Indigo Airline Staff Manhandling Passenger: How to Avoid Such Shameful Acts?

Violence of all kinds, except for exceptional law enforcement, is deplorable and needs to be deplored by modern civilized society. And therefore such violence and violation of human dignity of similar kinds need to be taken seriously with an earnest objective for avoidance of such things in the future.

And my immediate provocation for writing this blog today is this  Youtube Video which is getting viral from yesterday onward in the social media.

The video shows a decently dressed man in his early late fifties or early sixties, apparently an airline passenger, visibly agitated by some thing, near an Indigo Airline Airport Transit Bus getting surrounded, isolated and mercilessly beaten in the most humiliating manner by some fellows in airline ground staff uniform.

I felt too bad and I felt as if my dignity getting violated by these young men who were otherwise supposed to be helping hands to people like me at the airports!

I couldn't believe such a thing, that too from the employees of an Indian airline I have all reasons to admire so far. Obviously I wanted to know more and got much from the following:

Times of India Online declared it as 'shocking'.

There were some coverage in other media as well.

The following is the gist of things I learnt:

The incident took place in New Delhi Airport apparently on 15th October 2017.

The manhandled passenger was travelling from Chennai to Delhi by Indigo flight.

The passenger was agitated by some kind of poor service (reason either not investigated fully and not yet made public!) The demanding passenger irked the wrath of some of the concerned airline ground staff who went berserk to teach the passenger a lesson! Obviously that was not something airline employees are supposed to be trained or briefed. No is taught to put a cockroach in the bread and butter they are supposed to eat! But here they preferred that way for reasons known to them.

Airline business is deemed  to be a polished and polite service to ladies and gentlemen. Their customers are generally not 'cattle class' though some may think otherwise sometimes.

Airlines which tolerate arrogance from the part of their employees are bound to get grounded very quickly. Airline business is indeed a delicate one with much issues affectin its survival and sustainability.

Indigo Airlines of India is one most Indians like me admired. They had a tremendous growth from inception. It has been a low cost carrier and even then, it proved to be a successful business model by appealing things like discipline, punctuality and the like.

It was employee indiscipline and arrogance coupled with corruption, incompetence and inefficiency that almost killed the national public sector airline. The management and staff of Indian airlines and Air India developed their self defeating culture from the days of airline monopoly.

But privatization paved the way for competition and opportunities for improvement.

Sustaining competence in management and leadership is a vital factor for sustaining competition and sustaining business success.

Often business success brings in complacency. And when that happens, both employees and management teams develop arrogance and a tendency to close eyes towards initial signs of future destruction.

In the news above, some things are obvious signs for Indigo for their future sustenance:

They can punish an employee or two for their unruly behavior or cover up the incident by some meaningless apologies in the public.

But if they are serious to sustain, they should honestly investigate to find out the reasons for the following:

1. What caused the passenger to lose his cool in the airport at his arrival?

2. What caused the ground staff to lose their cool when a passenger gets agitated?

3. Why did the higher supervisory management of the airline encouraged a cover up action initially by suspending their employee who took the viral video? In fact they should have encouraged free flow of information from within that exposed aberrations for self corrections!

4. Was it a minor issue or sign of something seriously fuming inside?  

There could be more.

I personally do not like any business to disintegrate for whatever reason. In the free trade capitalism, we may justify business ventures getting ruined due to overall incompetency. But any legally acceptable and successful business getting ruined is not a good thing for the country. It affects not only the shareholders, the employees the management, but others like the customers, the suppliers and all. And somewhere in the links me and you too exist.

And it pains.

Let us hope Indigo Airlines would not be a reason for that!

What Could Be the Best Criteria to Identify the Best Corporate Entities?

Before I try to find the possible answers to the title question above, I think I should find out the most appropriate answer to another question:

What should be the most important purpose of my life in this world?

Live in Style? Is it the Purpose of Life?

Photo Courtsey: Sunil Mathew

I have been pondering over that question for quite some time.

I have been hearing and reading what others say about it.

Some say: Make money and enjoy as much (before you die, of course!)

Some say: Do some thing so that you become a well known celebrity! In other words, by this they mean acquiring the attention and admiration of others by showcasing some of their abilities by which they can project themselves as superior to others in some manner! The inferior souls then would be so willing to flock behind them to be pushed to fame, political power and all the associated material enjoyments! 

Fame to celebrity status can be due to some really good qualities and also on account of clever crookedness. Either way such celebrities get immature followers who would be all willing to surrender their self to their heroes and heroines.

So some keep trying to become celebrities and to acquire as many followers as they could while some others get enjoyment by being followers of their demigods. 

Then there are the neutral ones who do not come under any of the above. They live either blissfully ignorant of their lives or as silent saints contented with the life as it is!

And yet another group too exist. They are the disgruntled ones. They are with malice towards one and all. They are born to criticize and fight every other. They exist to add pain and suffering to all others and also to themselves! 

All the above are realities of human life. You cannot deny it. 

But then, being human is something unique and special. A human life is superior than all other types of material life forms that our world has. At least that is what I now believe.

And that superiority comes from our multifarious abilities of language, creativity, intelligence and other body and mind capacities. But on the top of all these are our unique capability of Creator (God) consciousness and our ability to love and help others.

Inherently we are conscious of good and bad , whether we actually act accordingly or not. And we have the natural tendency to do good and be of help to others without expecting anything in return, though all of us may not be like that always. And that comes from our God consciousness!

But many of us do not nurture our God consciousness and the divine qualities of goodness that are within us. As a result we fail to live as real humans!

Our prime mission in this human life, in my opinion, is to enhance our real human character and values that are inherent within us.

And it is not difficult to accomplish that mission. Be aware of God always as our Creator and source of life, while recognizing all other humans as equally receiving the same unique gift of life from God. 

In simple terms that amounts to loving God the Creator and also His creations just for the great wisdom of God in everything. When we realize the greatness of Our Creator God, then and there we start realizing our limitations.

When we begin to have that great realization, we begin to forgo our egos and our pride in our own greatness. When we see another human, we start seeing the wisdom of God reflecting in some way. We then automatically learn to love God and live our lives in goodness. Our world will then begin to change as a place of divinity!

Now the best corporate entities or companies are those formed of humans with more and more divine qualities.

For such companies, the prime motto or objective is not enhancing profits by cleverly depriving others in some clandestine manner.

If they happen to enhance profits to disproportionate levels, they use their intelligence to remove such anomalies and to carry on with their work in a balanced manner that benefits all.

They work to propagate happiness to all, their customers, employees, suppliers, shareholders, the government and the general public. 

They embrace values and character while discarding selfishness and the urge to control others.

They should be doing business as a noble, sustainable service to others and our planet.

Unfortunately, the majority of us are yet to acquire and nurture our divine qualities of goodness. Till such time, we would not be in a position to discard our fears, anxieties, envies, greed and such other negative qualities. 

When such among us are predominating our business entities, our companies cannot have the real human character. Profit and growth in profit  would predominate our criteria to judge our best corporate entities!

Whether it is good or bad, you should try to analyze yourself.

Ramifications of the Great Indian Noodle Game for 'Acche Dins' Ahead!

A couple of days ago, early in the morning I got a call from my son from Bengaluru. He was anxious to discuss about the sudden disappearance of Maggi noodles from the Bengaluru markets and making him and thousands others like him starve for their daily calorie needs.

" Dad, we have been eating Maggi from our childhood days. We never had any problems. Then what is this thamasha (Indian word for irresponsible acts) this government fellows are doing now?" 

He seemed a bit agitated and that was quite a natural response because, youngsters like him who are working in India's metros for making India shine have been dependent on this quick-to-cook-and-eat noodle packs produced and marketted by one of the world's largest and reputed food product companies from their childhood days. Parents like us have been taking advantage of the modern food technologies as brought in by innovative, technology oriented multinational companies like Nestle.

In fact consumers like us have been happy and believing. Believing the company and its decades old reputation. We also believed the wisdom of the governmental authorities who apparently did the detailed investigations before giving the licences for such companies to produce and market their food products in India just as they did it in their own countries and elsewhere. I remember reading the company's noodle packs and their ready to cook soup packs containing the details of the contents and the declarations and cautions about these tasty foods containing MSG (mono sodium glutamate) as a taste enhancer. [Note that this substance is found in many naturally occuring food items such as tomatoes, cheese, mushrooms, etc and has been in use world wide for more than a century now!]

But that was not any botheration for us. Because we considered the foods made by the company's fully automated plants much more safer than all other kinds of ready to eat food as available in the Indian markets. We also knew the limitations and competency of the government's food testing laboratories and their inspectors and it was quite logical to believe the company more than the latter!

As ordinary citizens of a democratic country, having its legacy from several kingdoms and the later British rule era, we had been always under the notion that governments are for the good of the people. It is very difficult for ordinary citizens to assume that the government could do any thing detrimental to the people. If at all such things, that were only possible during any foreign rule like what we had during the British times. Our own governments that get formed by our own people can never do any thing wrong! That have been our wishful thoughts all these past decades. 

It has been very difficult for us to believe in the unholy nexus between our own people directly linked with business and the governments and about the possibility of their unholy mutual enmities which could develop as cold wars affecting our own lives!

Businesses are essentially a service to the citizens at large and no population or country can exist without some people doing business activities. Under this concept, businesses involve providing essential human service. Businesses provide the opportunity for all to meet their essential needs to survive and no one can imagine a situation where in businesses do not exist. Human civilization will vanish when businesses cease to function. They are the essential human invention by which we do and regulate all our activities. When there is no business, perhaps there is no nation or no government. We go back to our primitive days of tribal existence in the jungles. 

Industry and business are needed for us to progress and it is essential that we keep on inventing new avenues for doing more and more business activities as our populations keep growing.

While businesses give benefits to the consuming public, the business owners get a chance to make money. Ideally, they should make reasonable money as a reward for the services they do. From the money they make they should also share a part with the government as taxes for meeting the expenses of the governments. But when things go unreasonable, the society at large suffers either directly or indirectly. 

When businesses are managed  by unscrupulous or incompetent  people, detrimental problems to people arise. So, in the interest of the people at large, the people are required to develop rules and regulations for doing business. Governments are for that purpose.

But governments are also formed of people and when unscrupulous and incompetent people manage governments, detrimental problems to people arise. 

Thus it is the unscrupulous and incompetent people in the business and in the government that create problems for the people in general.

Unscrupulous people in the governmental systems might do acts arising out of vested interests, lack of knowledge or pure incompetency. 

Let us take the Maggi noodle case as an example. The company developed a process by which this food product with a long shelf life is produced. The government gave the permission to the company to produce it in their factories and do the marketing in accordance with the laws. Maggi became a house hold name and gradually became the major profit earning product of the company in India in a time span of about thirty years. The company contributed to the government in taxes and also provided direct and indirect employment to thousands of Indians. For all these years, the governments food inspecting authorities and licensing authoritied did not find any fault with this company or its product. In my knowledge, no government authority of India gave any public caution notice about this product so far during the last three decades.

When a product is existing for such a long period with full public and governmental patronage, it is normally assumed as a reputed product. But then what has happened all of a sudden in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh that the food inspectors of that region find this household food product tested as unacceptable for human consumption? Why did many states like the NCR react immediately by almost making a kind of ban on this product?

Going by the past experiences the following could be the possible reasons:

1. Possibility of mischief: There could be some vested interests somewhere who wants to tarnish the image of Nestle so that they could possibliy gain. Business rivals doing such mischiefs are not uncommon in modern history! They can do it in many ways by manipulating the samples or by manipulating the tests done in the food testing labs. Personnel that man these systems  are not fully unpliable!

2. Possibility of error in sampling and testing due to incompetency of the food control staff. The governmental laboratories usually do not have very good test facilities or very good analysts if one goes by the usual standard with regard to governmental facilities in India.

3. Manufacturing process errors. This is very unlikely as the company has been doing this for years under strict quality control systems. Being a multinational technology innovator, the company is likely to have a better testing and quality control facility than the governmental labs.

4. Impractical chemical quality norms as fixed by law:  The problems highlighted in Maggi's case now is with regard to the allowable limits of lead content and MSG content in the noodles. India does not have authentic research facilities of its own to arrive at conclusions of this kind. When even the technologists and scientists are not sure about the impact of a micro constituent in any food or drink, how could it be made for sure as a legal norm? It is normally as a result of lobbyists  or the law drafting technocrats copy pasting some foreign study materials to be evolved as some impractical laws of the land which cannot be so easily reversed. The difficulty with this kind of technical laws are that they are never understood by the legislatures nor the enforcing agencies who are all essentially non-technical as far as their competencies are concerned. Once an impractical law gets enacted, it provides much under-the-table opportunities for many enforcing authorities to be too whimsical in their acts!

5. An effort to arm-twist the business entity for various reasons: It is a common practice in many countries to use law to arm-twist peoples, groups or companies. Some people having power of governance do this for various reasons. This happens when they work essentially for self satisfaction rather than the common good of the nation.

6. Absence of governmental authority: Govermental determination and decision making go here and there when the govermental leadership is practically weak and visionless. In such a scenario, errors due to incompetence and ignorance keep happening at various levels of governance resulting in unpredictable governmental actions and responses. In the Indian context, it is normally the genaralist bureaucrats making the final directions towards decision making. When highly technical issues are involved, these directions become mutually contradictory and often funny.

It could be any one or all or several of such reasons that creates this kind of situations in governance which for the learned citizens appear as directionless and contradictory to the generally perceived vision of the top leadership of the country. For the ordinary common folks, it makes no difference as they are always confused and divided as ever!

In this case of Maggi noodles, such administrative goof ups might be creating tensions for the Nestle India officers, distributors, stock holders, suppliers ,  employees and perhaps consumers like us who have to think now for alternatives for meeting their easy food solutions. 

And incidentally the air that we breath has more lead than in the Maggi!

But what are the ramifications of incidences like this for the whole of India?

India keeps on proving that it is not a business friendly country. Not that any one should be allowed to do any kind of business by violating all rules. But, there should be transparency and governmental ethics that reciprocate with business ethics.

I have heard Indian small and medium scale company promoters talking about the umpteen numbers of fines and penalties that the authorities now force on companies for silly matters. The Indian bureaucracy does not offer solutions to the problems faced by the industries while they seem happy to enhance problems. Perhaps, it could be due to their unhappiness over their equally non-responsive political hierarchy above!

Will 'acche din' (good days) ever come for business and industry to do make in India honestly a success? It is easy to dream about beating China and going ahead in full steam. How many in India really understand the fundamental systemic efforts made by the successive Chinese governments that enabled China to go far ahead of India in the last 20-30 years? 

India keeps failing to learn from others. Rather it refuses to do so. This reluctance in the whole system is too visible now than in the past. That is my experience. The reason are many. Most importantly, there are few who understand the root causes to make any intelligent effort to correct areas that went wrong.

Systemic errors can even make great nations humbled. Erstwhile USSR was one typical example. Perhaps, the USA too is moving in certain wrong paths here and there which could make that country too humbled in the near future unless they become wise to correct it. Fortunately, these nations have competent people who realizes mistakes and helps them to correct their wrong course.

But in India, apparently things are not appearing as so easy. Lack of competency and character in key positions is one major factor that is unfavorable for India as of now. 

Though difficult, it is not something impossible. But to make that happen, there should be honest efforts to recognize our weaknesses and rectify the cumulative errors that keep braking our progress ahead!    

What is Preventing Indians From Shying Away from the Great Opportunities of Corporate Entrepreneurship?

India is a vibrant nation of youths aspiring for getting some job. Unemployment is a serious problem. Millions of youths who graduate from the higher education and professional institutions in the country are finding it difficult for getting some job of their liking in the organized sector. Many are underemployed or are compelled to work in the unorganized sector for a livelihood.

At the same time, India is a land of great opportunities. It geography, population and scope for development give immense opportunities for business. In essence the potentials for entrepreneurs desiring to take up the initiatives are immense.

The problem lies with the Indian educational system. The conventional education system of the country provide little information to the students about the essentials of doing business. Business knowledge and skills have always been a matter of confidential knowledge held by those who either inherited it or tried hard to acquire it under compulsions or by chance.

The hundreds of business schools in India hardly impart any meaningful knowledge to their students in the fundamental aspects of setting up a business entity. While the business schools impart theoretical knowledge in management principles, they never try to go beyond it to equip them in the real practical knowledge that is essential for any business entrepreneur to confidently proceed to make his business ideas work.

Often the educational curricula are made by academicians who have no real experience in business or industry. Industry-business-academic cooperation and interaction in India is a much talked about subject with no one ever trying to do any thing to achieve it practically. Indian academicians clandestinely do all they could to protect their interests always. As is usual with any other profession, they too are too protective about their jobs and would not allow others to enter in to their profession. As a result, there are only few industry experienced persons in the academic councils, senates and syndicates of the Indian universities. As such, the universities and autonomous colleges, including the engineering and management institutions of India fail miserably to absorb the industrial and business experience and knowledge to the their students.

The end result is a large workforce who lack essential knowledge and confidence to undertake challenging jobs and assignments. Excepting a few of the self driven types, the rest miserably lack the skills required for meaningful employment or entrepreneurial qualities for venturing in to the setting up of business ventures of their own.

India may be finding a few young and successful entrepreneurs here and there. But they have mostly got their entrepreneurial skills and abilities by self actuation and abilities and not by the specific grooming they received through their respective educational institutions!

The Indian parents mostly are pessimists with regard to their wards venturing in to any business. Excepting those few business oriented families, most of the common folks discourage their young ones from trying any business of their own. A good majority of middle class parents also consider many kinds of business as some kind of taboos or not befitting for their family status. Many housewives in India are too uncomfortable about the thoughts of any of their family members going ahead with some business ideas. Lack of support and opposition from the family women folk drives away the little enthusiasm that might be with those few with some entrepreneurial ideas!

The Indian middle class are too obsessed with the idea of sending their wards to foreign countries such as the USA, UK, Middle East, Canada, Australia, etc rather than they try their fortunes in their own nation. 

As a result, premier engineering institutes such as the Indian Institutes of Technologies (IITs) have become mere training grounds for foreign job aspirants! There may be only a few IITians who could successfully streamline their acquired skills and inherent intelligence to establish themselves as first line indigenous entrepreneurs!

All these have happened due to the wholly defective policies of the Indian government that has been in vogue for the past many decades. The Indian governments of the past hardly encouraged first hand business entrepreneurs unless they are some cronies connected to those in power! The Indian bureaucracy too has ensured that the rules and regulations made by them and approved by their political masters so far are solely for ensuring their controls over the business community. 

In such a scenario, no business man could possibly survive in India without bowing their heads before the bureaucrats! The bureaucrats usually get the laws and the regulations drafted and approved by their political supremos giving much leverage for themselves. This necessitates scores of governmental approvals to start any business. Obviously, such approvals do not come forward so easily unless the potential business promoter is willing to spend and bend! At least that is what the common perception in India has come to mature!

Fortunately, the information technology has helped to break many of the bureaucratic and political interference in many kinds of business in India. IT has enabled higher transparency in the governmental procedures to some extent. It is also enabling dissemination of knowledge and breaking the monopoly of formal education system. A positive development indeed!

Successful Indian businessmen, barring a few, are those who have come up under severe constraints facing many problems. Hence they attribute their success to gods and luck rather than their knowledge and hard work. As a matter of fact, many of the existing successful business people do not possess any expert knowledge in the fields of business where they prospered. Their essential knowledge has been in the manipulation of money and people with the help of intelligent but slavish employees!

Many of the Indian businessmen are too scared to reveal their success stories or to encourage young India to venture in to business. Many of them are also too greedy that they would not like a share of their huge profits to be distributed among their employees and clients or even with the nation! They are too apprehensive to be honest due to the prevailing business atmosphere. They know that the country as a whole is not going to honor their contributions. Why should they do things honestly when they are deemed as thieves of the national wealth? There is an immediate need for changing this common belief. There is an urgent need to honor and respect practically honest businessmen and women who create more employment opportunities rather than big market capitalization!

Businessmen who generate thousands of jobs should be honored as national heroes. We can take a lesson from China where Jack Ma has got that preference from the Chinese government because he has been successful in generating millions of jobs! Compare that with the story of Subrata Roy of Sahara in India! 

I earnestly hope that many of our young people would shed their inhibitions and begin exploring the possibilities of becoming job creators rather than job hunters. The formal education system of India may not be in a position to help them for the time being. But the informal internet knowledge base could be easily explored for all necessary guidance for those willing to learn and act.

Business is not about becoming Jack Ma or Dhirubai Ambani overnight. Business is also not to be considered as an option viable only in the urban areas. It is also not a fact that all business start ups need huge investments. In India, there exist good opportunities for small and medium corporate model businesses for the rural areas with low investments. Why can't we think of having corporate offices in the rural areas and tap the talent pool of the rural areas? Why do we need to make a situation that results in the flow of people to the urban areas? Indian metros are already starving for resources and infrastructure. The present flow of population from villages to cities is due to the apparent notion of the people about the job potential of the cities erroneously conceived by wrong policies and feed backs!

In India, the term business brings the image of a petty retailer's face or a well known business tycoon's face in the minds of the ordinary folks. Both do not reflect the true reality. Business and entrepreneurship are something in between the two and have much more potentials than commonly understood!

What are the essential things for doing any business in India?

Young entrepreneurs need to know the basics of the laws that govern the business. They need to know the basic rules of the game. They should also know the great potentials of doing business under the corporate banner rather than doing it as proprietary or as a partnership. They should know the essentials of corporate management and capital raising. Such knowledge would help them to propel their business ideas to get matured and implemented.

Profit alone should not be the motive for business for the young Indian entrepreneurs. They should think of such businesses that would be a useful help to their customers and clients. They should learn to do business without cheating or without breaking the laws. They should device their companies which gives a win-win platform for all the stake holders-to themselves, their share holders, their clients, the government and the general public. They should not allow their companies to be operated under the motives of greed. When this becomes the fundamental guiding principle, there is absolutely no reason that their venture would not succeed! 

How to know the essentials of setting up a business in India?

The following are some links that give much information for those who are desirous of becoming corporate entrepreneurs rather than mere job seekers: 

1. The official business portal of India

2. The online business guidance portal startbizindia

3. Steps for New Company Registration: India

4. How stocks and stock markets work?

5. Indiafilings- Online assistance provider for starting business

Wake up and act. Let us do things in India and prove the might of our nation!

Best wishes to all potential businessmen and women of India! May your efforts bring prosperity!

Why It is Difficult for Government Institutions in a Democracy to Become Pioneers in New Technologies?

A couple of days ago, two senior level executives from a new foreign equipment manufacturer visited me. Their purpose was to introduce a few of the latest innovative process plant equipment that their company has successfully designed in the recent years. A few companies in the world who are keen to take advantage of modern innovations have already installed those in their factories and are taking advantage of those equipment.

As a matter of every day life for those involved with the engineering and technology business, this is nothing very unique. As for every business, there are consumers and suppliers in the engineering and technology business as well.

Engineers working in engineering and technology oriented line of business may have to work as a supplier or a consumer either at the same time or at different occasions.

Inside an Indian Public Manufacturing Facility-It is Too

Difficult for New Technologies To Be Adopted Quickly!

Researching, designing and commercializing new innovative machines, equipment and systems are the core business for some. Taking advantage of those new innovations for improving their own business activity is equally important for some others.

Humans of the advanced type are inherently innovative. They take advantage of the opportunities and innovate. In business innovations are dynamic process and is an essential requisite for existence. Those who fail to innovate perish or go out of business after some time.

Unfortunately all humans are not intellectually equal. All are at varying abilities at any given time as of now. Hence, there is the danger of the intellectually higher order humans keeping their lower order cousins perpetually under their command and disposal. Remember, in the olden days, the physically stronger ones had been doing exactly the same.

Higher ability does not necessarily mean that they are also higher in their spiritual qualities such as love, compassion, justice and character. Thus, there is a potential danger of the characterless but cleverer types keeping the inferior types always at a disadvantage.

Present day democracy is in its nascent state of development. But it came in to existence after testing all other forms of government in the past. Though it is not perfect as of now, it is undoubtedly the best form of government that humans can have.

Democracy gives some powers to the majority of those intellectually inferior humans to checkmate the potential onslaught of the superior minorities among their lot.

Thus, all democratic governments  try to ensure a leveled playing ground for all players in all human activities, including business.

Monopolistic and restrictive trade practices are not encouraged as a result of this. 

Are you wondering why I have written all these?

I shall try to clarify it now. Suppose that some superior humans invented some new technology which is beneficial to others in several ways. This benefit is likely to cause a high demand for this new technology. The group who pioneered this could now exploit this situation fully to their advantage. They can monopolize it and charge a high premium from the users which would enhance their returns several times their legitimate cost of developing this technology.

Had they been people with human values, perhaps they would not have done so. But, as of now, we have more number of clever characterless people than intelligent humanists.

Thus democratic governments and governmental institutions adopt the widely accepted practice of tendering for acquiring any types of goods or services. Justified practices which give equal opportunity to all stakeholders are kept as the ideal. All these processes are subjected to various kinds of checks and audits for finding and preventing violations.

Inducements of various kinds are often practiced and tried by some unscrupulous players to circumvent the rules of tendering and get undue advantages. As the time passes, more and more information on the types of inducements are gained by others which results in more and more rules and regulations in the public tendering processes.

As a result of this, over the time, public procurement procedures by the tendering process become very complex to such a situation that it is no more easy for government institutions to procure some thing for public benefit in the right time and in the right manner.

Now let me come back to the case of the two business executives about whom I told in the beginning. No, doubt, their company has a technology which is unique and very useful for my organization. Perhaps, my organization, which is a governmental one, could benefit both directly and indirectly if this technology is implemented. There are tangible and intangible benefits.

But perhaps, going by the rules and regulations which have matured over the years, it would be extremely difficult for my organization to make use of this new innovation. The reason for this is because the new technology is almost unique that we may designate it as 'proprietary'. A proprietary technology or equipment has no competitors and any attempt to procure such things by any governmental organization can cause doubts and suspicions on any body who tries to favor it. Due to this, many public servants who are responsible for public procurement shy away from taking decisions that involve proprietary technology or systems or equipment. It is not that we do not have some solutions to this kind of a problem. It does exist. But regrettably, the rule book solutions are mostly impractical as of now.

Some three decades ago, when I was a young engineer, such a thing was not so difficult. We had more freedom to take decisions in favor of our organization. But the scams and unscrupulous acts of others have caused problems for those who are not of that kind as well. Perhaps the overall benefit to the organization stands more or less similar then and now, though for different reasons. Then it was due to the offsetting effect of bad acts of some over the good acts of some. Now it is the effect of the complexity of rules and regulations tying the hands the good people to take beneficial decisions for the overall benefit of the organization while the bad ones keep doing damaging acts either clandestinely or due to ignorance. 

Some time ago, I wrote a blog about the damaging effects of rules and regulations made under certain compulsions thoughtlessly and ignorantly.

The situation is similar in the case of public procurement procedures as it stands now. Unfortunately, we have a severe shortage of experienced people with all round expertise to draft rules and regulations which are both effective as well as simple.

This kind of a situation is not unique to any one nation or society. It is more or less the same everywhere, where democracy has taken roots.

Perhaps, we may have to wait till our individuals mature as wise citizens for matured nations to evolve. Till such time, we may have to live with such problems in varying degrees!

Is privatization a solution to this?

Would you like to share your views? 

Bankbazaar: The Best Online Site for Making Well Informed Decisions on Bank Loans, Bank Deposits and Insurance in India

Post liberalization and with the prolific growth of digital information technology (IT) and IT-enabled services, India has become a hot spot of both software companies and companies that offer IT enabled services such as banking, insurance, data processing, data storage, online trading, etc.

The companies in this sector provided millions of job opportunities with relatively good salaries to the young men and women of India who have the essential qualifications for getting employment in these specialized field of work.

The IT related business potential has been something which the old timers just could not dream just a couple of decades ago. The business models that the youngsters devised have created great wealth many times than the conventional business models. 

Being an old timer myself, I have been an awe admirer of the potential of computer software and the internet in raking up large scale economic activities and creating wealth for the individuals and the corporations.

A stage has come now that the computer systems have become an inseparable part of all human beings who have crossed over the threshold of basic development. 

The higher incomes that the IT and IT-enabled business have provided enhanced aspirations of young Indians for better housing, comforts, leisure and better services from the service providers. In turn it has been facilitating more avenues for entrepreneurs to come up with revolutionary ideas for providing better services to the customers.

Banks have been one of the first business sectors in India to shed the old style working replaced with computerization. In the retail banking, it has now become almost paperless. Several Indian banks have opted for advanced IT infrastructure and systems. 

The IT savvy population of India can now do almost all their retail banking requirements without they ever visiting the banks. They are now in a position to do it from the PC terminals or their mobile phones without leaving their comfort zones of the office, home or even while on the move. 

They could now see their bank accounts, buy many goods and services and pay online, transfer money to others, make recurring deposits (RD), fixed deposits (FD), know their income tax dues, file IT returns, pay for the services, etc.

But in the mean time, the banks have also become more flexible with every bank offering several options for each service. While outwardly all banking services looked similar, in reality they have become dissimilar. The interest that you actually get for your deposits, the interest rates and equated monthly installments that is applicable for your loans, etc are all different in different banks.

Imagine the difficulty that you face to discuss these things with each every bank before you can finally take a decision. The bank officials to whom you might talk could even be ignorant with regard to the various rules as applicable that you could get highly confused or misguided.

This complexity has initiated the thought process in a group of young and experienced engineers in the IT field that they have evolved a business model that provides a win-win situation for the individuals, the banks and themselves.

And this is the fast growing IT-enabled business called the Bankbazzar (literally meaning the market place of the banks) which got into this unique business sometime in 2008. [Read about Bankbazaar in this Wikipedia article] It was founded by a group of young and experienced Indian engineers [Read about some of them here]

Bankbazaar is wholly for the Indian people as of now. Let us see what all services this dotcom company provides to the customers in India:

It facilitate you to compare the HOME LOAN offers of various banks and finalize the best deal. 

Bankbazaar is the best place for you to compare the various CAR LOAN options from various Indian banks and zero in to the best one suitable for you.

And some of you may need a personal loan for some immediate needs. Banks usually charge higher interest rates for personal loans and they all have different interest rates, EMIs, processing charges, etc. BANKBAZAAR PERSONAL LOAN page would facilitate one to chose the best offer and finalize it. 

Bankbazaar website has many other useful features such a EMI calculators with special regard to the Indian banks, refinance calculators, Interest calculators, etc. One can access the various ONLINE CALCULATORS of this facilitating company for taking best informed decisions. 

It also provides those interested in investments to read informative articles about finance and investments in India.

One can also chose to get a suitable Credit Card from those banks in India that offer such a facility. 

In case you have surplus money, you can invest it safely in FDs of banks. But now-a-days different banks have different schemes and interest rates. Bankbazaar allows one to select the best deposit scheme and apply online for making the FIXED DEPOSITS. 

Bankbazaar also provides you facilities to decide the best suited LIFE INSURANCE from the best company of your choice.

It is not a bad idea to do a bit research before you take loans, put money in FDs or to take an insurance policy.

Finally, a word of caution. Take a loan only when it is unavoidable and when you have the resources and income to pay the EMIs.

Never take a loan which has an EMI which eats out the major portion of your monthly income. 

    

Picture Preach Cheaters of Our Modernizing World!

Many of you may not have understood what I meant by the phrase picture preach cheater or ppc in short. But picture preaching is not a thing that is too strange a phrase after all. Picture preaching has been a common method used by Christian preachers and missionaries for the last several decades. I remember listening to such a preacher, preaching with audio visual projections of artistic images created on the basis of the book titled Pilgrim's Progress (the christian allegory of John Bunyan published in 1678), during my childhood.

But I am not going to write about such preachers.

I am going to write about another kind of picture preachers who essentially cheat the gullible public using all sorts of audio visual tools of modern era. They cheat every one very cleverly by their tactics, networks and cleverness. 

They are the picture preach cheaters of economics, trade and business of modern era!

They are the modern day opinion makers and social media glitterati who keep preaching with their artistic pictures and stereo voices about various aspects of human trade, business and economic policies of the governments. 

They are all paid preachers who are paid for disguised cheating of the masses. They are paid in millions, perhaps hundreds of times more than the average earning of any average income earner of modern era who toils hard to earn his livelihood.

But the preachers preach for their masters to make quick money in billions without much toils which in reality is a cut from the earnings of the millions of hardworking people of the world. And these picture preachers are nicely remunerated.

The modus operandi is simple. The masters first spend money to make some ordinary fellows with some preaching and teaching abilities and promote them as glittering personalities. They purposefully make the world know about the millions that these preachers earn per hour of their preaching so that the common man wonder and adore them for their super human abilities of knowledge and preaching. 

The common folks just cannot digest that someone could be paid such extravagant sums unless they have some superior abilities. The common folks are always ignorant of the clever tactics that the cheats keep experimenting on them! Though they are always victims of the so called advertisements, they can never understand how advertisements be-fool them!

That way the masters of the business world make the so called celebrities of the economic world, the picture preach cheaters, who keep trying to influence the common folks about business and economic dynamics of the modern world.

Their combined efforts make all the difference in the economic scenario of the nations. Their efforts could make a practically non existent mushroom company to be viewed as much more valuable than a company which has been consistently doing a good economic activity for decades creating much worth for its employees, clients and stake holders. 

This way hard earned wealth and the efforts of all hard working people are made worth less or futile within a short time with money flowing to worthless entities. The economic principles are thrown out in place of newly invented financial jargon as promoted by the picture preach cheaters.

The picture preacher cheats of economics and finance are the ones who make the modern day share trade to flourish in such a way that it sweeps all the money generated by hard working people in the farms, in the factories and in many other places. 

The modern era financial world now has become the play ground of the cheating masters and their cheating preachers. The masters acquire and sell companies and make profits in billions overnight with the help of the picture preach cheaters while the people of those companies work hard day and night to make all these possible without ever getting any benefits. Perhaps they are cheated and deprived!

It seems much easier for these picture preach cheaters to influence the governments to make their policies of economics, finance, trade and taxation favoring what the former want to achieve.

I have written about some aspects of this modern trend in some articles earlier too. [Read the article on plutocracy ]  

  

Suicidal Corporate Drivers Who Over Speed To Destruction !

Today morning I was reading the views expressed by the lady CEO of Axis Bank as published by a leading Indian business newspaper. She had opined that Indian Businessmen and entrepreneurs are intrinsically risk taking. So long as they are risk taking, there is not much problem for the banks to disburse their monies as business loans with potentials for good earnings.

On the other hand there are news in the media regarding the resignation of the lady CEO of an Indian Public Sector bank -the United Bank of India. This bank is burdened with a heavy non-performing asset or NPA. NPA is nothing but the unrecoverable loans of the bank. The bank officials perhaps had distributed heavy amounts as loans to many 'risk taking' entrepreneurs who had taken the risk of pleasing the bank officials with 'necessary' documents and the bank officials had in turn taken 'the risk' of clearing those loan applications expecting big success of the risk taking businessmen. But in this case, the risks actually became real and the money has become non-recoverable!

People are of essentially of two kinds. The majority are non risk taking and less adventurous. They will not risk their lives by venturing in to dangerous adventures. But then there are another group, a minority who are risk taking and adventurous in nature. They are the brave men and women of our world. They are the ones who move ahead for achieving their goals. Their goals could be anything. Exploration, travel, sport, business, politics or anything of that sort. In these, business and political risk taking are a bit different from the others as these two are determined by what is known as greed. The greed for money and power! 

The minority of people who are greedy for money and power too are essentially risk taking in their nature. However, their risk taking nature is not only detrimental to them, but also catastrophic to several others whose lives are directly or indirectly dependent on them. 

The risk taking politicians could drive the entire nation and its people to miseries for generations. Businessmen manipulate money, men and materials (the so-called 3 M's of management) for making more money while trapping more men and materials. In their high enthusiasm and high ambition many of them set high and achievable targets for them to accomplish. They dislike the word, impossible. For them there is nothing impossible. If there is a will, there is a way. That is what they prefer to believe!

Short and long term success of some others are their examples that they wish to emulate. Per se, it is not something bad. But what actually happens to such people is the manner in which impatience becomes too visible in their actions and decisions. They fail to recognize the fact that impatience is a mind poison.

Thus their business enthusiasm and ambition become poisoned by impatience. Impatience for achievement of high targets. Impatience for doing things or achieving results in the shortest time. 

What happens when you drive a vehicle at 100 km/hr speed when the road conditions do not permit you to drive more than half that speed? Even when your vehicle is capable, you are bound to make accidents and destroy your vehicle and yourself! But if you happen to be a good driver who knows well about your vehicle, the road and the rules, you would not venture into such an adventure of over speeding.

In a similar way, there are over speeding businessmen and chief executives who try hard to push their business organizations to impossible tasks and performances. It they are knowledgeable about the intricacies of the business and their business organization (the company or the firm that they manage or own) they may not take such a risk that might eventually cause great harm.

Unfortunately, in the world of high competition that we have today, there are chances that the businessmen and their chief executives are mere manipulators who are not competent in many other aspects of their own business processes. They may be good in one or two aspects but not in all. Since they are successful in their own areas, they tend to consider other areas of work also to be like their own and force others to fall in line without realizing the consequences.

Let me explain this by a simple hypothetical example. Imagine that there is a real estate developer.He is not a technical man but he knows the technique of getting the land purchased and also getting the approvals from the statutory authorities by hook or crook. He has experienced that the approval process which takes usually a few months time got reduced to a week because he could 'manage' the authorities. He had seen that the architect who asked for three months time to develop the drawings finally agreed to give all the drawings in a month's time when he put sufficient pressures including some inducements. But in this process he failed to understand that the drawings the architect now supplied were some quick copies with some quick manipulations and not something specifically made for him by applying proper mind. The result was that this builder was going to spend much more money, efforts and time to complete the work later, though he apparently made a quick success to get the drawings much earlier.

In a similar manner this builder could force the civil contractors to speed up the work to such levels which are neither practical nor technically justifiable. If he forces them, they are likely to adopt short cut methods in construction to speed up the work. They may even start building the higher floors without giving enough time for curing of the lower floors or reinforced cement concrete (RCC) construction. This could cause heavy structural weakness  to the building which might even cause total failures some time later. If that happens, this builder might even land in jail. But if he a risk taking sort of a man, these eventualities may not deter him. He would proceed in a haste and make some quick bucks. If nothing serious happens, that becomes his benchmark of success. 

The organizations of today's world are more and more getting created or managed by people of this sort- the so-called successful leaders who maintain their success projected by hook or crook till proved otherwise by some untoward happenings. Since organizations are more and more getting responsible for the economic activities of people, their failure is bound to affect people adversely.

Organizations are essentially to ensure long term sustainability of collective work and activity of people and hence they are supposed to last for a few generations. If organizations are created only to disintegrate in a few years, that is not a desirable thing and if it happens too frequently, it is a sign of ill health of the society or the nation where it belonged.

If organizations are disintegrating, it is often the top directors or top executives of the organization who are responsible for such breakups. And often, it is the suicidal risk takers at the top decision making levels who are responsible. They are like the captains of the large ships who pilot the ship to destruction and escape using the only one life boat in the ship leaving the rest in the ship and the ship to destruction. The maritime laws consider this as a punishable offense. Unfortunately, the captains of large organizations who do such acts to destroy their organizations are not often taken to task.

It is a serious issue and the right thinking should think about it for some solutions.

Analyzing the Pricing Strategy of A Profiteering Mind!

Long ago, when computers and computer programs were not so common , no one, even those somewhat familiar with these modern day marvels, never imagined the future scope of these to revolutionize the way businesses would be carried out. Besides, no one could foresee the huge money making potential that computers had in store. 

I remember a small engineering industry giving me a task of making a FORTRAN program to calculate the thermal design parameters of a shell and tube heat exchanger that the chemical process industry commonly used. The manual calculations used to take days and the said program I developed using my little knowledge in that programming language could do the task in seconds. Moreover, one could check various alternatives for the equipment design so easily.

The effort I put to make the program was a few hours a day for a couple of days. I gave the program write up and the IBM punch card pack that contained it to the  user free of cost. I felt shy to ask a remuneration for that work. I being just a budding student in the academic field at that time was not a business man to ask for a remuneration for my work. I knew making the program, but I did not know how to work out the price for my labor.

The well known billionaire of USA who made computer software an industry worth more than the much more complex hardware too was in his college at that time. He applied a different formula to evaluate the cost of his software programs that made software business of later days the top money spinning activity.

The simple trick was to evaluate the cost of the software in a different manner. Software production involved intelligent manpower. If you evaluate the cost based on that, the cost of a software pack could be to the order of say $ 1000. But the said software when used in another business had the potential of making a substantial profit of say $100000 for the end user. So, why not link that profit potential as the determining factor for pricing the software that was otherwise profitable for selling at $1000 for its maker. It the maker of the software could convince the end user of it money making potential then it was possible to strike a deal. Even a 50:50 profit sharing deal would have provided the software developer a clean profit of $50,000. Where is $1000 and $50,000 ?

See, the difference the approach makes in determining the price of a product ? 

The world now moves adopting these two basic strategies. Prices of items, objects and services can be determined based on the cost plus profit basis or on the basis of profit potentials. The latter is a complex affair. It depends essentially how people get hooked up to certain ideas and concepts, not necessarily always wise!

For example, business and money making for some are like the games that people play in the casinos. In this kind of business money simply flows massively from one end to the other without any one doing much efforts. Time, luck and mind play the tricks. This is the area of business where the customers are those who have made enough money that money no more have much value for them in life.

Let me explain this with another example. There are thousands of artists in this world who can make paintings much better than many of those names whom we now know as world celebrities. When the good art work made by an unknown artist can never fetch a reasonable price even to provide its creator a day's food, some thing that is much inferior, but attributed to a so-called celebrity artist can fetch billions in some art auctions. Now the question is what essentially has determined the prices? I would rather say it is the foolish thinking of the billionaire buyer that determined the price of the painting in billions than the beauty of the painting in itself. It is yet another matter how to make this billionaire or others like him foolish ! There are people capable of doing that !

Easy money making happens due to mind corruption. It is another form of corruption. It affects the society dangerously, but in a subtle manner.

I do not want to explain all the sub forms of pricing strategies adopted by people who are concerned only with profiteering. 

Even then, it adds color and contrast to life. If those billionaires in whose control billions have accumulated easily, would wisely channelize those billions for creating opportunities for the deprived people, then the matters would be different altogether.

Instead, if they prefer to buy gold, land and other properties and keep those things as future treasures hidden from every one without any useful purpose for anyone, it is a grave sin that they do to the society at large.

I do not consider money making and wealth generation as sins. But, money made and wealth created should not be made static. There is no harm in sinking some money when it accumulates too much in one hand by buying some art works. But use that money to buy the art works created by all artists. Not from just one or two. 

Those fortunate billionaires should think of spending their easy money for promoting such businesses and human activities that are not conventionally profitable. 

The neo Indian billionaires of India can do wonders for their country if they decide to do some thing of that kind, instead of spending their monies to buy castles and yachts in foreign lands.

Let the monies that got accumulated in their hands not make them foolish cowards finding interested only in those activities and things conventionally designed or intended for such people ! Let them realize that there are things much more desirable than their 'pseudocratic' life !