Jan-1 2011 - New year wishes

(collecting from FB)

Still Relevant:

Wishes for the new decade: May your options never suffer time decay, may 400 Cr scams erroneously park funds in your account, may your company HR realize that money is the biggest motivator, may your cell battery last through all important business hours, may you never fall sick on a weekend, may your increments beat food inflation, may you find one politician you can admire without being embarrassed.. Cheers!!!

DND - Complain today for a peaceful tomorrow

For ppl on Vodafone (and possibly other networks as well) and registered for DND/DNC - Simple way to lodge a complaint:

SMS to 1909 with the following:

<details of the issue - spam call/SMS, nature of call> , call/sms from <Phone No> at <HH:MM>, <DD/MM/YY>

e.g.: 

SMS to 1909: Message text -

Spam call offering astrology services, CALL from +91xxxxxxxxxx at 17:50, 12/01/14

Note the two Commas, do not add any other comma in the message body.

Extremely easy to lodge a compl if your phone supports templates and quick response. Have had good successs with the service, with multiple land-lines being permanently disconnected.

Dynastic curse on India

(collecting from FB)

Quite frankly, if you outlaw dynastic traditions, including a limit on inheritance, you will curb the major chunk of corruption.
Family and progeny's welfare - "I am doing this for their welfare/future" - is how everyone justifies their acts in their minds (leaving aside the petty corruption fostered by a combination of poor pay, poor recruitment, poor resource availability and cumbersome process).

Put simply:

(1) Put restrictions on having any blood/close relative in the same organization for a set number of generations (to prevent cross marriages). With the recent changes in Company Law, shell companies/cross holdings and complicated investment routes for front companies, should also be curbed to some extent.
(2) Limit the inheritance value to social security levels - provide for subsistence but not for opulence - Force everyone to be masters of their own destiny, and not depend on hand-outs.
(3) Put limits on number of consecutive terms - if 2, 4-year terms is good enough for US president, it better be good enough for everything else. With the Indian population, you will never have a shortage of key skill-sets.

Obviously, none of it will work without universal compulsory education and free access to information (internet, etc) 'coz quite frankly, "Gyaan hi aapko aapka hak dilata hai" [my effort to lighten an inordinately heavy post]

Bad stats in hallowed halls

(collecting from FB)

Raghuram Rajan Committee report on states 'least developed'

blogs.economictimes.indiatimes.com

First/ Early impressions on Raguram Rajan - Enviable background and Awesome experience but confusing policy signals and *definitely* not a statistician:

Very surprised that he allowed such a flawed index to be published, could be political compulsions as he definitely does not appear to be that naive.

Full report here: www.finmin.nic.in/reports/Report_CompDevState.pdf
and
http://www.scribd.com/doc/171140093/Raghuram-Rajan-Panel-Report

- http://blogs.economictimes.indiatimes.com/policypuzzles/entry/raghuram-rajan-committee-report-on-states-least-developed

AND

http://www.firstpost.com/economy/put-it-in-the-dustbin-raghuram-rajans-report-on-states-seriously-flawed-1137647.html

— feeling annoyed.

Farming Reforms - the lack of it (more precisely)

(collecting from FB)

Agriculture and allied sectors account for 50% of the workforce / population of India. How do you "control" such a big vote bank? Definitely not by allowing improvements in the quality of life... The traditional method has been to invest as little as possible into warehousing facilities which puts the farmer in a very pitiful situation, given a choice between cartelized / license-Raj afflicted APMC and rotting produce. The middlemen squeeze both ends of the supply chain and provide the political masters with the swelling coffers of the always welcome funds.

Little surprise that Mafia/Thugs/Builders/Middlemen are so closely associated with politics.

No bed of roses: Sachin Shewale, a farmer in Nashik, was forced to sell his produce at a low price to the traders' cartel, as he did not have proper storage facility. Photo by Janak Bhat

http://www.manoramaonline.com/cgi-bin/mmonline.dll/portal/ep/theWeekSectionView.do?BV_ID=%40%40%40&categoryId=-208261&programId=1073755753&tabId=13

Also, good reads:
http://mrunal.org/2013/08/food-processing-nuisance-of-apmc-acts-commission-agents-marketing-of-agricultural-produce-issues-and-constrains-for-gs-mains.html

And

http://swapsushias.blogspot.in/2012/09/apmc-act.html?m=1

Managing 'talented' talent!

(collecting from FB)

Relative Grading: Was reading someone's opinion on what went wrong with Obamacare website (link 2) which led me to the more generic problem that plagues corporate world - How to review 'good' people and what happens when you don't do it right? (Link 1)

Link 3 is a generic good read on how corporate bureaucracy kills the best talent, specifically how MS went from a $600 Billion company in 2000 to $300B today (Link 4 - Apple went from $5B to $600B in 2012 and $460B today)

from: http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2011/10/06/apple-market-cap-vs-exxon-microsoft-and-ibm-1981-2011/

Link 1: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2013/08/microsoft_ceo_steve_ballmer_retires_a_firsthand_account_of_the_company_s.html
Link 2: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/bitwise/2013/10/what_went_wrong_with_healthcare_gov_the_front_end_and_back_end_never_talked.html
Link 3: http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2012/08/microsoft-lost-mojo-steve-ballmer
Link 4: http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2011/10/06/apple-market-cap-vs-exxon-microsoft-and-ibm-1981-2011/

Vote for Change

(Collecting from FB)

Have you checked the voter registration list?

It's not just the people who vote which decides elections, to a large (larger?) extent it's the people who don't - different demographic /ethnic /social segments have different propensities for turning up at the election booth.

Read this report in context of the last three census reports to understand the direction and reason of vote flow : http://samaj.revues.org/2787

Time for compulsory/ e-voting? Argentina, Australia and Brazil already follow the compulsory voting principle. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/jul/04/voterapathy.uk