The other side: Our India : Our Value

Yesterday I picked up books on Indian Culture though I have not started reading them yet, I know we were a country of great culture and values. I felt like underlining were as we are no longer a country with rich culture and values. The country enjoys going to a pub in the evening instead of a Temple, have no time for the family and have all the time for friends, Media has started showing what is sex and sexual lives in kids channels. Doreamon has a girlfriend and he see's her having bath etc, the scandals of every day with budgets good enough to run a fortune 500 corporations. The question is where are we leading to?

I saw in a series of few days, A police van , A City Transport Bus and Car with Right light all the three a day after day going on the wrong side of the road. Oh!! They are law makers and law don't apply to them and that's why Mr. Anna Hazare is fighting for Jan Lokpal saying law should be equal.

OK. Now lets divide the people by casts and communities and say if you are from Minority (What ever is the meaning of minorities by politicians / media) then a film star from that community can kill  4 poor chaps sleeping on a foot path in Bandra using a stolen car and he can be asked for an autograph first rather them asking for his Licence.

If you are a backward class then its OK. They did not enjoy privileged for years before Independence but enjoying from the day Constitution of India has been written. The Congress classified them as Backward class were as Gandhiji never wanted them to be called as such. They are Harijans according to Bapu but we keep saying they are backward class people. Some of them have been in senior positions in Government employments enjoying the penalizes for generations but still they are backward classes.

Now comes the forward class, Lets divide people by the casts, Gowda, Reddy, Raju, Choudary, Brahmin, Bania, Rajput, Kayast, Ligayat and what ever you can call it so taht we can devide the hunger of power.

Where are we going? Which direction is good for us? Are we going in the right direction? Anna / Arvind/ Kiran from "India Against corruption" are threat to the nation as they will de-stabilize our politicians and we will be left with no dishonest fellow if they succeed in their vision and we will be a great country.

Saying this and post reading this what are your steps. Can I request you all to

1. Ask for a bill post your purchase compelling some one to pay VAT / Sales tax and building revenue to the nation.

2. Say No to Corruption. ("Follow India against Corruption") Say Yes to Jan Lokpal. [Don't Give bribes and receive bribes. If you father got a gift from his contractor tell him next time if there is a gift, you are leaving the house. He is doing all the wrong things to see your rich.]

3. If any one is found violating the law / rule, dare to stop him and tell him that he is violating and if possible take a photo with your mobile phone and post the same in  social media sites to spread awareness.

4. Don't vote the most corrupt politician because your parents were always for voting that party. Look in to the statistics and vote even an independent who don't have a party but is honest. if there is no one whom you can vote, send a letter by post to election office saying you wanted to vote but have not found any one good enough to vote. If you say that in Internet, the politicians are officially not computer literates and they can block by span filters. More letters posted more the stress of opening them and reading and understanding our views.

Add your views and tell the nation what we should aim at. Can we have a clean India back. The India where our forefathers lived with respect.

Other Side – Premature Delivery and Management Incubators.

Premature Delivery of a Baby is known to all of us. My younger son was born a few days before his delivery date as he was fully formed. He was never kept in an incubators and he is all good to go in this world. It has been about 5 long years since he was born.

I know many kids within the family and friends who were born much earlier and the doctor ensured that the kids were kept in a incubators to make them feel comfortable once they are born.

I am not a doctor or an expert in medicine but have some expertise in Management. As I was seeing this paradigm change where the youngsters who have not even completed 8 to 9 years in the corporate world without formal management education are being bought up in the organizations to deliver inconsistency, confusions, conflicts and failures.

In simple words people are working on management roles without formal education or experience in management. Management is not understood by many. I felt this was like having a premature baby delivered without keeping the baby in incubators and this brings in a concept of Management incubators.

Why not?

A Manager should be like a Mother in upbringing and like a father in advice. Parents should inculcate moral values & behavior and should be able to guide the child as required. Are managers really doing this?

Due to demand of more management professionals we are doing a premature delivery of managers, don’t we think we should have Management Incubators where the required level of training is provided to managers or budding managers on management.

Your view point matters. If you think we need Management Incubators we can build them. If Medical Experts can think of incubators to make premature babies normal we management professionals can think about Management Incubators.

Good NEAM

As the whole world is leading towards globalization I was wondering as I was laying down on my Bed how do we address the global audience? The big question!! While its night 10:30 in India, our friends and collgues in London are about to wrap up from their works and its evening for them while the friends at United States just got back from a good lunch, friends in Beiging and Singapore are in a Deep sleep while our friends in Sydny are about to get up in an hour to start a good day.

I was thinking how would I address to them in a Facebook, in a Conference Call or in a simple e-mail note and the first thing many of us do is say Good Morning, Afternoon, Evening and when we are leaving out of the meeting would say Good Morining, afternnon, evening and night.

Can we make this simple? and then came the word “NEAM” Night, Evening, Afternnon and Morning.
Good NEAM friends!!
Lov
Krishna Datta

The Other Side - Buying Property in India.

Couple of weeks back I was looking for buying a property in Chennai’s IT City where the builder was offering a house at Rs 2000/- Square Foot.

The house was big and reasonable. At present only the plinth is there and nothing above the plinth. My Father was against my buying the house due to many reasons. Latter based on his inputs I realise the following.

Thought the builder is promising the house by Mid 2011, the term Mid is not quantified to a month. Mid can be any thing from February to November of 2011. When I asked the Builder representative for a specific date of hand over he kept on telling me that the building will be handed over by mid 2011.

The builder is expecting aprox 70% of the payment post completion of structural work and the payout happens mostly in 2009. My assessment says the builder will likely hand over the building in October 2011 which also means I will have to live in a rented house till October 2011 i.e the next 22 months.

If I Pay 70% of the cost the builder is expecting then I will be paying about 30 Lacs to the Builder and the interest of about 6 lacks to my banker. Apart from that another 3 lacs will be paid by me as house rent which means I will payout 10 lacs which has no value. Looking at this equation it looks wise to look for a house even if costs 4-6 lacs more in cost and buy that as

a) My payout of interest is for the house where I am living
b) I will not be paying the Rent any longer
c) There is no uncertainity on Builder delivering the flat in Mid 2011

Just think. There is Other Side of every thing. A different view point.

The Other Side : British Vs Americans on India.

As I was writing the previous article on The Other Side - Working for American Corporation in India. I was wondering if we are going back to 1600's when British came to India for a Trade and slowly tried to rule us.

British came to India when she was fragmented into many small Kingdoms. While most of the kings were spending their time and energy in expanding their boundaries the others had enough wealth and moved their focus from Governance to Entertainment and living a lavish life.

The British though entered India with the vision of expanding their Trade Boundaries saw the weakness in our system and became the Rulers of this country. They had sophisticated equipment to destroy the Kings who were ready to fight and they provided more Entertainment and Comforts to the Kings and Emperors who had a lot of wealth and were more focused towards Comforts.

It took about 258 Years for British to become rulers in India because of the Indian Cultural values of native Indians whom the Moghuls called the Indu's and the British called Hindu's. (Hindu's are every one who were native Indian's).

Where the British came to do business and then tried to change us, the Americans came to India to change us first and do business. American's believe the world before Columbus discovering America as non existent and all the books of today's corporate history written by the American Authors say so. They have spread Industry in India but at the same time they have made us their consumers which the East India Company could not achieve. The British were more focused about using the Low cost sourcing in India to get the goods made and shipped to England for the use at England and did not focus and concentrate a larger extent of sale in India.

Americans were wise. Before their corporations started to operate in India they taught us how we should spend our money. Mc Donnalds, KFC, Coke and Pepsi Co came to India and started selling their products. Once they saw Indians have become experts in spending the money they started to concur India. British focused only on our Kings and Administrators but American focused on every one of us. Imagine our lives without Levis Jeans and Nike Shoes.

The Other Side – Working for American Corporation in India.

Once I said we are all privileged to work for an American Corporations as we get the best salaries which has changed our lives. We could not have visualized the life we are living today without the Global Outsourcing that has happened in the last decade.

Mr XYZ said, yes and we give all the money back to the US.

To the US? Is Mr XYZ crazy? No he is not. Think about this.

The American Corporations pay 1/3rd the salaries to their Indian employees compared to their US Employees. The quality of services and goods provided by Indian Employees are at par or superior to their US Colleagues. These corporations have bigger facilities in India.

They make huge profits from Asian Operations and also see India as a Big market to sell their products and smart enough to sell as expensive as they sell in US. A Pizza Costs 2 to 4 US Dollars in India or in US. A Sub costs about 2- 5 USD in India or in US. Air fair between New York to Detroit is same as Air fare between Chennai to Mumbai and a 300 ML Pepsi can costs 1.25 USD in US and 0.70 cents in India. We all buy a Jeans from Levis, Drink a Coke or Pepsi, have a Pizza at Domino's or Pizza Hut, Have a 6" Sub at Subway, Burger at Mc Donalds and Chicken Wings at KFC.

We all save our money in Citibank and have an Amex Credit Card. Pay interest to American Express every month for our over spending.

All the money we earn from American Corporations we pay back to them as profits for these corporations from low cost sourcing, Profits by way of selling their products made in India to Indians at American Costs, Pay interests on our Credit Cards and eating in American fast food chain.

Yes I agree with Mr XYZ we pay back what we earn from America back to America but I love doing all that. Just "The Other Side"

Krishna Datta
21 January 2010

The Other Side - A Begining.

I was confused about "The Other side". I was just wondering if I should create a new Blog and share it with my friends and then I realized there is no value in creating many blogs.

Now a bit about other side.
One of my colleague (I would like to call him Mr XYZ for our discussions) always talks about things from a different point of view. We were discussing a couple of days back and I have asked Mr XYZ to write down a Blog but I know he will not. I told him that I will write a blog of what he talks about.

Couple of days back as we were discussing about Mr XYZ and his View Points, one of our friends suggested a name, "The Other Side". It’s a good name. Isn't it?

In the leadership blog I wanted to use a series of articles in midst of my once a while leadership journey articles and want to call them "The Other Side– Topic."

With that I will make my beginning with the Series of Articles on The Other side. Hope we will move from year to year and have many articles in the series.

Regards
Krishna Datta
January 20 2010.