Never a dull moment

We have some baffling statistics. The number of people living below poverty line in India is a matter of endless debate. There seems to be a general agreement ( or to be more precise, no disagreement ) over the poverty figure of 45 %. The population of India as per Census 2011 is estimated to be 1210 million. 45 % of this works out to 540 million and those above poverty line works out to 670 million. If we form country formed of only those below poverty line in India, it will the third biggest in world after China and India and way ahead of the third highest populated country in the world USA with around 300 million people. Now comes another interesting statistics - there are 830 million mobile phone connections in India. How is this possible ? There has to be more than two SIM cards registered with a lot of people to achieve this figure.Also one to keep in mind that the population below 10 years of age do not need a specifically assigned mobile phone. May be the mobile phone companies...

Process ! Process !! Process !!! This is the new credo in every office. It makes it look as though everybody was working ( since Indian Independence ) without a process and got to where we are today without a care for systematic work. Frankly the way people and organisations go about their work today and the results achieved do not indicate any marked change in terms of quality of output and quantum of output. Orders continue to be difficult to track, outstanding difficult to obtain and deliveries happen haphazardly. But the English has changed. Process has become a good smokescreen to hide behind. If somebody asks why his or her salary is delayed, the response is that process is being followed and not an apology for the delay in paying the salary. When somebody questions the delay in execution of some work in office, pat comes the reply that the employees are sticking to a process. To me , it appears as though the meaning of the word "process" these days is "no". P...

When we ask somebody to be a sport, we want him/ her to be accommodating forgiving and forgetting an unsavoury incident or mishap. The term sportsman spirit also conveys a similar meaning of accommodation - let the bygones be bygones and let us continue our journey. But the game of cricket seems to be different in some aspects as a sport. Where else do you find visiting teams being pushed into Test matches with only perfunctory three day match thrown in for acclimatisation after the visiting team lands on a foreign soil ? The visiting team is also made to follow a punishing itinerary pushing it from one far off corner of the country to another with different climatic conditions with short intervals between matches. Added to that, the pitches are doctored to favour the hosts. Normally a host does his/ her best to accommodate the guest and fulfill the guest's needs. But the home association hosting a visiting Test / One day cricket team does not behave the way English dictionary defi...