Ashes 2010

It was always called the ultimate contest in cricket that has lot of ‘history’, ‘tradition’, ‘legends’ and maybe even myths surrounding it. England is a country that also talks too much on technique, spirit, class etc which is just peripheral to the actual game. At least I have no doubt that they look down upon Australia and I remember Ian Botham’s quote during 1992 World Cup in Australia – something on the lines of

It would be lovely to beat the 11 member Australian team in front of 11000 convicts.

Though English media may criticize Jardine for the ‘Bodyline’ series, I always thought there was nothing wrong about it and was glad but not surprised that Ian Chappell echoed my view. After Shane Warne and McGrath retired after winning yet another Ashes, this is probably a good chance for England to win it especially in Australian soil.

Though Ian seems to think that Australia may eventually still win.

This time a pundit will have to earn his money, and even McGrath could be made to look human. I've finally settled on Australia as slight favorites, purely because they are playing at home and because of the likelihood of at least one Ponting batting masterpiece. However, I'm posting that prediction with fear and trepidation, just like Nathan Hauritz waiting for the phone to ring.

I don’t think so and posted my comments as well.

I see Strauss being a more of a serene and calm captain which will put the dice in favor of England. In fact, Petersen may be a 'threat/danger' according to Australia but Strauss, Collingwood, Anderson and Swann are going to be the Ashes-winners for England in 2010. The last thing England wants to do is to talk a lot. It would be good if Strauss advises some of his mercurial players to be quiet. Yes, Petersen is surely one of those!

Strauss may play the way I think he will play. Let’s see who wins the Ashes 2010 – Ian or me? :D

Spectral Comedy!

Right from day one, when Cho Ramaswamy mentioned in Thuglak’s annual function about the ‘spectrum scam’, I found it ridiculous that there has been a scam of the order of lakhs of crore rupees! Even more comical is that the minister in question A Raja was in the centre of the scam which apparently happened in 2007 and for two years the opposition did nothing. UPA came back to power in 2009 with even better majority! Now I don’t know what was the stupid provocation for an ‘audit’ and stupid CAG has ruled that there has been a loss of 176,000 crore rupees. I simply couldn’t believe this comedy. If I expected some ‘sanity’ in Hindu, I did get some glimmer when it voiced the need to heed the call.

While denying any wrongdoing, he has insisted that he was persisting with a well-established policy in handing out 2G spectrum on a first-come first-served basis, instead of taking the auction route. This is no doubt true but serious questions relating to procedural irregularities and revenue losses remain.

There definitely would have been administrative corruption but not to the extent that Cho or opposition, forget CAG claimed or to say that it has a 'scam written all over it'. The cat was out of the bag, when report did not single out Raja. So what the heck is really happening? Hindu a few days later ‘concluded’ that flawed process, failed outcome is the moral of the whole ‘story’.

It is now a common conclusion that the procedure for the allocation of spectrum in 2007-08 for the second generation (2G) telecom services was flawed, and grossly so. When there were many more aspirants for the licences than there was frequency spectrum, and an auction should have been the obvious method to decide on the winners, the licences were handed out instead in a non-transparent, first-come-first-served basis and at a low price set seven years earlier. These are the charges that the former Union Minister for Telecommunications, A. Raja, faces, and the ones that forced his resignation.

I ‘intuitively’ felt that something was wrong but did not know to spell out what. Only for a short time. I re-read the news and it was very clear.

Ms. Gupta said the figure of Rs.1.76 lakh crore was reached on the basis of the 3G auction held earlier this year, in which the government mopped up over Rs.67,000 crore. “The quantum of loss is presumptive, we have only tried to quantify the loss,” she added.

The controversy is regarding 2G spectrum and how can they evaluate it based on 3G spectrum? Devil is always in the detail and I am not sure if even the ministers don’t know how to quash this spectral comedy. 2G spectrum is a primitive telephone network with no great ‘applications’ to run on the same. 3G spectrum on the other hand can allow mobile TV, video conferencing etc. Most mobile phone users are unaware, rather don’t care, about the phone network but the operators are not going to give them the option of going for 2G service. So by default it has to be 3G service for ALL USERS.

Without knowing anything, it has been labeled a scam and the minister has resigned as well. To 'quote' the climax of the Vadivelu comedy,

மீனுக்கும் ஜாமீனுக்கும் வித்தியாசமே தெரியாதது போல, 2Gக்கும் 3Gக்கும் வித்தியாசமே தெரியாத கககபோ !@#$% இந்தியாவிலும் தமிழகத்திலும் இருப்பது விந்தையல்ல :D

Update: 23 Nov 2010, 9:00 a.m. IST

I dont know if the minister did not know or was not able to explain, but news on mobile number portability, yesterday 'exposed' the business (d)evils.

The department of telecommunications (DoT) has finally announced the roll-out of mobile number portability (MNP) facility in the country, beginning with its launch in Rohtak district of Haryana on Thursday.

Mobile number portability was initially proposed to be implemented across all metros and in the states of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu by 31 December 2009. The DoT later changed the deadline to 31 March 2010, and subsequently to 30 June 2010.

Mobile phone operators want to keep using the 'existing' backbone, ie BSNL, for years and decades to come, but as mobile subscribers would know it is simply 'not reachable'. No wonder, 3G was indeed rightly auctioned.

Blog is not autobiography!

'What is your career goal?' is a question that many like me would have faced. I never ever had a specific career, forget company, in my mind but always thought that I should spend some part of life writing a book. A book to un-complicate some domain that I worked in, especially semiconductor industry. To adopt Krugman's words, I am a ruthless simplifier. I do not think that there is anything that I cannot come to grips with, especially in the mental domain (of course not necessarily in the physical domain!). Fiction writing or 'synthesizing a new story/plot with message, humor etc' is not my cuppa. Writing an autobiography is naive according to me, not because 'normal, boring life is so boring to write' but ideally there should be no audience for an autobiography, no matter whose it might be. I never liked all these 'make-believe' or 'personal development' books either, for one it is for the mentally deficient and more importantly it is of no use for people who can think. Maybe the 'theism' which is so rampant in India has made people to seek more and even more Gods and God men/God women whom they can just follow for anything and everything.

Indians are so used to 'following' some one that they never seem to have the ability to think ON THEIR OWN. Ideas are borrowed, teaching is borrowed, IOU list is never ending. It is not surprising that the corporate world is filled with so many stinkers, whose thinking or the lack of it assumes colossal proportions. Almost all my managers in all the companies till now have come and said in a meeting 'This is a book that I have read recently and got some ideas FOR US to be more productive'. If a person has to be told or read some book to know the priorities or how to be productive, then the person should have never made it to the 'top' in the first place. This is another axe that I have to grind with reg MBA. If MBA means 'master of business administration', then for one they should NOT work UNDER someone, taking orders. MBA should chart the course for his/her company or organization; that is why (s)he is MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION.

Management is all about DECISION MAKING and this cannot be taught in any school or college. Decision making has to done with reference to the context that one is in. What Lee Iacocca decided may have suited Chrysler at that time. It may not be applicable to Hyundai in Chennai! In fact if things are managed in Chennai, the way it was done in Detroit or Seoul, it may backfire royally! If people are in a cocoon, they can never make good decisions especially in a position like a manager. Current generation is filled with people in such a small cocoon and clueless outside. Not surprising, we are clueless - where have all the leaders gone?

For starters, I think good managers should be very good in general knowledge and not horse with blinkers. I think captaincy in cricket is same as management in any domain. Harsha Bhogle in his interview with Ian Chappell wants to know

When is your book on captaincy coming out?

Obviously Ian Chappell will not write a book 'Learn captaincy in 30 days'! Captaincy or LEADERSHIP CANNOT BE TAUGHT. Going further down, we should first MANAGE ourselves to put us in the best position to succeed and more importantly covering up (AFTER KNOWING) our limitations, weaknesses and inabilities. The same has to be extended first to a small group, say team in an organization in a company, then grow towards to put the organization in the best position within the company, finally growing to the put the company in the best position in the industry and so on.

What about our 'history' or 'autobiography'? Autobiography always sounded like narcissism where TRUTH is never out. It will end up as a 'manual' which lesser or most mortals will follow word-to-word and miss the trees for the wood. I puked the first time I heard 'this is what Stephen Covey said', 'this is what Sri Sri Ravishankar said' etc. I don't have a problem with the authors but the problem is that most readers try to COPY the author and not the substance. That is why we have 'classical' types in everything - 'classical' music, 'classical' batting technique, 'classical' leadership (basically monarchy) etc. Reg blog, Krugman has a blog but that is not an autobiography! It is just his observations mostly on his professional domain, rather the domain that he is very much interested. Sure, the blog is mixed with comments which can be 'deemed political' but that is his way of looking at things. All of us are humans and bound to have different choices and likes. One more reason for my blog is that for those who have been 'in contact' with me, living far away may understand the blog better and can 'update' themselves on how I have (not) changed.

Final Diagnosis!

If I had 'boasted' of my health, then I also missed out mentioning my father's probably better immunity! In his family, he was probably the 'giant' in terms of height and weight, at least during olden days. Even now, he is the tallest and biggest in my family. So we were quite worried when he felt very weak, especially in the last few months, which probably reinforced my plan to return to Chennai. We took him quite a few times to different doctors when he had these recent spurts of fever, which did not even last one FULL day! We were just told that it is விஷக்காய்ச்சல் and the blood tests revealed nothing. My brother-in-law who is a doctor explained that blood tests reveal bacterial infection and not viral infection directly. When we admitted him to SRMC at the stroke of midnight with the point of at least observing him for a couple of days, the young doctors advised us not to admit him and by stealth gave a discharge summary that the 'patient has been discharged as per OUR request'. Obviously at 3:00 am, I was more worried about finding a cab to go back home rather than seeing the faded carbon paper to read what was written. It also seemed to indicate that they did not feel that it was serious enough to admit my father.

After the discharge which was nearly 2 weeks ago, I suddenly noticed my father shivering again. I was surprised because just minutes back, he had wanted to change TV channels to see Obama speak in India. My bil had indeed suspected Malaria when he first saw the medical reports given by the first doctor but it was news to me that there were different kinds of Malaria. There are no ‘golden’ malaria symptoms, applicable to all patients. In Arthur Hailey's books, 'Strong Medicine' or 'Final Medicine', I remember that it is mentioned that there are cures for surprisingly very few diseases. My bil had also mentioned that for some cases, blood testing should be tested when the patient is having fever. That was one difference between the previous times when we had admitted him in hospital/clinics and now. Now he was shivering and he was unable to move.

We admitted him in Vijaya Health Center. The confirmation of 'Malaria' was comforting because instead of the 'mysterious fever', it has at least become a known one. Also since the health center is walk able from my current residence, it will give us many more advantages like coming home to pick up some relevant documents/reports, in case it was missed out. The financial part is always tricky because Vijaya group was always known (at least to me) as a high cost medical care centre. SRMC had mentioned about Rs.4000-5000/- per day and I thought it was high, though not prohibitive. My sister who had worked with quite a few reputed Chennai doctors in her course of employment in India had advised me to check Vijaya because she said that going far to SRMC may not be worth it and Vijaya will also try to be competitive with other hospitals in Chennai. So I was better prepared now regarding the cost, though there was a minor surprise/shock here as well.

I had forgotten that in India hospitals too had become corporate. In my professional experience, I had realized that companies tend to sugar coat their job offers by having a high gross salary many of which are not received in any tangible form. The 'profit sharing' quote that was given in my first company was never seen on hand because the company did not make my profits during my stay but that bloated up the gross salary by at least Rs.32000/- ESOPs is another way of increasing the gross salary. In Govt jobs, the basic will be directly proportionate to the gross salary. In my last two jobs as an employee, viz NXP and AMD, my gross increased but my basic actually decreased! In case of hospitals, they quote low rates but I realized that there are many other components. Bed cost is kept low and is the one, that is 'quoted/advertised'. Nursing cost is the one that shoots up the expenses, irrespective of the fact whether there is good nursing or not.

Money is not something that you should look too much when it comes to medical treatment of your family. Still a costly lesson about how business is managed in hospital industry, not hospitality industry :))