Wit Wisdom and Whoop

In the meantime work meant we met various people in uniform and everybody spoke of the same thing. But a few meetings were more than normal. One officer Maj Unnikrishnan had been martyred in the operation along with another commando. Meeting a Brigadier responsible for training commandoes the first question he asked, actually barked at me, if I may say so was – 2 of my boys died, they were wearing BPJ’s, did it protect them? This question had not occurred to me and I stared at him dumbly saying I had no idea what actually happened in the action. He replied – “you are right, let me check” and proceeded to call up someone and discussed the details. He appeared satisfied with the answers and was all cream and honey after that. As I relaxed I was smiling at this “Humour in uniform” moment I had experienced. For those of us in the sector, we found the behavior, decisions of various states, their police forces, different branches of the uniformed forces very conflicting and it was obvious th...

To come back to that fateful day. I was driving back home rather late in the evening and had no inkling of what was happening. Somewhere enroute I got a call from home saying that some terrorists had killed 3 senior cops. Then came more chilling news that something big was happening. By the time I arrived home the ONLY snippet of news that had stuck in me was that 3 senior cops were driving together in the same car and had been killed. I was thinking that when company management ruled that groups of senior management should not even fly together, what the hell were 3 senior cops doing together? In any case the information I had was sketchy at best. Walking into home the first scene that I saw on TV was visuals of Mr. Karkare wearing a Bullet Proof Jacket and the anchor all excited and sombre at the same time announcing the killing. Sombre at the death but excited that he died wearing a BPJ. My first comment – Hell that isn’t even a BPJ he is wearing, what the hell are they talking ab...

  Every year, since long 2 life changing and world eyeball attention grabbing events are remembered. One is the 9/11 terrorist attack in USA and the other 26/11 terrorist attack in India. People write various memories of that day and owing to a concatenation of circumstances I had some involvement of the events of 26/11 and share those experiences and my own opinions. I claim no expert knowledge but just share various observations, hearsay comments and with 10 years gone by hopefully this has passed what is called the statute of limitations. Also this is not meant to malign or cast aspersions but to share my opinion based on whatever little knowledge I have in layman terms. On that fateful evening I was working in a role in the defence industry and so had begun to understand various security issues at a more professional level. One of the products that we sold was the Bullet Proof Jackets (BPJ) to the various security agencies in India. Firstly, a slightly important educative digre...

Way back in the early 2000's a Pharma industry newsletter asked me to write a article for them and I had written about "Outsourcing" which was published. Sadly I never saved a copy or even if I did, have lost it. But cleaning up a old computer I stumbled upon the soft copy of what they had sent me. I share that verbatim here. Note that this is easily 15 to 20 years old as an opinion and the contents must be judged accordingly. Outsourcing enables companies to utilise every available resource be it finance, manpower, infrastructure for the core business and for development of new products and markets, says Ravindra Vasisht The Indian economy over the last decade has developed as a knowledge-based industry in the global arena. With a population of over one billion, the condition of healthcare facilities for the majority of the citizens is abysmally poor and that is a contradiction considering that the Indian pharmaceutical industry is one of the knowledge based industries t...

We all remember that old story of Archimedes and the Eureka moment. However not all Eureka moments need be about the water rising in the bath tub and the flash bulb in your brain going off. It can also be that moment when you hear the final gurgle of the water going down the drain leaving you low and dry, maybe with soap all over. Often this latter Eureka moment happens when individuals or even organisations embark upon a journey where their actions and decisions are based on the prediction they have already made. This happens more often than one thinks it doesn't happen. An American colleague asked me about the recent example of Ford exiting the Indian car market which prompted me to write this. Most headlines screamed about how India is a difficult market, tough market, price sensitive market and all the usual excuses doled out by those who fail. They rarely if ever want to look into the mirror. One important note before you continue - For 5 years I owned a Ford Fusion and since ...