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 :))

Investing in India

During an inter-corporate competition in 2003 at Bengaluru, one of my responses seemed to have worked in my favor to be selected as a finalist in ‘Mr. Silicon Valley’ (I was part of the winning team in ‘Dumb charades’). It was similar to these ‘public contests’ where we had to complete the slogan and I had to complete ‘Money is …’. I wrote ‘Money is something but not everything.’ On stage, the judges apparently impressed on my response, asked me to further elaborate on my ‘point’. That was the point. I was not making a point! I just wrote what I felt.

It is no trick to make a lot of money, if all you want is to make a lot of money

Indeed I have felt this to be a truism, because the key is ‘all you want’. It is one thing to simply talk and another to walk the talk. With two of my classmates – Raghu Ganesh and MV Varadarajan, we initially did dabble with a measly amount of Rs.3000/- each. Apart from the fact that I contributed in the form of donation rather than real investment, I also did not like ‘trigger happy’ investment, buying and selling based on mood or paranoia. I did not want to invest as a ‘non-serious’ person. I wanted to start my serious investment at the time of resigning from my first job at Texas Instruments which coincided with the IPO announcement of TCS. All my sisters were married then and now I could afford to ‘risk’. In fact that was another reason why I resigned. I always liked tall people in corporate world, who don’t come in TVs and never give ‘media bytes’. TCS and CTS fell in that category.

Also given my visit abroad and the phase that India was in, at that time, I was more convinced that Indian business will show rapid progress. Apart from the fact that I had minimal expenses and that I had entered in to a home loan for purchasing a flat in Bangalore, I really went full length into IPOs and chose LKP for my demat account because they were the only ones who were willing to do it real quick. Other traders/investment companies asked me to come after a week, submit documents which I felt were irrelevant. Anything other than my PAN card is irrelevant for investment. I never wanted to dabble in the secondary market, despite so much of ‘prompting’ from LKP. For one, I did not intend to monitor the stock markets 365/24/7 and I did not want to get distracted from my job, which I was convinced, was my bread winner.

I don’t have any great philosophy behind carrying minimal cash. In fact when a thief broke into our house and stole the purses of my friend, my sister and mine, he would have gone Rs.4000/- or more from my friend’s purse, but would not have got more than Rs.15/- from mine ;) I thought that money in the form of money, i.e. currency is just garbage. That was another reason why I went into purchase of flat. It should be in different ‘forms’, which have differing levels of liquidity. Currency is ‘instant’, shares takes a bit of time, gold even more and fixed assets would take the maximum time. I believed that bulk of the finances should be in this ‘intermediary’ form, i.e. shares/mutual funds/gold.

I followed my ‘internal voice’ in choosing the IPOs and am not flippant. Given the political climate and trend, I was convinced that I can readily invest in ‘disinvestment’ IPOs. Though I sensed Depression which had effect on my ‘career’, I knew that my portfolio can only get a boost. Thus some of my stocks which were performing below par till say 2007 or 2008, have performed exceeding well in the last one year and my whole portfolio has shown 80% growth as on date. With an investment of more than Rs.1.2 million, that is a reasonable ‘success’ according to me. Indeed my recent investment in Coal India has met with an allotment of 199 shares. Hindu’s editorial just reaffirmed my opinion as far as Coal India is concerned that there is indeed a digging for value.

Coal India's initial public offer (IPO), which opened for public subscription on October 18, is expected to fetch over Rs.15,000 crore, making it by far the largest public offer ever made in India. Coal India is the only Navratna that has remained unlisted, and its entry into the capital market has been welcomed with a rare degree of unanimity by a wide range of analysts and investment bankers. Three of India's credit rating agencies have accorded the highest rating to the offer.

I am not sure of how this ‘IPO honeymoon’ is working in India. Especially when there is so much talk of recession, it really looks like the gap between haves and have-nots is increasing. I don’t see the reason why they increased retail investment cap in IPOs.

(Sebi) today raised the investment limit for retail investors in an initial public offering (IPO) to Rs 2 lakh from Rs 1 lakh earlier even as it tightened norms governing the preferential issue of equity shares.

Already there is this comedy called HUF (Hindu Undivided family) and people are misusing this to the core. The increase of ‘retail investment cap’ is only playing to this gallery. I don’t know when or how soon will see the 'militant' reaction of the haves vs have-nots in India.

Islamic banking!

Early this year, my Wharton newsletter subscription enabled me to read an article about growing interest: Islamic banking expands from the Gulf to India. Now I read that PM asks RBI to look into Malaysian Islamic banking model. I had pointed this quite some time back in one Orkut community as well.

As a kid or a school boy, I had never thought much about other religions/castes, though I was brought up amidst really diverse people. Coming to think of it, I don’t think I can hope to even (seek to) meet such diverse people NOW. I was probably brought up secular unknowingly! It was in fact great that I never knew the 'second names' of anyone at school. It was always AR Suresh or KP Manikandan or R Gayathri, with most of us not knowing/caring what the initials stood for. We were 'natural' Periyarists, I guess ;) Similarly when I went to temples, usually accompanied by my mother, I hardly remember any 'human' form. Mostly it was the Pillaiyar, basically in the form of elephant, or Siva, aniconic representation for God in Shaiva philosophy. Since my sisters studied in a Christian convent, I came to know of Jesus as well. Islam was in some sense a pleasant surprise, though mostly our insight into Islam was burqa that only very few wore or the cap that some guys wore at their homes especially during some festivals. When I was doing graduation and my Tamil professor inadvertently sowed the seeds of non-existence of God, Islam acquired even more sense. I thought Islam is in fact atheism in the pure sense.

There can be only two beliefs. Either one believes that something beyond the power/will of humans, (is it 'unnatural' or is it supernatural? ;)), is dictating our course of life or one believes that there is a 'cause' for every event in life and nothing is unexplainable. I don’t believe in the former, so I don’t count :)) In the case of former, if we believe that 'supernatural' is indeed responsible, why should we give some sort of form to the same? Once we give form, why human form? Once we give human form, why male? All such inherent contradictions and loopholes led to the pantheon of zillion Gods in Hinduism, making it ridiculous. Even Christianity stumbled a bit, because the 'prophet' Jesus was taken as God by some people. On the other hand, Islam has remained strikingly simple, pure and powerful. To the point that they even resisted from creating a 'form', for the prophet Muhammad cartoon met with severe backlash.

I have come to believe that Islam is so profound that it is not at all surprising that people in the current environment of lower IQs and given 'posts' like mullah, ulema etc give their own version of Sharia. Though many idiots in India talk about Hinduism being a way of life, I think Islam should have made the first real effort towards religion as a way of life. While Ramayana and Mahabharata, the two epics of Hinduism, promote inequality 'religiously' to the point of perpetuating it in Indian society, I don’t think Hinduism has any 'code' for ethics or living which is FAIR. If 'formless' (rather Godless?) Islam surprised me, then Islamic banking was really an eye-opener.

Maybe courtesy my experiences till date have taught me that people are interested in us only if they get 'interest'. Of course, I do understand that a bank which does not know me, can lend me money only at an interest. Islamic banking which charges NO INTEREST is actually counter intuitive! The obvious ones or even the exceptional ones are not interesting. Ian Chappell talking about some of the good captains, listed out some non-so-obvious one like Mike Gatting and it does make it an interesting perspective. I did wonder how the hell can Islamic banking work. How can a Muslim lender, forget a bank, TRUST an unknown person lending money WITHOUT interest? Courtesy Depression, they are now trying to increase spending and one of the ways to increase spending is to cut down the interest rates. They have apparently brought it down to nearly 0% which is nothing but Islamic banking :)) Now they are wondering how Islamic banking has been functioning, as going by above link

Currently, close to USD 1 trillion is being managed by about 400-500 Islamic banks worldwide and by 2020, the figure is expected to touch USD 4 trillion.

I think the key here is it is not just the lending rate that is 0% but also the fact that savings interest rate is 0%. So no matter how much ever money that you dump into the bank and for however long, it is not going to increase a bit, forget multiplying! It is better to spend it than to just lock it idle in some bank for months/years. If Islamic banks have trillions of US $s, then it means that they can spend that money, rather lend it in countries which pay interest and thus the money multiplies even further. Islamic banking promotes spending, obviously in a non-obvious way. Islam goes up further in my ratings :)

Chennai attacked?

I am not sure if I should take pride in my 'immunity' mechanism, but I have been able to stave off rampant illnesses many a time. When chikungunya made a massive strike in Chennai, I was fortunately 'missed' while some of my friends spent weeks in bed to recuperate. Even if it is not fatal, it basically puts the brakes and it is very difficult on companies or people who depend on those affected. Couple of weeks ago, I heard of my chithi's daughter being hit by a mysterious illness and the body temperature apparently rose alarmingly. My Chithi reasoned that it was because of her visit to Bengaluru. Closer home, my father was attacked by some mysterious illness as well (doctor call it 'விஷக்காய்ச்சல்') and even after 3/4 visits to the doctor, we still are seeing temporary surges. Of course, given the age factor, low body immunity is also something that we have to take care of.

Unlike in case of chikungunya attacks, the current trend is spurious because the source remains unknown! In case of chikungunya, water and mosquito joined to create the problem and so some level of disinfectant spraying mitigated the problem. Now, the healthcare dept may have no clue. There is quite a bit of talk and discussion in different fora/media on neglected tropical diseases “killing India”. At the risk of sounding xenophobic, I remember the Thackerays raising an alarm connecting migrants to the raise in Malaria cases in Mumbai. The problem with the personalities involved probably resulted in denying any serious look on the allegation.

Chennai has been mentioned in the list of fastest growing cities by Forbes, especially about an addition of 100,000 jobs this year. Even the new secretariat in Chennai could only be built by thousands of workers from North. Of course, I do personally see lots of non-Tamils in the buses and even in my office. I have to say that I am scared of the prospect of changing demography in Chennai, if not entire TN. Atleast many of my thoughts are put into words by my fellow passengers in buses or trains, who too probably feel the same. Rather than the 'invasion' of people, I am worried about the 'invasion' of diseases. My guesstimate is that old-aged people are forming the bulk of population in Tamil Nadu, if not India. With their immunity being low - my father known for his robust health/body being kept low is a good indicator, influx is not about/just people but also of diseases. It is imposible to control contagion through air, after all of us need to breathe! All have the right to live.

Update 1 (17 Oct 2010): It looks like xenophobia (or is it?) has caught on in Germany as well. Merkel has said that 'multicultural' society has failed - 'integrate or emigrate' policy is finding another voice.

Update 1 (18 Oct 2010): It was indeed shocking for me to wake up in train before it reached Perambur to find 20 odd people sleeping in the floor! As usual, I wanted to get down in Perambur to go to the first compartment after engine. At the other end of the compartment, one lady was shouting at these guys, who dont know Tamil, for entering into 'reserved' compartments. I asked three guys who were sleeping in front of the door to get up so that I can get down in Perambur. They had the audacity to ask me to go to next compartment and get down from there! I guess the pent-up frustration is so much in people that to my surprise (infact delight) 10 other passengers came to my 'rescue' automatically, shouted the hell at these non-Tamils and drove them out even before the train halted at Perambur! What is happening to Chennai? :o