Petrol Rising: Are you worried?

Recently we saw another surge in the petrol prices which now stands at approx. 68 a litre. No doubt, it is going to pinch the Indian consumer's pocket a lot more but we can't help but keep buying this essential fuel to keep our vehicles running and our lives running for that matter. Lot of hue and cry about this increase and a lot of media discussion as usual. Heavy criticism thrown at the government from all corners and it becomes the ultimate villain for the Aam Aadmi at this juncture.

Okay as a matter of fact, I am not writing this to go into the details of the fuel prices increase or analyzing the price trends or produce all kind of intellectual arguments and making you scratch your heads to make a sense out of it. Enough has been written already covering all these topics and I am in no mood to add to the plethora of such writings.

I just had a passing thought in my head this morning which I wish to share. Okay here it goes.

All of us have been distressed yet again by the petrol price increase but have we ever wondered that it is still cheaper than so many commodities which we regularly spend money on. First and foremost thing which comes to my mind is alcohol. Oh yes, alcohol! A litre of petrol costs 68 but we manage to get only 650ml of beer after shelling out close to 80-90 and even the smallest unit of whisky(please read it as a quarter :) costs more than petrol! Ever made this comparison? We have hardly given it a thought before gulping down two cans of beer or 3 pegs of whisky and perhaps never made a big deal out of it. But why so with petrol?

Now let's compare the output of the two fuels (No harm in calling them fuels I guess because they look quite similar after all). A litre of petrol would make you traverse 50 odd km on your bike and 15 odd km in your car and the tastier of the two fuels (this is an assumption, you are free to taste the other one and challenge this assumption;) would hardly last for an hour or two. And yes, forget even walking one km after having it!

Damn it, why crib then??? This argument rather comparison might sound silly to some folks but there is some more to come.

I have seen many people easily consuming atleast 10-15 bottles of beer in a month spending more than they do on petrol and never complaining about the prices of alcohol but have also seen the same people queuing up at the petrol pumps on the night of price increase for saving a petty 50.

This brings me to another strange fact. Why do people queue up at the petrol pumps a night before? Even if you do a full tank for a bike, a 5 increase in price would save you no more than Rs 50. And not more than 150 for your car. Is it then worth to queue up like the fuel is going extinct at midnight! Do 150 really matter so much in this period of high inflation so that people don't mind queuing up? It only makes me wonder that probably people want to save some money for shoving some more pegs down their throat or they are extremely free and don't have anything worthwhile to do! And I am not talking about lower income group out here riding on their Tata Nano. The talk is about the Honda Cities and the Hyundai Vernas.

Well whatever the case may be, but one thing which explains the behaviour of the masses is that it's all about following other people blindly without knowing why! Both fuels are no doubt harmful in some or the other ways and the earlier we get rid of them and look for some alternates, the better it will be for us.

The H factor

There is one ubiquitous entity we find in India which is quite difficult to find in most of the other countries and that is trash, dirt and heaps of garbage lying around. This is something which we have learnt to live with. Everywhere we go the dirt follows us faster than the Vodafone network!! Many people who take great pride in having a bath two times a day and boast about their hygiene practices dont hesitate littering their surroundings at all. Dont worry I am not going to preach about the "benefits of cleanliness" but rather trying to present a different perspective to it.

What I observe from my little experience is that hygiene is not a 'hygiene factor' in India. Sounds confusing or weird? I am talking about the 'hygiene factor' as explained in the two factor theory by Herzberg during my Organizational Behaviour(OB) classes of MBA. For those of you who dont know about this theory and those who have forgotten, let me state it right away. Hygiene factors are those factors which demotivate people when they are not present in a situation but do not motivate when present. e.g. job security, salary etc. In other words these are the essential factors and must be present. Therefore, they are generally taken for granted and can be assumed to be present. Just notice the term coined for these factors namely "hygience" which implies that hygience is something which can be taken for granted and there is nothing great or motivating about it. But the definition fails miserably here in India. Herzberg should have visited the subcontinent before coining the term for these factors! Probably the poor fellow never got a chance to do that or never had the time!
Now there are motivating factors which form the other side of the theory. As the name suggests these factors motivate people if present in a situation. For us, hygiene seems to have slipped in this category. It cant be taken for granted but certainly it motivates us in a sense that it makes us feel good sending positive signals all around. As motivating factors are not easily achievable and always come at a cost, so is the case with cleanliness in India. Cleanliness is a rare sight in India and comes at a premium if it exists at all. All of us have the experience of shelling out those extra bucks in places like shopping malls and multiplexes. We become ready to spend some extra amount so easily for experiencing the pleasure and sight of a clean ambience. This is entirely because we take cleanliness as a luxury and not something as normal or basic and hence dont take it for granted. Experiencing some eye soothing environment without paying any premium definitely makes us feel lucky!
It needs a fundamental shift in our thought and culture for bringing hygiene under the purview of 'hygiene factors'. Only we can make it happen. Trash belongs to the trash can and not on the roadside.

Economic Dilution

Indian economy is one of the fastest growing economy in the world, a fact that we are all well versed with. Over the past few years it has achieved a significant growth rate close to 8-9%. It is projected that the Indian GDP will surpass the American GDP by 2041 if the growth rate continues to be at the current level over the next 30-40 years. If we look at the sector wise break-up, then the major chunk of our GDP is contributed by the services sector which is close to 60% and the rest being added by agricultural and industrial output each being close to 20%. Okay! enough of numbers. The major driver of our economy is the services sector and the economy owes a lot to the global dominance of our outsourcing and IT capabilities. But a bigger question which crops in my mind is whether we are relying excessively on this outsourcing bandwagon for our economy to grow! The services industry employs just 15-20% of our population. Isn't this creating some kind of income disparity in our society? This economic sensation isn't tickling the majority of Indians who depend on agriculture for their living. The whole 'India Shining' thing looks like a mirage.

We consider ourselves as the champions of this outsourcing business. But can we claim to be the kings forever? Can we continue to beat our slowly rising opponents and prevent them from taking a share out of the 'pie which belongs to us'. India is undoubtedly the most preferred outsourcing destination because of ample availability of skilled manpower, low payscales compared to western countries and our proficiency in english. But can we sustain our presence in the outsourcing universe and continue to grow at this unprecedented rate with the salaries rising rapidly and other nations like Philippines, Thailand and China embarking on this novel journey? The growth enjoyed by India today is confined within the boundaries of mega cities and doesn't seem to percolate down to the lowest order. Now just try to imagine our economy sans outsourcing! Does the picture look scary to you? It certainly looks like that to me. In finance we learn that "Dont put all your eggs in one basket"..yes the diversifying business!! But are we pegging all our hopes on this single machine? Shouldn't we move ahead and diversify our economy for it to be more robust and sustainable? I am not becoming paranoid here but as they say that nothing is permanent and so might be the case with this outsourcing thing. Even if we continue to outsmart the impending competition which we might face in our arena, still the growth extracted out of it is not far reaching as I mentioned. We definitely need to vitalize our other sectors for an all round development which we aim to achieve. 

If we look at our agricultural sector, then we find that the agricultural output of India is second in the world just behind China. This is in spite of all the perils like flood and drought which the nature throws at us. But Indian agriculture suffers from some serious problems like poor productivity, limited use of technology, poor irrigation facilities, poor infrastructure like power etc. The farm output per unit land is quite low compared to the global standards. The growth rate of our agriculture is also quite low at 4-5% which is below the overall growth level of our nation. The government is playing its role in improving the condition of our agriculture but catering to the needs of the largest part of our society is rather difficult. Provision of subsidies, farm credit and insurance seem to be good ways of dealing with the problems but turn out to be less effective because the root cause of the problems is not attacked. 

Industrial output of India also speaks less in the growth story. China remains the undisputed leader of the manufacturing business and the industrial output of China alone is more than the whole of India's GDP. I read somewhere that today China exports more in 1 day than what it used to export in the whole of year 1979. India is lagging colossally on this front. Even small countries like Mexico and South Korea produce more than India's industrial output. Why India is not able to  perform well in this area? The obvious reasons which prevent this sector from picking up are the hindrances created by poor infrastructure, unattractive FDI policies, outdated labour laws and excessive red-tapism. We need to energize this sector urgently if we wish to experience an all round growth and prosperity. The industrial sector holds a great promise for employing the vast majority of population having lower literacy levels. Services sector is definitely incapable of delivering this. I believe that infrastructure holds the key for triggering growth in manufacturing sector. There is an immediate need to improve the infrastructure which includes power, airports, ports, roads etc. The industrial sector can make our economy more robust and help in achieving a sustainable growth rate. These things are certainly easier said than done. The road to prosperity is rather difficult to traverse, but definitely not impossible!

We must think about rising from all directions and shed our dependence on just one business. We got to enter new realms by challenging our competitors in their own domain and beat them before they try to beat us. Only then we can realize a nation which the world will really look upto.

Play your own Game

I love playing games. Don't think otherwise please! I mean I love playing video games. This has been my passion for years and I consider myself to a be bigtime gaming enthusiast. I know it sounds weird to some people who think that gaming is meant for kids and not for grown ups but I hate to disagree with those people. In fact I would ask them to visualize 'this world' my way. It's one of the most creative thing on this earth and you cant find this creativity even in the movies. Infact, many movies are based on video games like Tomb Raider, Hitman, Max Payne etc. Here you can be someone you always desired to be and live your moment. Where else on earth can you become a cop, a footballer, a racer, an actor and may be a hooligan!! In my opinion it stimulates your grey cells to the best possible level and pumps you up from within. The mind becomes agile and you cant get the thrills and the goose-bumps in a better manner! I do agree however that some people are naturally incapable of handling the gyrating screens, the lightning fast motions and the cacophony of bizarre sounds which become hindrances for generating the quick responses needed.

I reminisce my engineering days when I played those numerous games and I was able to pass my entire days with ease while bunking classes. Not only days but I even disturbed my roomies during the night with the "highly irritating" noise of the keyboard. One of my buddy seriously couldn't sleep many a times because of the mission which used to revolve in my mind- the mission to clear all the 'missions'. The craze lasted till the end of my engineering days. After that I have not been able to pursue it for obvious reasons like job and now MBA. But the spark is still there inside and the craze has not died down yet.

While all this went on during my golden days of college, one more desire always remained inside. Actually it wasnt a desire but a dream to work in a game development industry. This particular industry always facinated me. What else can be better than working at a place which captivates you and doing something which you love doing? This dream always stayed somewhere deep in my brain and never bubbled enough and as a result it never transformed into a goal. The obvious career choices which most people pursue after engineering probably overpowered my dream career. I often regret that I didnt give it a shot which it deserved. We all would have experienced it sometimes that we dont do something which we truly love doing. We always follow a constrained path and restrict ourselves from reaching out to newer destinations. Then we regret later on somewhere in our life. We always choose our careers based on some ridiculous 'career' rules which prescribe banking, software, engineering, medical as the standard and 'right' choices. And then we force ourselves to love the mess we've got into and even manage to say occasionally to some people "Oh! I love numbers. Banking is perfect for me" when deep down inside we detest the grilling we have to go through everyday at work.

Can I do something about it now? The answer is probably NO coz I am into this new world of MBA and 'business' has become my second language. Whether I like it or not I got to learn this new language for me to survive. But I am afraid of one thing though. I am apprehensive about reaching a stage where the creative person inside me will be killed in the hustle bustle of this industry. Doing something which we dont love doing can never give us the internal bliss we all crave for. So the moral of the story is "Get the things which you love, else you'll be forced to love the things which you get". These are ofcourse not my lines :). So guys, just go ahead and chase your dreams.

The rules of 'power'

Our world is so imbalanced. The power lies with a few countries and some nations are absolutely powerless. Everybody is hungry for power which happens to be a basic human trait and this applies even to the nations. But what is this fuss about 'responsible nations'? Who has christened the so called responsible nations as 'responsible' and the not so liked nations as 'rogue' nations? I believe they are none other than some self-certified 'responsible' nations and self-proclaimed 'leaders' of the world. But, why does this self-certification work? Why not any objections to it? The answer is simple enough because these are The Powerful nations and you better listen to them! The quest for power is immense and every nations wants to dominate the world. At least if they could! The messiahs of 'equality for mankind' and 'human rights' are the ones who are leading the race for creating inequality between nations. I wish to ask them as to how about equality among nations with all nations enjoying equal rights ? If they call this world a family, then why not all members of the family be equal? Why this hunger for power and superiority?(P.S. I might sound crazy to some people. Proceed only if you can handle it.)

The history has been witness to numerous examples of prejudices and inequalities which many nations have faced. The mother of all discrepancies in this world is the very existence of the UN security council. The concept of only 5 members leading the world on important matters which concern the entire world, epitomizes the inequality among nations which I am trying to enunciate. Our motherland, India has been victim to so many of these biases which have become the norms of this world. Again, these norms are made by 'now you know who'. It's like succumbing to these biases and justifying them by saying 'that's the way things are. that's the way things work here.' And the saddest part is that 'I' cant do anything about it. 'I' don't have the right to change it. The rules are just set and forever. Nobody dare ask for a change! Even if anybody asks then just "Go to hell. We don't give a damn" or if you crave for some respect then we give you this "Probably we have other important issues on hand. This is not the right time to discuss this." or "the world has other priorities right now".

Lets talk about the N-word now. Hey! I am talking about the latest buzzword 'Nuclear'. The NPT recognizes only 5 nations as Nuclear powers or more appropriately Nuclear Weapons State (NWS). They have been endowed with this privilege because they were the ones who possesed nuclear arms at the time when the treaty was floated. So they can continue with the possession and manufacturing of the nuclear arms. Even if any non-signatory country decides to sign the treaty, they forfeit the right to produce or acquire any nuclear weapons because they fall under the category of Non NWS. The boundaries cannot alter. Even if a country like India which is surrounded by hostile neighbours like China and Pakistan and who perceives them as a threat to its national security, decides to sign the treaty, still the same rules apply because the rules are made once and for all. No consideration is given even if you are a proven nuclear state and you too are responsible. But hey, India does not have the right to self certify its responsible status!! This right solely lies with the so called powerful states. We don't have that decision power! No Non-NWS country can think about its national safety even if it perceives nuclear threat and is ready to act responsible! The situation is just ironical at its best. Today India fulfills every criteria for being a NWS country which the 5 countries met at the time when the NPT was instituted. But as I said, rules have been made and forever. Just because we got late in developing the technology, we lost out in the battle for reaching the acme. And the people who made it till there created these impervious boundaries. It's just like neglecting a kid because he learnt the poem late. No marks for learning late even if you are perfect at it now!

The arguments are simply endless and so is the vast ocean of this power imbalance. The things dont seem to be changing. The rules of this world are inscribed on a piece of stone and I dont see any knife capable of scraping them off. Dont know, when this pursuit of power will end or will it ever end? I hope someday it will and the world will truly be a better place to live in. We must start sharpening our knives to rewrite the rules which can change the world for better.

-chandradeeps@gmail.com

Is GOD there?

We all believe in GOD. At least the most of us. But have you ever wondered why do we believe in the almighty? Or why do we call him the ALMIGHTY in the first place, somebody whom we have never seen? We all have been taught or we have experienced or heard somewhere in our life that we shouldn't believe in something which we haven't seen. Then why do we believe in him and have faith in his powers? If god exists and if he is watching us, then why doesn't he appear atleast on some occasions? God is believed to have reigned our planet thousands of years ago. But why not today? Why cant a Ram or a Christ or a Mohammad be born now? What does believing in god mean actually? Do we just follow him because we identify ourselves with his spiritual teachings or do we believe god to possess some supernatural powers? What is god actually? Is it just a matter of powerful faith or there exists a mightiest of all the entities?

The answers to all these questions are very difficult for me to determine. But this belief in god is very good for the world indeed. Whether god exists or not, but this belief is certainly needed for goodness to prevail on this earth. We all are incited for doing good things for the people around us and for the humanity because of the fear of this unknown, someone we believe is more powerful than us. We believe that god is watching us always and we will be inflicted with misery, grief and pain if we don't comply with his teachings. It acts as an incentive for us to adopt the right moral values and for goodness to prevail as I mentioned earlier. Imagine a world without any god and I wouldn't be surprised to see this goodness becoming execrably low as the fear of the X-factor will cease to exist. But as we all know that exceptions are always there which explains the existence of evilness in our world.

Large groups of people claim to believe in god but don't seem to be because they do exactly opposite to what their almighty preaches. No religion preaches violence and physical aggression. But people still resort to such means in the name of religion for achieving their selfish motives. Treachery, hatred, selfishness, cheating, crime and all such negative things do exist in spite of the thing called god. Why don't such people have that fear? If god creates everybody why would he want anybody to not follow him? Again I find myself clueless when I look for the answer.

The battle between good and evil, faith and disbelief, virtues and vices seems to be a never ending one. But I would wish that the GOD will appear someday and demonstrate his powers so that the whole world can believe in him alike and the goodness can prevail forever ceasing the ongoing battle. Whether god exists or not, I always wish to believe in him because it gives me the inner strength, courage and conviction to follow the right path and be a good human being at the end of the day. After all, faith is indeed the most powerful force.

The politics of America

I was watching the speech delivered by Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention the other day and it fascinated me so much that I thought about writing this piece in my blog. The speech was so wonderfully woven to perfection. The charismatic leader had all the ingredients in his speech befitting the occasion, right from social issues like employment, healthcare, education to the economic issues like trade deficit, inflation, taxes and the foreign policy issues like nuclear proliferation, 'war against terrorism' etc. It was a very comprehensive coverage of the Democratic agenda for the forthcoming elections. It was one of the most inspiring and motivating speech I've ever heard in my life. The most amazing thing which struck me was the enormous support which Obama got from the audience which thronged the arena beyond capacity. Intermittently, he had to calm the public down so that he could articulate on his agenda.
As I finished through the entire show of a great political speech, I realized that there is a great deal of difference in the politics of America and the politics of India. Don't worry, I am not going to bore you with the fundamental differences between the parliamentary and presidential forms of government. I think we had enough of that in our Civics books while we were in school. So just read on to notice some differences which I have come across. Firstly, people in America truly love their leaders. When I say love, I literally mean the term. I could see a plethora of emotions on the faces of the audience whenever the camera captured the large gathering closely. In India we just support a leader or more appropriately, a political party. Here, we don't identify ourselves with what the leader has to say. We just support them for the purpose of voting and nothing more. I had never ever seen such an awe-inspiring support for any leader in India with the crowd going crazy chanting the names of the political leader, wavering their national flag with all the energy they can muster and projecting banners so enthusiastically.
Secondly, in America, people judge a leader based on his qualities and the 'changes' he proposes to make and as far as my knowledge is concerned, people in India succumb to many biases while electing a leader . The most common bias includes electing a party based on its 'affinity' for a particular religion, caste or social setting(BSP for dalits, DMK for hardcore Tamilians and many more such examples exist). The whole secularism thing seems like a sham in Indian politics when the parties themselves lure and favour people of a particular religion or caste. People tend to blindly follow a particular party no matter what the party has done in the past or what it intends to do in the future. No wonder the left parties like CPI(M) are surviving due to such reasons. I sometimes wonder, whether the LEFT parties can ever be RIGHT??? Part of the problem lies due to the low literacy among the prospective voters who are easily fooled or programmed to vote for a particular party for which they have been voting forever. These people dont seem to analyze the election agenda against their concerns and needs. On the other hand, the educated group of people living in India has a very low voting percentage which makes the matter worse.
Thirdly, in America, the whole election process runs very formally and smoothly. There is a well defined schedule of events during the entire course of elections right from nomination, campaigning, convention and the election. There are debates on important issues between the nominees so that the people can weigh and compare the proposed solutions to the critical problems which the country is facing. The election process in India is more haphazard in nature and the face to face debates do not exist in India.

Fourthly, the attacks made by the leaders in America on each other are more inclined towards criticizing the policies of the leader whereas in India we even see the dirtiest of personal attacks from the leader. American leaders respect the other party leaders as human beings not challenging their character, dignity and patriotism though we saw some personal attacks made by Republican leader John McCain towards Barack Obama as an exception. Attacks through TV advertisements are quite common in America whereas in India, be ready to be questioned about the source of funding if you ever show a TV advertisement publicizing your party achievements(Remember the BJP India Shining Campaign)!!
Lastly, the presidential election in America starts with around 20 people running for the president(around 8-10 people from each party and some independents). These people are some of the greatest politicians of their country with an impeccable record and some profound accomplishments. The bitter battle to clinch the nomination from their respective parties starts the process of eliminating the president hopefuls. It works similar to a filtering process where only the best of the best survive in the end. And it's so difficult to find even 2 such leaders in our country who are worthy of becoming the Prime Minister!! Aren't we facing a dearth of some good leaders? Even Mayawati is up for the challenge now!! Oh gosh!!
People say that "politics is a dirty game". I agree that it is and it has to be, whether it is America or India or any other democracy. But in American Politics, there is some flavour of motivation, achievement and true leadership which attracts you to the glitz of this 'dirty' business. Unfortunately, I fail to find even one such motivating factor which can inspire the youth of India to take on this job of leading the country wading through the heaps of pure mud.

Disclaimer: The thoughts presented are entirely personal and are not meant to discourage any young blood from entering the world of politics. I will be more than happy if you do so. Thanks and leave any comment if you feel like.