to his doom. We can see many like him in today's Corporate World. The yes men, who knows the boss is wrong, but who owes his position to the boss (Karna was crowned King of Angarajyam by Duryodhanan when he was humiliated by Dronacharya and hence his loyalty) and hence couldnt come to tell him that he is wrong. He is the possessor of considerable vanity and an inferiority complex, that proves to be his undoing, despite his considerable skill sets. And like his contemporaries in the Corporate world, he ends up being an underperformer and fails.

Delhi to Delhi and back in 5 years!!!

You are the highest ranked minister after the PM. You send a file which has immense consequences to the nation to a State Government ruled by your own party for action. Then you discretely ask the Chief Minister of the State to sit on the file. Further, you keep on sending reminders as to why the file has not been cleared by the State Government. Finally, you brazen it out in the media claiming you are awaiting report from the State Government, and are helpless since the matter is out of your hands. For this 'efficiency' you get a plum posting as the Governor of a State. This can happen only in India.

The mystery over why it took four years for the Delhi government to clear a file related to Afzal Guru’s mercy petition finally seems to be unravelling. Chief minister Sheila Dikshit has all but admitted during an interview to a television channel that Shivraj Patil, Union home minister at the time, had asked her government to sit on the file. ‘‘May be what you are thinking is true,’’ Dikshit said when asked if Patil had told her to keep the matter pending.

Sources privy to the exchanges between Dikshit and Patil told TOI that soon after the file came to Delhi government in 2006, Patil had made it very clear that there was no hurry. ‘‘He kept saying so throughout 2007 and 2008. Even when the delay in Afzal Guru’s hanging became an issue during the 2008 Assembly elections, there was no change in the position. The direction clearly was that no matter how many reminders went from the ministry, the file should not be cleared,’’ a source revealed.

Asked why he would give such an instruction when his own ministry was sending a reminder every three months (there were 16 of these before the file was sent to the lieutenant governor on May 17), the source said: ‘‘There does not seem to be any other reason beyond the possibility that the home minister may have been reluctant to take the onus of clearing Afzal’s file on himself. That pre-poll pressure built up by BJP did not make any difference shows he was not on the lookout for an electorally beneficial opportunity to dispose of the file.’’ - source TOI

Of course, Shivraj Patil is only a stooge in this case. The decision is entirely Sonia Gandhi's and Manmohan Singh's.

Personally, I am against Death Penalty. It has never proved a deterrent against violent crime. It is better to send the criminal to solitary confinement forever, which is a much greater punishment. Imagine living in solitary confinement for 40 years, with no hope of getting even a parole. You have the rest of the life to regret what you have done.

Having said that, the law of the land provides for death penalty in the rarest of rare cases. The Parliament Attack in which Afsal Guru was convicted and given death sentence falls under that. If the attack had succeeded it would have wiped out our entire political class and would have destroyed the biggest symbol of democracy. The argument that he did not get a fair trail is specious. The Indian Judicial systems conviction rate is so low that, any case with a one in a million chance of doubt will result in a positive verdict for the defendant. Co-conspirators like Geelani were released for want of evidence in the same case. Afsal Guru has gone through the whole process and has been found guilty by the highest court of the land, the Supreme Court and in our Country, we dont run Kangaroo courts and the judiciary is very independant. Afsal Guru has been found guilty and given death sentence.  Period. Full Stop. No further argument on this. He got what he deserved.

It is the prerogative of the convicted prisoner to file a mercy petition to the President. And there is no reason whatsoever that it should take 5 years for a file to move from President to Home Ministry to Delhi Rajbhavan to Delhi Home Ministry office and back.

In any other country with an iota of accountability, heads will rule. But not in India. The people involved in this 'grand inaction' charade are all rewarded. And therein lies the irony!

Justice murdered in broad daylight

Your negligence results in the worst industrial tragedy in India - 20,000 people are dead.

(I remember Prasanna, my sister's friend, who was then in Bhopal, coming down to Kerala a month after the tragedy with her new born baby, and with tears in her eyes told my mother "Aunty, if the wind had been blowing in the opposite direction that day, I would not have been here talking to you". So saying she held her child tightly to her bosom.The horror and shock on her face is still vivid in my memory. She was amongst the lucky ones who escaped death that fateful day)

And you get 'convicted' after 25 years.

One accused is already dead, another is 85 years old, yet another the big daddy of them all, Warren Anderson, absconded to US and government did not lift a finger to extradite him.

And what is the punishment you get???

2 years in Jail plus a total fine of Rs 5 lakhs to be paid by Union Carbide!!!!!!!!. If you convert that to the Rupee value of 1984, it will work out to Rs 30,000!!!!

And this judgement is given by the lower court. The convicts can apply to the High Court where it will take another 10 years and finally in the Supreme Court, which is not likely to take up the case for 5 years.

And if you think that at least the culprits are behind the bars already, you are mistaken. They have been given bail immediately and are out on bail already, and hold your breath - for a surety of a paltry Rs 25,000. They did not stay in the jail for even one minute.

Is it any wonder, the International Community dont take India seriously?

What the heck! We ourselves can't take ourselves seriously.

There is a saying that 'Justice delayed is justice denied'

But this is not even Justice denied. This is 'Justice Murdered in broad daylight'

Crime on humanity

Every year we lose Rs 58,000 Crores worth food grains due to absence of/poor storage facilities. This is approximately 10% of the total food production in the country. In a country where food inflation is at 16% plus, and 60% of the people living below the poverty line and struggling for one square meal a day, one would have expected any decent government to add storage capacity on a war footing, apart from augmenting the infrastructure of the existing storage facilities.

On the one hand there is a direct loss of foodgrains already procured. Either they are left in the open, leading to loss of weight or sprouting. Or the storage facilities are so poor, rats feast on them. Pilferage is another threat. There is a much wider indirect cost. Lack of storage facilities result in Government lowering its procurement targets, leaving the farmers to the mercy of the private middlemen, who fleeces them. The farmer loses interest in farming over a period of time, and migrates to city. Is it any wonder our agriculture growth is less than 2%?

Lack of priority in procurement and distribution of food grains mean millions starve. Rural India is worse than Sub Saharan Africa when it comes to malnutrition and children mortality. The rural Indai is hungry. According to UN figures 61 million children in India have stunted growth and 42% of the world's underweight children are in India. And we shout from the rooftops about 8.5% GDP growth. We should be ashamed.

The MP's have Rs 2 Crore fund for developing his constituency every year. Why can't they be asked to set up storage facilities in their Constituencies for 3 years using this fund. You can create a lot of storage capacity with Rs 6 crores. Multiply that by 750 MPs (both Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha) and the investable fund is approximately Rs 4500 Crores. The Government recently waived Rs 60,000 crores worth farmer loans. If they had spent one fourth of it in building modern godowns, farmer suicides that has assumed alarming proportions can be avoided.

Farmer Co-Operatives can be set up in rural areas with the specific purpose of developing storage infrastructure. Land is not an issue as Government excess land is available in plenty in rural areas, or alternatively the farmers will happily chip in with the funds for the land.

The Agricultural Ministry requires a young, dynamic go getter. It is far too critical a ministry to be left to a non performer like Sharad Pawar. But who cares? Sometimes I suspect, there is a vested interest in keeping the rural India poor, for then the ruling party can dole out some benefits like free sari, money, liquour, TV sets during election time to win votes. Why can't we have an Agricultural Budget presented in the Parliament, when we have a budget for Railways, which is much less important.

The Indian farmer wants a level playing field, effective marketing strategy, fair price, quality seeds, fertilizer at competitive prices and more farm credit at the right time at a low interest rate. He also needs the government to set up medium scale industries that add value to his agrarian product in the broader farming area of his. This calls for a grand vision which is sorely lacking.The amount of subsidies given to the industrialists who employ one twentieth of what the farm sector employs is mindboggling. But the farmers are not organized and they dont know how to lobby, and they dont have the money in crores to grease the politicians palms. Hence, he is left high and dry.

When I was a kid, it was drilled into me that I should not waste food. Should we not drill this into our worthy netas as well?

2 anna syndrome

The Indian Rupee was once divided into 16 Annas, with today's 50 paise equal to 8 annas.

Though we got Independence 63 years ago and Anna gave way to Paise, it is easy to equate my MBA Student's mindset in Anna terms.

I call it the Two Anna Syndrome, or 1/8th of a Rupee Syndrome (The 2 annas were in existence till 1957 and is depicted in the picture).

Only half of my students (i.e; 8 annas, assuming 1 Rupee to be the whole) believe or take seriously my advice given during the orientation program and during the first semesters as to how to go about a MBA program, the need to read extensively, to take the assignments seriously, not to miss an opportunity to develop soft skills, to focus on applications of theory in practice and to write the examinations in the first attempt.

Out of that half, a further half ( i.e; 4 annas, half of 8 annas) actually makes an effort to try and put that into practice some way or other.

Only a further half of those (i.e; 2 annas, half of 4 annas or 1/8th of a rupee) who try to implement my advice sustain it till the end of the program, the balance dropping it mid way through.

Thus, in a class of 24, 12 listen to me, 6 try and follow the advice initially and only 3 sustain it.

Here is to those 2 anna students!!!

Bhoomikkoru Kuda (An umbrella for the Earth)

Today is World Environment Day.

I have the fortune to have been born and brought up in Kerala, God's Own Country (inhabited by Devil's Own People, as one wag remarked recently).

The blistering dry heat of the Sun gave way to torrential downpour with the the onset of monsoon. The rains were heavy and spread across 3-4 months. My hometown, Palghat, also got the benefit of the rains from the North East monsoon during october - december. Water is the lifeline for plants and trees, and the reason why Kerala, in its pristine glory, looks as if a green carpet is spread across it. The shocking change in the landscape when one crossed the border to the drier Tamil Nadu was too big for the small kid in me to comprehend, when I was young. By Onam, in late August/early September, the whole state is painted green with multi coloured flower dotting it all over. Palghat, being the rice bowl, had hectares and hectares of paddy field, which changed from brown barren fields, to light green paddy saplings, to dark green paddy plants, to golden yellow when the fields are ready for harvesting. The numerous rivers, all streaming down to the Arabian Sea, was a life support system, apart from being a feast to the eyes.

Kerala has couple of uniqueness. It is perhaps the only state where there is a rural-urban continuum. There is hardly any difference between the rural and urban infrastructure. Another uniqueness is that, the coastline and the hills are hardly 40 kilometers apart, as the crow flies. Hence, to the locals and to the tourists, the State offers the experience of the sea, the breathtaking beauty of the backwaters, the paddy fields in the plains, the rubber estates in the mountain terrain, the tea estates on the mountain slopes and the forests.

But all those have changed over the years. First the rivers were blocked by dams and they dried out gradually, before being totally destroyed by the sand lobby. Today, you can hardly see a sand bed which allows for free flow of water. Thousands of ponds, that were full even in peak summer and contributed to reducing the temperature by 2-3 degrees were filled up and houses built on it. Gulf money and the rising demand for housing amongst the Keralites have led to a reduction in the arable land and has increased the pressure for water. The water tables have gone down. It was unimaginable a few years back that Keralites would have to resort to bore wells, for the water table was barely 50 feet below the ground level even in peak summer, and in winter it was hardly 2 feet. One could touch the water in the open well a couple of decades back. The mushrooming of houses increased the demand for housing materials, mainly sand, which led to the destruction on riverbeds. The concrete houses also contributed to the warming as they blocked the free flow of wind and increased the radiated heat content in the atmosphere. Finally, indiscriminate felling of trees in the forest and in the countryside reduced the green cover. The end result was erratic rain, land slides, gradual warming, water shortage and the ecological balance being disturbed. A sad development.

This World Environment Day, the Kerala Forest Department has announced a welcome project called 'Bhoomikkoru Kuda' ( An umbrella for the earth). The idea is to distribute and plant 10 lakhs saplings on the day. Functions have been organized in 63 Taluks across the State and all the VIP's from the Politico, cultural, arts, socio, sports field have been involved to create enthusiasm and awareness. The Saplings are available to anyone who wants it. The message is to plant one tree in every household and maintain it. This welcome move has not come one day too late.

Go ahead, Plant a tree wherever you are. Theworld can do with more trees. Be eco friendly.