Never a dull moment

I wish to review year 2009 from my perspective. The year began with a shocker- Ramalinga Raju stunned the corporate world and IT world in particular. About 60000 employees of his organizations trembled in their shoes for a few months not knowing what the future held. He has spent nearly a year in the jail but the public are no wiser on what he did and where the money has gone. Obama won Nobel Prize for elocution on world peace. He continues to follow in the footsteps of George Bush dispatching additional troops to Af-Pak region. Prices of essential commodities rose relentlessly causing hardship to poor people all over the country. Even vegetable prices have soared and there is no sign of prices coming down despite winter crop. Most people in Corporate world had a tough time coming to grips with turbulent economic slow down. Somewhere along the line, pigs got into the act. We have been persuaded to tremble before a new scourge – swine flu. Media went to town spreading scare amongst the ...

I go for long walks in the morning here at Jaipur. I leave my house before 5 am and pass through some of the idyllic areas before moving on to pink city. Some trucks and tractors playing loud music ply in the government office areas. In the pink city, one can spot auto rickshaws and pick up vans plying catering to with people arriving in the city by long distance buses. There are several small temples where people gather to pray at the break of dawn. There are two or three locations where newspaper vendors are sorting newspapers and handing them over to newspaper boys who would carry them on bicycles to the ultimate customers. I take a break by ordering a cup of tea at the gate of Sawai Man Singh Hospital popularly known as SMS hospital. This is the largest government hospital in Rajasthan and there are several tea shops open early in the morning near the gate of the hospital. The tea shops are one room establishment. Each shop has three employees- one person making the tea who I presu...

Cellular Operators Association of India had last week made an announcement that there are 500 million mobile numbers in India making it the second largest group of users in the world after China. This translates to a teledensity of 45 % overall with 97 % teledensity in urban areas and 18 % in rural areas. This statistics (as often is the case with agglomerate numbers) is incredulous. Some might infer that the number of people in middle income group have gone up. Such statistics hide more than what it reveals. It is most likely that this count of mobile numbers take into account SIM cards which have been issued over period of time but not those which have been disconnected. There was a racket in 2001/2004 period when mobile companies were trying to attract investors from abroad. One of the heavy weight measures to determine the value of a mobile company was the number of mobile connections and there was a concerted effort to increase the mobile connections by providing higher incentives...

Rajasthan Police has an interesting mission statement Aam jan me viswaas ( trust of the common man ) Aparaadhiyom me darr ( fear in culprits ) The way police is functioning now shows that they are half way to achieving the mission statement. The current status is Aam jan me darr ( fear in common man ) Aparaadhiyom me viswaas ! ( trust of culprits ) We had called on a senior police officer on work related matter this week. On his table was a plaque which stated Samasyaam ka aakri padaav ( The buck stops here ). We wish this is true! Delhi Police vehicles have the slogan “With you for you always “ painted on them but their performance so far shows that this slogan is like the marquee of the vehicles the police is using – standard accessory ! Jokes apart , police officials and police force in general are an overworked lot. They work on endless shifts and do not get leave of absence permission easily. They have to be on duty in full force during festivals and elections when the entire pub...

What activities and achievements give a person satisfaction? Is it winning a lottery? Is it being presented with a jewellery set? Is it success in examination? The list is long but to define satisfaction is a tough task. I was at a premier government hospital last Saturday with a member of my family for a follow up medical advice. I had to park the car at parking lot which was far away from the main premises of the hospital. As I was entering the medical block, I noticed a heavy person with a walking stick struggling to stand and his attendant who turned out to be his son struggling to keep the old man erect and standing. The old man appeared very sick. He needed a wheel chair and being a government hospital, such a contraption was not in sight. The attendant pointed out at a metal stretcher trolley on the other side of the road and requested me to bring it over. I obliged readily. The trolley stretcher was too high for the old man to mount. Then it struck me that the stretcher could b...

I have noticed in 1983 itself that the vegetable market in most localities in Mumbai were operating on the streets with their wares being spread on sacks which they roll up at the end of the day and carry home.There were very few vegetable shops operating under permanent structures indicating that the volume of business and the revenue generated rendered a business model with monthly rental outflow unviable. A couple of days back, I was on strolling in the neighbourhood. Somebody wished me and stopped his moped. The guy looked very familiar but I could not place him. He understood as much from my expression and told me that he was our neighbourhood barber. He gave me his mobile number and told me that he would come home if I wanted to have my hair cut. I was perplexed and asked him the reason for embarking on such a service.He said that he found it unviable to operate from a permanent set up paying rent. His neighbours were internet cafe, medical shop etc and he was not able to afford...

Tiger Woods crashed his car on to a water hydrant close to his house. Nobody knows how much of an injury he has suffered. He has not come clean on what really happened. Police has also not been able to interview him. Tiger has gone on record stating that it was entirely his fault and nobody else has to be blamed for the accident. Now it turns out that there was some rumbling in his house hold with his fidelity being called to question. Now Tiger is earning for privacy which he would not get as public scrutiny and glare is what is guaranteed if one is a celebrity. Being a celebrity comes with a price. Who creates a celebrity? The public. What makes the celebrity pricey? The craze of the public. So it is ridiculous for the celebrity to say that he or she wants privacy. Now let us look at Indian celebrities. Sachin Tendulkar. Aishwarya Rai. Shahrukh Khan…. We feel that they are infallible and we expect them to have a view on everything under the sun. I find this notion funny. Agreed these...

Any individual suffering from difficult diseases must have spirit to fight them. Medicine and therapy would not have much effect on a dispirited and listless patient. It is the combination of fighting spirit, medicine and therapy which helps patient to overcome the disease of affliction. My landlady is an epitome for fighting qualities. She had her first brush with the dreaded disease some years back. She was operated upon and subjected to post operative chemotherapy. She suffered a relapse couple of years back and was again operated upon and administered the cycle of chemotherapy. All on all, she has undergone twenty sessions of chemotherapy which could drain anybody physically and mentally. Somewhere towards the last months of last year, the dreaded disease spread to her lungs and the doctors felt she would not survive for than a month, all the near and dear ones were called and she spent a few days with them. My landlady has something which doctors can not inject or prescribe. It...