tête-à-tête with the solitary me...

The quest for the remaining 20% liberation !

2007-01-26T04:16:00.000-07:00

More often 80% of the consequences stem from 20% of the causes. Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto was the first to observe that 80% of the income in Italy in late 18th century was received by 20% of the population. Later his idea was further developed and generalized by Joseph Juran, a management specialist in the earlier part of the 1900's. Today Pareto’s 80/20 law is being universally applied to explain phenomena in the field of business, economics, science and many others.

In fact these days I have turned into a real Pareto’s 80/20 enthusiast. I often tend to apply this principle to everything in life say for instance job satisfaction, losing weight, investing, and even gambling in Las Vegas. Like recently it occurred to me that only 20% of your efforts produce 80% of the results or 20% of your activities will account for 80% of your successes. This sounds so true and universal to me!

My latest stretch of Pareto’s 80/20 law is to theorize the feminism in India. Indian women had always been progressive and its journey from Nargis Dutta of Mother India to Mallika Sherawat of Murder is laudable. Sorry ladies, no pun intended! Both fought for their freedom and emancipation in their own ways – one fought against her abject penury and other for her quest for life. In fact it is typical of a free society where everything evolves to its natural tendencies sooner or later surmounting all the impeding forces. Malika’s quest for life in Murder is as natural as that of the transformation of a feudal society to a social democracy or the quest to move from Marx’s Dialectical Materialism to American Capitalism…..All appears to me as natural tendencies of humankind. Although sometime natural tendencies might appear to be contrary to our set believes and therefore a subversive function, but more often the initial denial leads the way to their acceptance. The feminist movement in India is also going through a rapid transformation in the post-economic liberalization era. Those women who were born in 80s, had access to university education are keen to participate and partake in the economic growth that the country is witnessing currently. They enjoyed social freedom as a child and now that they have earned the 80% liberation by virtue of their birth, education and the subsequent economic freedom, they are raring to break the shackles of remaining 20% oppression. Marrying the boy of dad’s choice or cooking, cleaning and bearing child for her husband or the choice of conjugal act are all part of the 20% oppression. The quest for 20% freedom seems so strong in women’s in India of our time that they are willing to pay any price for it like exiting out of a marriage, choosing not to bear child. This is a disruptive trend (mind you, disruptive is not the same as destructive), which will change our social fabric beyond recognition (at least in urban India).

I hope the quest for the remaining 20% liberation does not cost our society the 80% of the happiness, serenity and placidity that it exudes as compared to the western societies. Although the heightening social entropy is not at all discomforting to me, after all isn’t it the natures way of bringing stability in any systems, and therefore the apocalyptic prophecy in the last-para of my blog is not so much like me, just that I couldn’t curb the male chauvinist pig in me!

Islamic Law and the International standards !!!

2007-01-21T23:28:00.000-07:00

I think my previous post missed one critical aspect of the Islamic law, which was intelligently reminded by one of my friend. I can not agree with him more, on the subjectivity of punishment prescribed in Islamic laws. As I have written in my post, that these laws are not codified, in fact laws have been derived from the instances, and articulations in the Islamic religious books, and have been interpreted by several Islamic Scholars centuries ago. Naturally, we can’t take recourse to these laws to resolve the legal issues of our time, say for instance "breach of contract". Islamic law at the most, would render this as an act of "Sin", but how that “Sin” should be dealt with? To resolve the legal issues, you have to “try the issue” in a competent court through legal arguments, and not through religious doctrines. I have already commented how these religious doctrines became part of legal system along with customary and bureaucratic laws, and interestingly this happened in all societies. In fact there are many instances in Hindu Personal laws which are being reinterpreted by judiciary in India from time to time, and that's possible because we have a free judiciary and a modern judicial system. Just to give you a quick instance, recently supreme court gave a verdict that father can't have the default custody right on the child, in case of divorce and mother wants to remarry. Father’s preferential custodian right on the kid as favored in Hindu Personal law, derives its inspiration from the Hindu patriarchic society. However since we have a modern judicial system in India, this is subjected to legal interpretation and reasoning, and if found unjustified or pervert, can be amended!

There are several aspects of Shari’a which contravene international human rights standards. For instance Article 6(1) of ICCPR (International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), states that “every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.” Further Article 6 (2) of the ICCPR states: “In countries which have not abolished the death penalty, sentence of death may be imposed only for the most serious crimes […]”. However, Shari’a may pronounce death penalty for consensual sexual relations between adults, which by no civilized sense can be considered as one of “the most serious crimes” as referred to by the ICCPR. There are several such instances where the Islamic Law fails to meet the universal standards set by International Law, like “The Right to fair hearing” as enshrined in Article 14 of the ICCPR, or “The right to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” or “The right to equality before the law”.

Unfortunately Islamic societies in most part of the world are going through a reverse social re-engineering and they are isolating more and more themselves from the modern and developed world, thanks to the international developments in the last one decade, which have inadvertently empowered the dysfunctional elements operating in Islamic societies that desire to take the society further back in time on the pretence of saving Islamic values and implementing Islamic way of life. Tragically the essence of free society and secular values are being equated with Western beliefs, and any endeavor to implement a universal system is being refuted by Islamic leaders by exploiting the argument of religious and cultural differences with the west. They believe that the rise of Islam is challenging the universal system in the free world, and the introduction of Shari’a shows the yearning of the people and the Islamic Laws have supremacy over constitution or any international standards.

This is not a good trend and its reversal does not appear possible any sooner…..!

The Islamic societies need to see beyond Islamic Legal System

2007-01-21T01:37:00.000-07:00

There were few coincidences that lead me to write this Blog. Last week I finished reading a book called “Law in Modern Society” by Roberto Mangabeira Unger, and this morning one of my friend happen to broach up the relevance of Islamic law in our conversation.

I would say any sovereign nation has the right to devise its own legal system. I would, though, advocate for a modern law whose foundation is based on legal practices, interpretations and legal argument of professionals who practice law. Modern law has originated from the rational and supreme thinking of the lawmakers who practice law as a profession and is not based on popular beliefs or bureaucratic choices. All free and progressive societies in the world have a modern legal system and have well documented constitution, laws and regulations and everything is subject to rational and legal argument in the law of court.

Although in societies which have embraced modern legal system too, there are plenty of laws which are Customary or Interactional. Customary law in broader sense is simply any recurring mode of interaction among individuals and groups, more or less explicit acknowledgement by these groups and individuals that such patterns of interaction produce reciprocal expectations of conduct that ought to be satisfied. The Customary law is different than the other concept of law that is bureaucratic or regulatory law. It is distinguished from custom by its public and positive character. Bureaucratic law consists of explicit rules established and enforced by an identifiable government. It is a law deliberately produced by government rather than spontaneously produced by society. With the advent of bureaucratic law, distinction between habits and duties, or between rulemaking and the application of rules, become meaningful for the first time.

Law was always accompanied by other kinds of law that may drastically limit its scope. On one side, there was custom, which continued to govern much of everyday life. Customary standards might both influence and be influenced by state law, yet they kept their own identity and their own inertia. On the other hand there was a body of sacred law, often in the hands of an independent priesthood. This holy law was shaped by theological percepts over whose content the sovereign had no direct authority.

The legal framework of Islamic law regulates public and some private aspects of life for those living in a legal system based on Islamic principles. The jurisprudence of Islamic Law stems from Sharia that deals with many aspects of day-to-day life, including politics, economics, banking, business law, contract law, sexuality, and social issues. Largely Sharia is the body of precedent and legal theory established during the 14th century, which isn't a strictly codified uniform set of laws, rather it is based on the Quran, Hadith and centuries of debate, interpretation and precedent. Since most of these laws were not codified in 19th century, they might not necessarily reflect the spirit of modern society and may sometime hardly find any relevance today, especially since the life style, social beliefs and aspirations of people have hugely changed in the last century. In most Islamic societies the people, who are diligent and progressive, advocate for a legal system based on modern legal practices which matches their social and economic aspirations.

Happy Birth Day to me !!!

2007-01-15T01:53:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was January 14th, my birthday again. Like many women of my age, I turned 28 years old once again! I have very vivid memory of this day from yesteryear. My Mom would take me for holy dip in the river Ganges, as this also happens to be a very auspicious day of Makar Sankranti for the Hindus. I used to be very excited about the special cookies my Mom would make for us on this day, especially made of sugar coated puffed Rice, Til (sesame seeds). We would eat our traditional brunch of Dahi (Curd) & Chura (flattened rice) after the bath in the morning. I remember there used to be no special arrangement for my birthday celebration as such, just that my Mom would be a little extra affectionate to me on this day and would not forget to mention with pride to me and our neighbors several times during the day that I was born on this auspicious day. In the night we all used to eat the traditional diner - “Khichri” (dish consisting of rice, lentils, pepper and spices). It was fun!

But all this sounds like faded memories of some childhood fairy tale. For several years now there are no more Chura-Dahi, or Til, because invariably I am away from my home. This birth day was no different than the recent and recollectable distant past. I was far from my home as usual. As usual there was no birth day cake or a B’Day bash. As usual no one wished me a "Happy Birth Day" except my Mom. Well “Birthdayalarm.com” did remind me about my own birthday a couple of days back religiously as they always do, Yahoo.com and Astrology.com were the first ones to greet me with “happy birthday” as usual, and then there were many more greetings from host of websites I am subscribed to. I did ping a couple of my friends on “yahoo chat” and solicited a birthday greeting, they joyously obliged me. One of my friends got so excited on the elicitation of my birthday to him that he gave me a long distance call; it was really sweet of him, after a quick perfunctory greeting, we meaningfully used that opportunity to bitch about our ex-colleagues from the earlier company we served together. It was fun!

Happy Birth Day to me !!!

When will the luck smile on Bihar !

2007-01-13T23:45:00.000-07:00

Recently Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy announced in the state assembly The Government of India’s decision to set up the eighth Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Andhra Pradesh at Isnapur about 100 km from the state capital. This is a welcome news! The hardworking, and aspiring Andhrities deserved it.

I remember a very humbling and awe-inspiring incidence that occurred to me while I was traveling in a train to Delhi almost 6 years back. I bumped into a few clumsy and boorish looking guys in my compartment. I was willfully precluding any prospect of socializing or hobnobbing with them. But their persistent humility soon got me engaged in a half-hearted and hardly intelligent discourse with them. Soon I was awfully surprised to learn that the simple, calm yet thoughtful looking young boy made it to the IIT Kharagpur with a AIR of under 200. I was mouth agape when I learnt that the poor boy braved the abject penury, and prepared for the IIT Entrance all by himself sitting in his obscure village of Andhra and without the aid of so called spin-doctors and specialists of IIT JEE running shops everywhere in the country.

Plea-bargains from Central Govt. by the state leaders in favour of their state is largely a Chandrababu phenomenon in Indian Politics, who won several bargains in favor of Andhra Pradhesh, sometime even at the cost of the national exchequer in lieu of his political support to the BJP Government at Center. Although TDP had 28 sitting MPs in Lok Sabha, his party did not accept any ministerial birth, but did manage to extract his pound of flesh by winning several favors from center, most noticeably the massive quantity of 31.5 lakh tones of rice, worth about 3150 crores, given free of cost by GOI for food for work programme (FFWP) and cash of 990 crores, ostensibly to fight the suicides and starvation deaths of farmers following the draught in Andhra Pradesh. Janata Dal (United) another key ally of BJP-led NDA also had 20 seats in Lok Sabha, mostly from Bihar, but they did not get anything for the State of Bihar except a dozen ministerial births. Even today the support of 29 MPs in the Lok Sabha by Laalu Prasad Yadav led RJD is what keeps the United Progressive Alliance on the Treasury benches. But they are also doing little to cajole center for any favor to benefit the people of Bihar.

I wish one day, Bihar which contributes most to the population of IITians every year, would also get one IIT.

Justice to one, is denial to other !!!

2007-01-07T02:39:00.000-07:00

The practice of employing “Goondas” to recover loan is an age old practice but to my dismay this practice was brilliantly adapted by sophisticated financial institutions in India to recover loans from defaulters in the recent years. Interestingly, this issue reached the Supreme Court. The court asserted that the recovery of loans, if any, should be only through legal means. Court rejected the argument that if force was not applied the defaulters would not repay.

I see an interesting aspect to it. Both the rights of the individuals and those of the corporate, which are also legal bodies, are protected by law. This ruling while gave relief to the individual, failed to safeguard the interest of the corporate. It is important to protect the individual, but it is also important to protect the rights of the corporate, which produces the goods and services consumed by the individuals. For a market economy, it’s quintessential that the individuals borrow from the financial institutions to consume goods and services, and also, it is equally important that they pay their debt back, else the financial institution, which is the backbone of the market economy, would die. Not that there are no laws in India to protect the interest of the business, but possibly they lack teeth or there are enforcement issues.

Well I am not trying to build a case in favor of the banks employing goondas to recover their loans, but I would certainly argue that Judiciary should also take cognizance to the fact, that there is need for laws that empower the financial institutions to recover their debts faster, by liquidating or taking in possession of the assets of any defaulter. They key for the market economy to work, is faster recovery of debt, in case of default. Else, the debt would become costlier because economy anyway has to bear the cost of the bad debts. This is where law enforcement has to play a key role and the legislation has to show courage by enacting new laws in favor of business for speedy redressal in cases of default payment.

Customer centric organizations !!!

2007-01-04T23:53:00.000-07:00

We Indians care more about the people and less about the process. Our allegiance to people and the position they hold is deep rooted in our psyche which we have consciously imbibed from our cultural ethos. This is one of the biggest reasons, why most public enterprises in India are having hard time transforming themselves into customer centric organizations.

The business operators for a customer centric organization are customer focus, understanding the needs of the customer and its aspirations…and making diligent efforts to meet and exceed them. That's what keeps you in business in a market economy, and not the awe and reverence you evoke for the rank and file in your organization. Recently my quest to locate a bank in Imphal in the state of Manipur which offered net-banking services, led me to the websites of a few of our leading nationalized banks like SBI, UBI etc. I was flabbergasted to see the way their websites are organized. No kidding, the homepage looked like that of some obscure direct-marketing company trying to sell male potency pills. I might sound grossly exaggerating, but they were no where near to the website of a good retail bank. I could not easily find a branch locator on their websites (well SBI have one). UBI proudly published the photograph of its Chairman and Managing Director R K Gupta in the centre of its homepage, which was apparently the most conspicuous object on its webpage. In fact the positioning and the size of the picture made the products and services section of the Bank look obscure, hiding somewhere in the fine print. The awe and reverence the website evoked for the picture can only be weighed against those of Mahatma Gandhi picture walled up in our Mantralayas. But I could not find a branch locator on its homepage! Ironically right above his picture, you can see the punch line of the Bank in bold face – “The bank that begins with You”. I wonder where the “U” in UBI is.

The Public Sectors in India have recently been making serious efforts to transform themselves into a service oriented organization; however the biggest challenge they face is dismantling the people centric rigid super structure that they have built upon over the years. Most public enterprises in India don’t have a process centric service delivery model. If we aspire to transform our public enterprises into nimble and agile customer centric organizations, we have to de-learn our overwhelming reverence and indubitable allegiance for the people and the power vested in their position. Breaking the silos of cultural ethos around our work practices is quintessential and paramount.

Happy New Year 2007 !!!

2007-01-01T00:04:00.000-07:00

Just a few minutes and the clock will chime 12 O’clock tonight, and the year 2006 will be lost in oblivion for ever, although its remnants would keep haunting me with the occasional reminder of pain and suffering I had quietly sustained. This year had been pretty eventful for me – full of joy and joylessness, overwhelming ecstasy and gloom, prolonged depression and then a spurt of sporadic happiness. It was like a seesaw of hope and despair, and I have been traveling tirelessly to-and-fro between its two extremities. The topsy-turvy of life saw my spirit often marred by pessimism and then suddenly perked up and enthused with optimism. I occasionally sang in the suffering to ameliorate the pain. Looking back in retrospect, year 2006 heralds the presence of a blind and labyrinthine alleys, and amidst it, I found myself confused, muddled up and obfuscated!

But that’s all by gone now. My misery has disappeared in the thin air, as the clock chimed 12. The arrival of New Year has precipitated plenty of optimism and determinism on me. I am happy I saw through the pain, and did not succumb. The just bygone year was painful, torturous, humiliating and mortifying. But I stand resolute to fight-back hopelessness with hope this New Year. I hope the New Year would be full of joy, happiness and spirituality for me.

God Bless you people !!! And wish you all a very Happy and Prosperous New Year 2007 !!!

Politics to alleviate hunger or Politics of hunger?

2006-12-26T20:55:00.001-07:00

What should I call it, politics to alleviate hunger or politics of hunger? Mamata Banerjee's hunger strike to protest against the West Bengal government's decision to acquire 1,000 acres of agricultural land in Singrur for Tata’s ambitious low cost car project, has been more than 3 weeks now, but Mamata seems undeterred. It is palpable that West Bengal Government did not procure the sale agreement from all the farmers before committing the land to Tatas.

It is a catch-22 type dilemma for the people in WB, who to hold up with, the Govt. or Mamata? The Communist Govt. in WB has always vowed to protect the interest of the farmers and the laborers. But tragically the policies framed to that effect, while undoubtedly fortified the interests of the laborers in the initial days, have also jeopardized economy of state down to the abyss due to poor productivity and lack of competitiveness. Today while the Govt. do not want to aberrate too much from their old prophecies of labor politics, and in fact it often diligently reminds itself of its directive principals, at the same time, it also want to capitalize on the newer economic opportunities that the economic growth in the country has presented. This has germinated an indecisive conflict between fathoming the change and sticking to the old cherished principals of labor politics, in the CPM party in India. Those in the politburo recognize the need for a moderate and futuristic policy, especially in the wake of their larger role at the center, but also they don’t want to appear ardently zealous in embracing those changes. It is a leadership and vision issue. The Communist Party in India today lacks a visionary who can hand-hold the party through this transformation. The current leadership does not have the risk appetite to spearhead this policy shift.

Mamta Banerjee on the other hand wants to grab every single opportunity of hunger politics, to keep her party getting oblivious from the radar of the electorates in Bengal. She does not have even an iota of appreciation that she can’t find her relevance in the politics of West Bengal by beating the same path CPM took decades ago to grab the power. Bengal is suffocating in the state of economic despair; the people’s growth aspirations are long unfulfilled, people need leadership that can break the inertia in Bengal and provide traction in its economy.

In my opinion, Mamata should rather fight for industrialization; and take the government to task for not doing enough for creating newer economic opportunities. She has the opportunity to speak on the behalf of the state, and present the potential investment areas in the state to the stalwarts of the industry. She has both the opportunity and potential to steal the show from the CMP Govt. which is overly conservative in implementing reforms.

Shift from Agrarian to Industrial economy and that from Industrial to Service economy is a global market phenomenon and has its own economic rationales. It makes perfect sense to scarify some farm land in today’s global market to make cars, if you can produce them cost effectively. I think Tata’s project at Singrur would bring nothing but prosperity to the natives of Singrur in long run. Tata’s have an exemplary record of skilling the local people and deploying them gainfully in their ventures. In fact I would exhort the Government to get this assurance from Tatas in the bargain for providing them the infrastructure and other facilities. NGO’s can be engaged in shouldering the social transformation that such industrializations bring in. In fact Government should take futuristic steps like opening new Polytechnics in the vicinity of Singrur and also creating opportunity for possible local auto ancillary units.

Indian Railway: Who turned it around?

2006-12-24T01:49:00.000-07:00

Recently Indian news media have been lavishly praising the Union Minister for Railway Shri Lalu Prasad Yadav for his business acumen. The academias have been agog in learning a “management-mantra” or two from Lalu Ji. Surprisingly he is the same person who spearheaded and championed the economic devastation of a state for 14 years. He is the man who pursued a single minded vision of social justice (read cast-politics) in Bihar without making efforts for enhancing the economic activity, whatsoever, in the state of Bihar. He is the same man who has always been too grossly absorbed in cast-politics to find time for developing any economic vision for the state; he is the one who vehemently opposed IT-enablement of the state departments and transparency in governance. He is the man who can be largely held responsible for the ruin of Bihar. But all of a sudden this man is being touted as the man who turned around the largest monolith of Indian Enterprise. All through his political career up till recently, he viewed Indian Railway as a social enterprise, and now all of a sudden he discovered its commercial value.

I am not so much surprised at the turn-around of railway, but I am certainly surprised at this man’s turn-around in character. Only he can tell how did he manage to live with this dichotomy.

He made no news (except bullying the RPF personnel at the Patna Railway Station, or scolding the staffs of Rail Mantralaya in Delhi for coming late to office), made no policy statement and did not announce any strategic change in the functioning of the railway till the Railway Budget was ready to be presented in the parliament. As if he was waiting for his budget speech for his startling proclamation of railway’s turnaround. It is quite unlike of a phony and verbose personality like Lalu Ji, sitting quietly over the news of gradually improving health of Indian Railway. This gives strength to my prima-facie doubt that he just made hay while the sun shone.

While presenting the Railway Budget for 2006-07 in the Lok Sabha, Lalu Ji said that his approach in bringing about improvements in railways was based on raising quality of service, reducing unit cost and sharing resultant gains with consumers. Upon close analysis of his three pronged strategy, I would say that I found absolutely no data furnished in Railway budget or published elsewhere, to measure the quality of service. Well what has changed? Has the railway done any better on train schedule, or has the health, hygiene or cleanliness of railway platforms or passenger trains have improved even by whisker. Only God knows what the true “cost-of -freight” is for Railway! The organization does not capture its cost element effectively, and in absence of any cost model, measure of unit-cost is farcical. Railway did share benefits with consumer by not increasing the sleeper fair and reducing AC fairs. But we must not forget that over the years railway has used fair increases as a means to fund the budget deficit and the Increases in AC fair always cross subsidized the sleeper fairs. In absence of any budget deficit for the current fiscal, none of the above was required and I would argue that the lowering of AC fair is more of a reactive strategy to compete with low cost airlines than an aggressive pricing strategy.

The 10% growth in freight loading and 18% growth in freight revenues should be accredited to the 9% growth in Manufacturing sector and 12% growth in construction sector which contribute most to the freight revenue and also to the over all 8.4% GDP growth rate this fiscal year. Little do I see, what Railway management or Lalu Ji would have done to revive it? In fact Railway by and large is the most inefficient organization in India. It’s least accountable and its functioning and the performance of its assets is so opaque to the people that it’s really hard to comment on its financial health.

It is important to make profit, but it is more important make profit which is commensurate with the opportunity cost of the capital deployed. We must not loose sight of this basic business logic while evaluating the performance of Indian Railway.

Institutions that deliver value !

2006-12-10T15:09:00.000-07:00

Recently I visited the Salt Lake City Public Library. For someone like me whose stretch of imagination about a library premise is limited to his experiences with National Library in Kolkata or the Public Library in Chennai, It was a heck lot different experience. Little did I know, that a public library will attract more teenagers than the grown-ups with insatiable appetite for knowledge. I approached the information desk, and within next 90 seconds, I was the proud owner of my newly issued membership card. The amount of study material it housed was amazing; the housekeeping, floor and the shelf management was orderly and even more amazing.

I checked out a couple of books from the children's section, just to get a sneak preview into American early childhood education. To day I would hold on to my train of thought on topic of excellence in early childhood education. So, coming back to my experiences with the City Public Library, I would say it shattered my past image of a library as a repertoire of reading material. The aura of the place invigorated and enlivened me; my heart spontaneously started to evoke fervor in pursuit of knowledge. I wonder why are our libraries back home so dingy, unmanged and neglected, why have we been not able to orchestrate similar management skills back home. Ironically our history in managing manuscripts and learning material dates back to 5th Century A.D., when we had the credit of having Nalanda as the world’s first ancient seat of learning with 2000 Teachers and 10,000 students from all over the Buddhist world. The University of Nalanda saw the rise and fall of many empires and emperors who contributed in the development of this university. The emperors built monasteries and temples, King Harshwardhana gifted a 25m high copper statue of Buddha and Kumargupta endowed a college of fine arts here. Nagarjuna- a Mahayana philosopher founder of the school of Logic and another scholar Dharmpala, taught here. The famous Chinese traveler and scholar, Hieun-Tsang wrote lavishly of Nalanda’s grandeur stature and its stewardship in serious learning.

I wonder how have we lost our supremacy in managing knowledge. I believe beyond reasonable doubt that we just don’t know the art of managing institutions, be they the enterprises for profit or those not-for-profit. We lack vision to create and manage institutions. I hate to resign to this belief, in fact to prove myself wrong I checked the website of The National Library in Kolkata (http://www.nlindia.org/). Here are the Aims of the Library as articulated on its website -

Acquisition and conservation of all significant national production of printed material
Collection of printed material concerning the country
Acquisition and conservation of foreign material required by the country
Rendering of bibliographical and documents services of current and retrospective material
Acting as a referral centre purveying full and accurate knowledge

(Clarification - The Aims of the National Library, Calcutta, has been rephrased without altering the meaning, and have been been published here just to give context to the view point. I don't intend to publish the information in the bulleted points which is proprietary material elsewhere.)

Splendid! But isn't the service orientation is conspicuously missing in the vision statement, and in its absence would marr its ability to deliver the intended value to the extent that it would ill befit the very objective of the institution.

Contrary to the above, City Library I visited envisioned to create : “A dynamic civic resource that promotes free and open access to information, materials and services to all members of the community to advance knowledge, foster creativity, encourage the exchange of ideas, build community and enhance the quality of life”. Needless to elaborate the values they stand for?

In India the National Libraries are enacted as institution of National importance under the 'Department of Culture, Ministry of Tourism & Culture, Government of India'. Under the Delivery of Books and Newspapers (Public Libraries) Act, 1954, the National Libraries are entitled to receive a copy of every publication brought out by anyone anywhere in the country. Ironically our system is law churning machines. Laws can safeguard your interest but not help you deliver value. There is a pressing urgency to learn to create institutions that deliver value and not saddle on the back of the exchequer.

Prosecution's precarious face in India !!!

2006-12-01T16:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I witnessed a small incident in Sandy City in the State of Utah in US. An old man ran his car into a private property, apparently a small fast food outlet. Luckily no one was hurt including the old man behind the wheels, except a few bruises on his forehead, which hit the steering when he slammed the brake. Some one called 911 and police came rushing to the spot. I was amazed to see how effectively police in United States serves to safeguard the interests of the individuals (and not particular individual unlike India) by gathering prima-facie evidences, as unbiased and accurate as it could be. I saw they took photographs of the whole place from several angles and also recorded the statements of all the witnesses so that the damages on either side can be judiciously estimated and duly compensated in case they choose to approach the court.

If our police in India, work as meticulously and honestly in gathering the prima-facie evidences as their US counterparts, the criminal trials would be rather faster and justified. Jessica Lal murder case is one such glaring example of gross negligence in collecting the prima-facie evidences at the spot of the crime. The prosecution’s role in gathering the evidences on the spot of the crime and subsequent investigation was lackadaisical, inaccurate and flimsy to the extent that today after a decade, a defense Attorney is willing to bet his reputation by coining a new theory, never heard before during the trial, that it was not Manu Sharma but some other person, who fired the shot at Jesica. The outcome of prosecution’s scandalously callous role in finding the evidences is that the defence concocts and manages to sell any cock and bull story during the trial.

As a matter of habitual practice our police in India is not used to collecting adequate evidences to bolster the case. A sub-inspector is supposed to have orchestrated a comprehensive understanding of law in his qualifying examination and later during his induction training, but I am surprised, more often they are at loss of understanding as to which law was violated by the alleged offender. In many a cases disposed before the court it turns out that the cases have been booked under the wrong sections of IPC and the sections that the nature of crime naturally attracts have been omitted advertently or inadvertently. The rank and files from the IPS are by vision of their functional role not supposed to know the law, they are supposed to ensue the law-enforcement. However they have failed miserably in providing the vision to the police force, hitherto. Their law enforcement score-card is pathetic. They have not been able to create the bare minimum – a standard operating procedure (SOP) which the police force would follow while investigating a crime. How many time did this happen, that the police arrived on the spot and has a notebook to record the statements. Why bring the notebook, when they have the exemplary skills of solving the criminal disputes on the spot or off the record. Their role in settling the criminal disputes off the record and outside the court is really exemplary; enviable to law-enforcement else where in the developed world.

Under section 57 Cr.P.C. any accused if arrested may not be detained for more than 24 hours unless they have obtained a remand order from a competent magistrate. Invariably, without exception, they would detain the accused for more than 24 hrs, sometime on ridiculous grounds like the “Bara Saheb” is not expected in the office any sooner. There are clear late-night arrest/detention procedure set-down by the Supreme Court of India to safegaurd the civil rights of the accused (e.g, detaintion should be made in night only if absolutely necessary, and the mandatory presence of a female officer if the women are likely to be present at the place of arrest), however, this is unheard to most in our law-enforcement. To add a dash of pity, more often they do it in ignorance of law. A new recruit in police inherits his understanding of law from the the unwritten but relegiously followed standard operating procedures (read the state of law lessness) that prevails at his work place. His acquired and inherited knowledge at the work place and not the provisions in the law serve as his work instructions.

Well I am not a attorney by profession, have no or a limited knowledge of science of jurisprudence but that does not preclude me from or incapacitate my system thinking in commenting on role of prosecution in preventing crime in India. The recent few cases that I have read in newspaper instigate me to write that the police in India practice the provisions of the law more in breach than in observance.

In one case lower court acquitted Manu Sharma, and later High court held him guilty of murder. In another special TADA court acquitted Sanjay Dutta, but he was under JC for 16 months. This sounds scandalous that if the prima-facie evidences were so strong that court could grant bail to the accused only after a judicial custody of 16 months then how come, later the court found the accused, after 11 years of trial, not guilty. This morning a read a similar shocking case – Navjot Singh Sidhu, while he was found guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder by the high court of Punjab & Haryana, he was earlier absolved and found not guilty by the lower court. Does this not indicate that prosecution habitually does not act on the behest of law but acts on the behest of something else? Otherwise why the evidences produced before the court at the first instance is not enough to bring the accused to justice. And why the Justice is done later by the superior courts when the public outcry and media focus intensifies. Does that not establish that as a rule prosecution does collect the right evidences at the first instance and often ignore the evidences in the favor or rich and powerful.

While the country is making progress with leaps and bounces on economic front, there is a need that other institutions and the organs of state also make conscious, urgent and expedited effort to change for good. Otherwise we can not sustain the economic growth. The society can grow collectively only if the rate of change in all its organs are in tandem. This is the time for a change in the police force in India - a revamp, a gigantic change; a change topsy-turvy upside down is required. But who would take the cognizance – is there any body listening!!!

First News Corp, then Google! Is it Microsoft Next???

2006-11-02T00:14:00.000-07:00

Hello People,

I promised you ealrier to get back on YouTube. Here I am back again :-) with some more badly obtuse monologue...

The market is certainly mouth agape on the Google-YouTube deal. I checked, currently Google trades at about 55 times its earning and at this PE, anything worth 1.65B, should yield a minimum profit of about 300m. YouTube makes no profit as of now, does not own the content it streams, and has no solid revenue model. Neither anyone on this earth is sure about if this would remain hot for next 10 years. At least I am certainly surprised as to how come Google has paid that kind of money for this deal, which translates to about 1% of its market valuation.

However Google has been known for its innovation and agility in redefining the market. The online-advertisement is all set to disrupt the advertisement space. Media giants like Time Warner, Viacom, and Sony Entertainment see a huge potential in this and have already been building their own digital business. They would not refrain from putting their content on YouTube or Facebook if they can assure them about the copyright protection and share the Add revenue with them. Let’s see if Google can leverage YouTube to revolutionize the online-add space. Well I am sure more is coming soon; News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch has paid about 580m to acquire a social-networking site called MySpace even before Google shocked everybody with YouTube deal. Who knows may be the next big news would be similar 1B acquisition by Microsoft Corp. After all Bill Gates have been passionately talking about the online-add space for quite sometime now!

I keep my fingers croseed !!!

Bye for now folks!

Domestic Violence Act-2005: Who are we protecting the Shefali or Lajo???

2006-10-29T16:08:00.000-07:00

Wow!! Saturday again… I love it! I love twiddling my thumb…

This morning as usual I kept snoozing my alarm clock till it succumbed to my sloth and stopped buzzing at all… As usual the day began at creep speed…had a glass of hot milk and started flipping through the pages of Times of India. I accidentally happen to trip over the Domestic Violence Act-2005 which was drawing wide attention. The law provides relief to women from all kinds of physical or emotional violence and also verbal abuse. The law also takes cognizance of sexual violence like forced intercourse and in fact its purview goes far beyond to issues like, preventing one’s wife from taking up a job or forcing her to leave a job.

As enlightened men all of us want women to have a safe, secured and a dignified place in the society, and therefore, any legislation to this effect is more than welcome. But as usual, I have a slight different take on this issue. Women are already protected against any physical violence through stringent Criminal Laws and IPC. In fact over a period of time the laws dealing with marital abuse have been made very stringent through amendments in IPC and the Evidence Act, then, why another law? Why not channel our resources in enforcing the existing laws before we create one more.

I see a practical problem in enforcing the Domestic Violence Act. Let me begin with few questions? Who do we want to protect - the “Lajo” or the “Shefali”. Lajo lives in remote village of Bihar with her Huband and raises her four children. Her husband struggles for his own livelihood and for the livelihood of his family. He earns merely 40 Rs. a day during some part of the year and grows few crops barely enough for one square meal for his entire family. He often takes country liquor and batters his wife and children. This is a classic example of domestic violence. I wonder what on earth law has to do with this? This is socio-economic issues. Even if Lajo takes legal recourse and his husband is punished for domestic violence, the bigger question is what next for Lajo. Who would take care of her and her children’s livelihood?

Shefali’s world is heck lot different. She worked for a private firm, earned some 20K a month in Pune. She quit her job for whole different reason! She found her life more secured in marrying a guy who earned 60K/month in Mumbai. No one forced her to quit the job. It was her choice. She tried for another job in Mumbai soon after marriage, but because of her low skill-set she could not find a job. Shefali is a liberated woman. She wants to make most of her life. She wants to live for today. She expects her husband to take her out for diner at least 3 days a week despite the fact that her husband has to slog hard everyday till 8pm to meet his business targets. Shefali’s Friday’s are reserved for electrifying her evening with her husband in the local pub, Saturday’s are invariably reserved for shopping and Sunday’s for movies. All this comes at a cost to her husband. But Shefali is a liberated and empowered women, access to all the above merriments is part of her life style. Her husband has no problem with her consumerist wife either. Despite this there are instances of domestic violence in their life. Shefali’s husband is too tired for sex on the week days, especially on days when they go out for diner, whereas Shefali wants to exercise her conjugal rights on those days. On week ends, shefali is too tired to have sex, and would rather prefer watch later night movies. She is more vocal about her demands and would not miss the slightest of the opportunity to protest to her husband. In fact, often her husband feels Shefali is overly demanding and less compromising, but there is hardly anything he can do about it. Despite being out of job, Shefali enjoys immunity against any sudden economic crisis because of her parents blanket economic support against any potential economic crisis. Why the hell on this earth Shefali needs a Domestic Violence Act to protect her.

It would be befooling us to deny the fact that Indian society is not divided in Lajos and Shefalis. Laws which could be required to protect Lajo can be weapon of potential misuse in Shefali’s hands. Shefalis are no endangered antelopes; in most cases they don’t need laws to protect themselves. They are as empowered as men. In fact what they need is economic opportunity in the event that if they have to dissolve the marriage, they can rehabilitate themselves and not the laws to give them opportunity to file fake civil and criminal suits against their husbands.

I am no social scientist, I am a market-man and therefore I try to find economic reasons and rational behind most social evils. Women in the upwardly mobile urban middle class need freedom to decide who they want to live with. They would like to choose their husbands and would like to reserve the right to continue with them and that is pretty much in the spirit of a free society. What impedes them from exercising their freedom of choice today is the lack of economic opportunity to become self-sufficient. The women who have economic freedom don’t need laws to file civil suits against their husbands to protect the marriage, they rather need, laws for speedy dissolution of marriage, so that they can choose to live single or re-marry the man they want to marry. Same applies to the upwardly mobile urban men in India. Those who are unhappy with their counterparts in the marriage would rather not indulge in domestic violence and would like the laws enable them in speedy dissolution of marriage.

I don’t disagree to the need of Domestic Violence Act. But in my opinion Lajo can’t avail it and Shefali does not need it. Laws which are not enforceable are popular politics but not good jurisprudence.

Have a good week ahead people..Cheers!!!

Disclaimer - All the names are fictitious and any resemblance to any person is merely coincidental.

The Lazy Saturday !

2006-10-14T16:34:00.000-06:00

It was a lazy Saturday morning for me. …well it was not all that inactive. I haven’t unpacked my stuff after moving to my new residence in Salt Lake City, Utah. Usually my unpacking is as disarrayed as my packing. I unpacked all my clothes which was rummaged and stuffed in my suitcase, just to realize that I have more cloths which either don’t fit me anymore or are old enough to be discarded. I wonder, why did I not dispose them before moving? I paid 50 bucks to Delta for my two slightly overweight suitcases. Anyway I am throwing them now; don’t want to spend another 50 bucks on my next move.

I had a late lunch today. I spent little longer today surfing through the news sites. Google’s buy-out of YouTube was one interesting piece of news. My connection with YouTube is quite old, though I never visit its website. Mostly I watch Hindi movies from Bollywood on internet hosted by few desi websites, which often takes me to YouTube for streaming. I wonder how legal these streaming videos are! But I am sure the world is more mature than the Napster days and Google wouldn’t do another Napster.

Whether the shareholders of Google will loose $1.6B of their net worth when YouTube gets sued to oblivion or will it take the online video streaming to new heights with innovative ideas pouring in from Google, would be unraveled only in the time to come. I would ponder over more on this as this newly forged relationship gets a little older.

Right now what’s incomprehensible to me is that Google Video and YouTube are competitors, and Google video has done absolutely nothing yet to redefine the online video streaming market as they have done with search engine and with online advertisement, so I wonder why did they buy YouTube which is not #1 but possibly #2 in the market. I am not quite sure about Google's plan with YouTube, and Im sure nor has market much clue on this buy-out. Well hope Google recovers the money they have put in through online Adds on the YouTube before YouTube lands in trouble with copyright infringement. I am sure everyone is watching the market reactions.

Have a good weekend people!