Aid 2.0

Interesting article in Economist about new players for global aid for poor countries..  Especially about India. Felt good to know that India is active in global aid business to help poor countries remove poverty!!!  There are both sides of the this coin.. First is good news.. Great that India is becoming economically stronger to go out and help other countries..  Second is confusing.. What the hell!!! there are bloody 400 million below poverty line in your own country and you are still taking aid from world bank and many other aid agencies and you are going out and trying to fix problem of other countries..

This "Gareebi Hatao" (remove poverty) is going on in India for last 5-6 decades.. Despite that there is growing divide between rich and poor.. You can't fix problem in your own backyard and you are going out to fix it for others!!! amazing.. I guess, this will be another scam pretty soon.. this time in foreign policy side.. I am sure there has to be some economical ties between Gaddafi and our political leadership.. otherwise there was no reason for India to support dictator like Gaddafi for so long... When you have such a screwed up foreign policies and on top of that you are adding this 6-7 Billion USD aid every year.. We can imagine what will come out of it..

Aarakshan - Amazing movie.. I can't understand reason for opposition

Great movie.. Best arguments for and against "Aarakshan" (Reservation system in India).  I think it fully represents both the sides in almost easiest way.. First time I have really heard such a great arguments for Reservation system.. I had heard most of the arguments against reservation earlier.. but this movie does great justice "For" reservation as well..

Though, I have to admit that I am yet to see such a great person as they have depicted Big B (Dr. Prabhakar Anand I guess..) in the movie.. but I am sure India being such a vast country with so much population.. there must be lot of great personalities like Big B in the movie.

Only reason for politicians to oppose could be that it depicts politicians in somewhat bad way.. but I am sure it still depicts them much better than what they really are in real Indian political life.. 

West on the way to Japan - Part Three-Final

Finally, we come to other side of Atlantic.. North America.. Surprisingly.. there are three very different major countries with different kind of economies..

Starting with Canada.. I guess "All is Well" in that part of north west.. Canada's conservative (as compared to its southern partners) economic policies coupled with sudden burst of energy related activities are giving boom time to the country.. and it is prospering like anything we are yet to see in west.. However, due to sever weather conditions, only very few brave people are willing to relocate to Canada despite several great incentives over there.. I think we all agree that Canada is not going to be Japan any time soon.. Except if Crude oil prices comes to less than $40/barrel.. Which is highly unlikely.. in case that happens, we will re-visit this country later..

Then comes the biggest fish in the West.. our dear beloved (or equally hated by many as well) United States of America.. Which has been biggest and strongest growth driver for long time in wild wild west.. Several things were on US side.. At least from beginning of twentieth Century.. Starting with great minds.. excellent democracy.. abundant resources.. very limited population.. relatively easy immigration policies.. almost none or very few direct hostile attacks... lot of hostile activities in rest of the world...  US took full advantage of all these and many other opportunities.. Very well executed and results were terrific.. It resulted in great infrastructure and US become super power of twentieth century..

But at the dawn of twenty first century (or even earlier) things started declining.. and multiple factors combined to accelerate this decline.. I would say most important was or still is... outlook and thinking of mass population..

if entire population starts following up mob phycology and starts following and taking dumb decisions.. then only GOD save us.. (but only if GOD exists??). It all started with blind wars in middle east and Afghanistan... wars without well defined objectives.. On one hand funds are being cut in schools and teachers are being laid off to save couple of million dollars a year.. on the other hand couple of billion dollars are being spent every day as if it is simple change... Even after spending more than trillion of dollars on these wars.. we are still not sure if we achieved anything or simply created more hatred and fanatism against US.. at the same time sacrificing limited resources on at this crucial juncture on these wars instead of schools and infrastructure of the nation..

At the same time, I would be very cautious and will be clear.. a decade of decline is very short time on overall scheme of things.. There is still lot of good things which can still take back this country to its glory days.. more importantly.. lot of those good or great things doesn't exist in rest of the developed world and even in many of so called emerging economies.. If US can bring its act together we still can change the course and bring things back to normal..

Coming back to Comparison with Japan.. USA is almost exactly opposite of Japanese thinking and culture.. US society is based on consumption.. consumption beyond our means..  However, Japan is more purely driven by exports, savings, manufacturing, work and work and work and work.. In Software engineering terms, if US is R&D/Innovation and development then Japan is QA and Support (oops.. it didn't fit that well..). Though I feel that Japan was hurt more by Chinese manufacturing where as US was hurt more by Indian IT.. I guess, I am not making much sense.. so I will stop now on this.. but lastly, I feel if current condition of US can be compared to any one.. then it has to be UK.. UK was King of nineteenth century and it ultimately lost its prestige and wealth in Wars.. US is almost on same path.. unless we change our course fast enough and focus on our internal situation.. but challenge is that all the economies of world are so tightly integrated that if one country sinks.. it will sync rest of the world as well..

On internal issues.. Any country is on definitive course of decline and demise if their congress takes few minutes to pass budget/grants for wars/army and debates for weeks/months for grants to cash strapped schools and universities.. or sometime they never pass as well.. How bad congress can get when they can't even agree on cuts/spending of 10-15 million dollar where as result of that itself is loss of more than thirty million dollars per day.... loss of payroll and different projects.. What a bunch of morons!!! How careless they can be.. Had it been any organization, all these morons should have been fired or made to work late night till they figure solution to this petty problem.. These kind of examples show how bankrupt a country is..  and what is more to come..  enough of blah blah..

When will we achieve real democracy in India

Even though we say that India is biggest democracy of the world, we are far too behind in real democratic style of governance. In my view, real democracy is achieved when elected representatives fear the electorate rather than making electorate feel feared. Once this fear is instilled in elected representatives, rest all things will be taken care automatically..

I am sure many Representatives in US must be corrupt in some form or other. Still, there is fear of electorate.. Several reasons, elections every two year, term limit on highest post and most importantly there is real democracy in parties itself... Whether it is party president or whether it is nominee for presidential candidate or even for seats in congress/senate... there is true democratic way of election.. There are no bigshots at the top who dictate who will get ticket for which constituency or which governor/presidential nominee.

Whereas in India, it is all "High Command"s wish.. Instead of fearing electorate, representative fear "High Command".. and hence they fear party "High Command" or icons who some how create and spread fear or so called charisma on masses and hence on their own Party members and Representative.. .

Prime example is Nehru/Gandi family's grip on India's largest party. Only lineage is the criteria to become party head and hence control government either directly or through remote control and hence create all form of corruption and fear of themselves. If anything needs to happen, first they should kick out this family business out of party business. I can't believe there are no good leaders out of 1.2 billion and growing population.

Though nothing is perfect, but we can see outcome of loosened grip of this family on Congress and Nation for few years in 1990s after sudden death of Rajiv Gandhi.. By no means, I am supporting and praising terrorist attack.. Principally, I am against any kind of violence.. However, that event really led to Narsimha Rao's government which was free of influence for some time.. By no means, it was cleanest or non-corrupt government.. but still, changes started during those times are foundation for India's great progress till now.. We had hoped that we will get rid of family and won't need them forever.. there was great lineup of leaders like Scindhia/Pilot in Party who were ready to take over reigns of party.. however, during unfortunate events in next couple of years this entire line up of leaders died in "accidents" and we were left with Nehru/Gandhi family..

Digressed from real topic of this blog.. but still it is great example.. when there is slight improvement in democratic process..

So, in my view we should start real revolution to fix this mess we are in. Once these issues are taken care of, rest all the issues like corruption will be fixed automatically.. I really don't think that this "Lokpal" is going to fix things completely.. What if Lokpal itself is corrupt.. we might be in even worse situation.. I agree, Anna is nice person.. but then we don't know for sure about his followers.. In my view, it is all patch work.. We need to attack very foundation of this corruption.. and that foundation is "Power in hands of High Command" not in hands of public..

So our revolutions should be focussed on fixing these fundamental issues.. As these things will never happen on their own.. These very same people will not let it happen that easily.. if something like this happens, they will have literally abandon their posts as there will be surge of new and energetic leadership into the country and society as a whole..

First and most important step is to force these iconic figures out of the party. I won't mind a simple and plain revolution in India to kick Nehru/Gandhi family out of the country itself... Once they are out, then amend constitution to make terms of party presidents max to two years and they can't be re-elected for next five or 10 years. Same rule needs to be applied for Prime/Chief Minister post as well. I guess, our founding fathers did a great job in preparing constitution while copying it from UK's constitution.. but in the end, this same constitution is keeping aristocracy still very much alive in India... I think it is time to add or copy some of the constitution from US as well.. No system is perfect.. I won't say that US or UK or India's system is perfect.. However, we need to continuously  evolve it and see what could be best in which situation..

When our constitution was originally made, it had provision of continuously grow number of seats based on population growth.. I think sometime in 80s it was changed and number of parliamentary seats were frozen on account of space constraints in our Parliament. I think, cost of extending Parliament building would have been not even one hundredth of one of the scams we had faced here if more representatives would have been there.. Very clearly, more the number of representatives easier it would have been for new comer to win the elections and reach parliament.. Lesser the dependence on big parties or their high command.. Better and bigger audit of different government programs..

Again, coming back to core topic... We need real democracy in parties.. That can be only achieved if we amend constitution to force any regional/national party to have regular elections to elect their leaders and even elections for nominees for Parliamentary elections.. Once these elections starts, no single person can control these parties and hence the governments.. It may seem another headache or cost to have these extra and more frequent elections but this cost will be substantially lower than the cost of one single scam if it can prevent.. Power needs to be in hands of people.. not in few families or individuals..

West on the way to Japan - Part Two

In first or original article about this, I focussed on Japan itself.. Why Japan is or was reference point for sagging economy.. What are the japan's issues and what could be some creative solutions from my side to solve this problem.

In this one I will try to jott down my views about one part of the west which is also called Europe.. or some times we call it PIGS with love. and then there is rest of the Europe excluding PIGS.. Primarily composed of countries like Germany, France, UK etc..

So, what was the driver for growth for Europe in past and present (if any..). I think in past, key to Europe's success was Industrial revolution supported by Colonial era from of 18th and 19th Century.. Then came devastation of World Wars in early part of 20th Century.. Which essentially devastated most of the Europe and especially Colonial Super powers.. It literally shifted wealth from Europe to North America. Once World Wars were over, some of the countries really worked hard and really leveraged their core expertise and knowledge.. Germany is one such example.. it was left in rubbles after world war II. Still it prospered as it has to prove back their dominance in any field other than military. But mostly rest of the Europe lagged and continued to bleed..

Some great countries like Britain and France, took mostly services route and lagged in industrial leadership other than few niche areas. Many other countries like Italy, Portugal, Spain etc.. didn't find any key area to prosper.. also.. most of these countries were small in sizes and they literally stuck to their culture and language to such a extent that it was difficult to do any significant trade with them..  Many of these countries relied primarily on Tourism and services for their livelihood.. With no real manufacturing growth it was dependent on rest of the world's growth and success.. If rest of the Europe or World grew exponentially they grew to certain extent.. if Rest of the Europe or World hit recession, these countries hit major recession.. Resulting in slow but definitive demise in their real national power and growth engine..

Then came final nail in the coffin in form of CDO by great minds of New York/Jersey.. After 9/11, our great leaders like Bush/Cheeney and Mr. Greenspan tried to grow US by going to war both in Middle east and in economic front.. This led to world's biggest property bubble which took many of these empty economies of Europe initially up and then down when it bursted.. In Europe, Germany literally took US role of lending and fueling this bubble and then forcing these countries to accept IMF conditions to pay itself back..

Okay.. If you have read my previous article about Japan.. I feel that conditions are literally opposite here in Europe. As European's are addicted to more vacations and less work.. They thought they will be rich forever whether they work or not.. Irrespective of how much loan they take to feed themselves.. there will always be some one to rescue them or most likely they won't even reach to this bad condition.. Now, Euro made matter even worse.. It tied individual countries to rest of the Europe that it literally made it impossible for them to fail ALONE...

So what are the solution to this mess in Europe.. is there any???  Let us take a shot at them.. First of all, let us divide Euro.. and make Something like Peuro (PIGS Euro) for the countries who don't take care of their Pig--gy bank accounts.. Kick these Pigs out of Euro.. There will be some blood or may be lot of blood every where in Europe but it will be just one time instead of current slow death by slow bleeding mode..  Then, ask these countries to do what they can do best.. I can't think of anything else other than tourism.. These PIGS should really work hard on educating their population in different languages like English (or may be not), Chinese, Hindi/Telgu/Tamil etc. Also, instill some more hospitality culture in population and over emphasizing on how important these guests are to their nation..

Lastly, they should fix their labor problems.. Employees are paid to work.. not to take vacation.. Easily cut all the benefits and vacations and holidays to Half of what it is right now.. Let them work hard.. one are the days of free lunches.. hey.. may be start some exchange program with Japan so both the sides can benefit from each other's strengths and Weakness..

West on the way to Japan??

Recent cover page of Economist compares US and Germany (and west in general) to Japan.. or at least saying that West is on the way to Japanese style of economy... as most of us know that Japanese economy is shrinking for last decade or so and is not able to jump start despite all the efforts by Japanese central bank or government.

Later on I realized that this article was becoming too long.. so I will do it in installments... In this part we will focus Just on Japanese problems and my magical solution for them :-)

Well.. first I would like to take "West" in General comparison to Japan.. I totally disagree with the comparison... May be end result is comparable but fundamental reasons are quite different.. They both are fundamentally different economies with different set of problems and needing different set of solution.. actually they are kind of complementary to each other..

Let us take Japanese economy in brief.. Japanese economy is burdened by extra hard work and extra savings by Japanese.. Surprised!!! excess of everything is bad.. but this is reality and fact.. Due to extra workaholic nature of Japanese they didn't had/have time for family and resulted in shrinking and aging native population.. Due to vastly unique and different culture and language very few immigrants are ready to move to Japan.. On top of it, Japanese have extremely thrifty and have great habit of saving and not spending.. All this literally killed Japanese growth engine which was mainly driven by exports... Exports are still there but kind of matured or facing threat from other emerging nations like BRICK.. On top of it, Manufacturing is like Sacred Cow for Japanese.. and as a result, Services (including Software Development) were totally left out by Japanese to be conquered by US and emerging economies...

So what could be possible solution for this mess in Japan... Easy.. at least on paper or in theory.. few very fundamental changes.. Make Over time illegal in Japan.. Any one who is caught working more than 40 hours (okay.. let us say 50 hours for Japan) a week.. they will be forced to do shopping and buying for double the time they did the overtime.. You should see that, I haven't included drinking and eating.. that Japanese men do any how.. Well.. this will force them to spend.. Whom on they will spend.. hopefully for their families or girl/boy-friends... When they will spend more time and money on families and friends.. they will automatically simulate economy by increased consumer spending and also hopefully by increasing population.. also.. as overtime will be illegal.. in immediate future.. Japanese companies will be forced to hire more workers and may be get immigrant workers.. and then further solving unemployment and aging and decreasing population.. I am open for other creative solutions if you have any.. I don't want to say it.. but I think this earthquake is also blessing in disguise for Japan.. I hope they will realize value of life and it will give them jolt to change their habits and start enjoying more.. apart from lot of spending to rebuild the great nation..

Happy Birthday Mr. President

Today is 50th Birthday of one of my favorite President's of United States of America.. I really like you Mr. Obama.. Mr. President, I hope you are getting some break and enjoying your day. 

I think you are way too nice for this nations politics.. I really feel that you need to be slightly more aggressive and tougher on issues.. We need to attack basic and fundamental problems this country is facing... We need to be clear and loud in our messaging that there is no short cut to success.. This country is built by hard work and genius forefathers.. We are enjoying today because of the hard work done in past and should continue the legacy rather than get into habit of enjoying and escaping from hard work. 

Debt Ceiling issue is reminder to us that current path is not sustainable.. We have to act fast and ready to take painful decisions.. We need to change our habits of spending beyond our means.. actually way beyond our means.. I was really hoping to see some tough action from your side.. however, I think Republicans took literal hostage of you this time.. and they had reasons for it.. in December 2010, the way you negotiated with them and literally gave them whatever they needed.. That showed them that you are really flexible and they continued to try limits of flexibility this time..  

This century is all about Intellectual Property and we should continue to focus on improving and ensuring that our education system is catching up.. All the kids are getting education and are not afraid of science, maths and other creative education streams.. We have great infrastructure available to us providing great quality of life and extremely solid higher education system (though slightly expensive..).. Any kid who really wants to get great quality education can get it.. We just need motivation for it.. We need to leverage our university systems and make sure that everyone gets great education and contributes to society and more importantly our planet earth..