Wit Wisdom and Whoop

When you work in a number of sectors ranging from Dairy to Defence over a 28 year career divided between European and American companies in India I think one does learn enough to be able to help guide global  companies to navigate the Indian market successfully. So my attempt is to give the reader a birds eye view since just as a lifetime isn’t sufficient to understand India, a blog isn’t going to  give you ready to implement solutions. Preamble : The first thing anybody attempting to enter India or for that matter any new market must get a flavour of its history & culture to better understand  its  people who would be your customers. India has been conquered and  ruled for prolonged periods in its history by Europeans, Mughals & finally the British.  India is thus a melting pot where the diversity is stark and widespread that language, food, lifestyles differ considerably but yet is like a closely interwoven  colourful fabric.  So...

I had in my previous post spoken about some problems that were easily correctable but not done. Expanding upon the repeated crisis faced in the last few years I share further evidence of how we have self inflicted most problems. As I mentioned in my previous post, a problem is not a problem unless it is in your control to resolve. If there are heavy rains, you can do nothing to stop it, so it’s not a problem. But if you have flooding in your road every monsoon, it’s a problem since it is in your control to solve it. That there were issues pertaining to corruption was well known. That there were repeated statements that corruption was unacceptable is also well known. Now one aspect is how sincere is the govt about  fighting corruption and the other how demonstrative are they in showing that opinion.  It is eminently possible for a govt to continue to be corrupt but ensure that they are shown as fighting corruption and ensuring that corruption is better managed. This gov...

The Economic Times on 28th August 2013 ran a editorial where it asked a question on why we are where we are. This is my response to that editorial as invited by  ET. Part 2 is my further thoughts on the issue and will follow. Mistakes occur either due to insufficient information,  risk taking,  bad judgement or  due to extraneous reasons beyond our control. Except in the last case every government has the option of making midcourse corrections.  This is exactly where this government has failed miserably  due to arrogance and blind ego apart from lacking in statesmanship. Let us list some correctable goof ups. UPA was a coalition govt and it was crucial to have a single driver lead it no matter who the driver reported  to. Instead by having a dual power centre between Sonia and Manmohan disaster was guaranteed from day 1. Manmohan was a brilliant economist & bureaucrat but a cipher as a politician. A lamb living amidst lions for decades ...

I share below a note that a friend of mine forwarded to me. I can claim no information on who the author is nor on the veracity of the contents. My limited response is as follows. I have since sometime strongly believed that India is on the cusp of a repeat of the 1991 financial crisis but one that could be worse in magnitude due to a domino effect than on its own. I have on my TL predicted that this crisis can hit India over the next 3 to 7 years depending upon how our own economic policies, political changes, global economics play out. But given current state of affairs I would be surprised if we did not face such a crisis given the profligacy of our economics, paralysis of our administration, obstinacy of our politics and the inward looking attitudes emerging in western economies. Whatever the veracity of these claims in terms of numbers popular perception is that many of the percentages  and issues are infact correct. Remember perception is NOT fact but often does mirror fa...

Reading some news items and the reactions on social media especially by the Congress netas, their followers and  especially the tweeple I felt compelled to share these thoughts from a strategic perspective. If I were a  Congress  leader  what is my objective ? To win enough votes and get voted  back to power again. Like all political parties in India I do not have any conscience and will divide, kill,  blackmail, stoke hatred, announce freebies,  do development work, show progress, sell family silver, buy media, advertise etc  and do whatever it takes to win. After all in elections in India as they say everything is fair in love and war and elections are war. In my younger days 2 political teams campaigning when they met on the road clashed and fought  but have now  moved to TV stations and Social Media. There are already a set of supporters and die hard fans of Congress so I would be wasting my time appealing to them. That’s...

Those were the days when we had no TV, no close ups, no replays. Radio commentary was all that we had and we spent hours twiddling the old tubed radio trying to find that exact point where we could hear the commentary from some far off land. That half the days match would be lost in twiddling/tuning the radio is another story. Thanks to the time difference we woke up at unearthly times to listen to what was happening, who won the toss and so on. In the deathly silence of the night the loud HISSSSSSSS of the radio invariably woke someone or other who roundly cursed you before getting up to go to the toilet and then cursed you again for having woken them fully now. Depending upon how much they liked cricket, they asked "who won the toss?" after all the cursing. John Arlott, Suresh Saraiya, Tony Cozier, Narottam Puri, Jayasimha, Richie Benaud, Henry Blofeld,  are some names that readily come to the mind. Suresh Saraiya with his impeccable english always called players by their ...

Circa 1971, I was about 11 years old and my father commented to me - "Look Vishwanath has scored a century". I replied - "So what, who cares". I got belted for that comment since my father felt that being abreast of current affairs was crucial for success in life and my arrogance did not exactly meet his approval. Soon I was made to join Ramakrishna Ashram in Mysore where we were exposed to all games like Football, Hockey, Cricket, Basketball, Shuttle and we had to play all the games. Now cricket had advantages that the others did not have. In every other game I had to run, play, be on the move all the time but in cricket unless I was batting or bowling I could safely stand in deep third man or deep fine leg and could watch the game unless some idiot actually hit the ball towards me. Thus was born the love for cricket. By the time the Indian team returned from its victorious tour of England and West Indies in 1971, I was a semi expert and ready to follow every g...

My daughter who has been threatening to start a blog since long is yet to start one but does post on Facebook her thoughts. Her latest I share below. AUTO RANI :- As I travelled back home today in Singapore’s incredibly efficient metro, I felt a pang of homesickness as I watched everyone around me staring into their iPhones, oblivious to the sea of humanity surrounding them. At that moment I realized that what I really missed was the great amount of human interaction that travelling in Bangalore involves – especially my hour long auto rides back home from work every day. Though Bangalore’s auto drivers have often been portrayed as villains meandering Bangalore’s streets, I have a very different opinion and recall my encounters with them rather fondly. Every evening I hailed an auto in front of Forum in Koramangala, and residing in an obscure part of Bangalore meant that it wasn’t always easy to get a ride. One rainy, lovely day in Bangalore I was unsuccessful in getting an...