Love is blind....

That's all one can say after reading this!

Whom would you support

if you saw the following reports on newspapers?

1. TOI says that a peaceful rally against the proposed reservation is planned today in Bangalore by the 'Youth for Equality' - a group of medicos, engineering students, IIT and IIM alumni with full support of the IT comunity working for the MNCs in Bangalore. The organisers have obtained prior permission from the police, they have garnered support by distributing pamphlets all over the city and sending SMS urging people to join them.

2. The Tribune reports of a pro-quota rally which turned violent in Patna yesterday. 35 people of which 20 were protesters were injured in the violence and police lathi charge that ensued. Now, they were medicos too... who came out to protest supposedly with hockey sticks in their hand. So much for peaceful intent!

Please bear in mind that I am not saying reservation is right or wrong. I am just pointing out two different demonstrations by two groups both made up of mostly medical students. Looking at the news items above. Who do you think deserves our support?

Around the world in 80 seconds...

1. Medicos spark off a nation wide protest against reservation policy in India.
2. BSE crashes by 800+ points, the largest fall in history.
3. Nepal Government moves to curb Royal power.
4. People demostrate in Turkey against the extremist killing of a moderate court judge.
5. Widespread demonstrations in Egypt in support of a few judges who are considered symbolic of Egypt's judicial independence and reform movement.


What do the above news stories have in common? To me, they represent signs of sanity in this insane world.

First we go to India. I am an avid follower of the reservation discussion - both pro and anti. And so far, I must say that the anti-reservation group seems to have come up with the most cogent, sensible arguments as far as I am concerned. The pro-reservation groups have turned me off with unimaginative slogans, emotional outbursts and some mundane nonsense. I am also pleased to see that this time around, the protests are practical and based on solid economic arguments. I see people debating instead of disrupting public life, setting themselves and probably others on fire to claim their 30 seconds of fame and generally acting crazy like they did during the previous protests under V.P Singh's rule. Well, there might have been a few small incidents of violence, but definitely not the kind witnessed last time.

And about the BSE, in one of my previous posts, I had questioned the reasons behind this historic rise of the Sensex as I was really worried that people might have taken this 'India Shining' bullshit seriously. The Sensex had a mighty fall, in fact the biggest in history which is reassuring to me. At least some people are in their right senses. And rediff in their original idiotic style reported it as if it was the end of the world. Well, if the market had its biggest ever rise, it will also have its biggest ever fall! Duh!!

In Nepal, after all the protests, street marches and stone pelting, sense seems to prevail. And I am glad that the people are seriously thinking of putting an end to a royal farce called 'King Gyanendra'. This guy is one 'royal' pain in the butt and he even comes with factory fitted 'sinister looks'. Everything about him including the way he came to power and tried to stay in power is creepy. The earlier they throw him in jail the better for their country.

A poor reformist judge was shot dead in a courthouse in Turkey when he pronounced a 'strict ban on head scarves'. It's heartening to know that people have come out on to the streets in support of his reformist view and against the dark forces of religious extremism.

In Egypt, a few judges were arrested after the poor guys spoke up against official corruption during elections making them symbols of Egypt's judical independence and reform movement. They were sentenced to five years in jail in a political-legal drama which was widely seen as an act of political vendetta. People are vehemently protesting this farce.

As I read all these news articles, my faith in human intelligence is being very slowly restored.

Something I have to do

before I die... Fly the Mig-25! I can almost visualize myself piercing the stratosphere like a bullet, or in my case, a canon-ball! He he.

My Transition.....

from a normal 'human' to a Dilbert style 'manager' is complete. I was stunned by my own thinking the other day in my Corporate Strategy class. We were discussing corporate governance and ethics and we looked at Vioxx, the failed drug from Merck.

Most of us know that Pharma is a peculiar industry. The big players spend so much on R&D (Pfizer alone spent close to $7 billion last year) that they only make money on a few drugs called 'blockbusters'. These are drugs that do more than a billion dollars of sales a year and are heavily patent protected. Pharma companies would like to have atleast half a dozen blockbusters at any given time. The moment the patent expires on these drugs, the generic drug makers take over and the profits of the big players plummet.

Merck (one of the giants) was in serious trouble. A lot of patents were about to expire and Merck had no good 'blockbuster' in the pipeline. The only drug with the potential to be a blockbuster was Vioxx - a prescription pain killer used specially to treat arthritis. It was under advanced user trials and Merck got it approved by the FDA. There are indications that Merck knew that 0.74% of the population undergoing trials showed adverse effects to Vioxx. And there were enough indications that Vioxx could cause cardio problems in people. But Merck decided to release it and market it effectively.

Tens of thousands of people died or suffered permanent damage in the U.S and Europe due to cardiac arrests and stroke caused by Vioxx. There was a huge uproar and finally Merck decided to withdraw the drug and compensate the victims (compensation runs into billions of dollars). The question was - 'Was Merck right in releasing the drug in spite of knowing that less than one percent of the control group suffered from adverse effects?'

I started thinking... "Okay, less than one percent of the control group showed adverse effects. The possible gain is $2.5 billion in first year sales. Merck does not have another alternative to Vioxx, thats the only blockbuster it have. Does Merck have a choice? Keep aside some amount for possible compensation, go ahead and release the drug". Ater a moment, I looked at my own decision with disbelief. The 'less than one percent' amounted to tens of thousands of dead people. And for their families, no amount of money would 'compensate' the loss.

Statistics can be helpful, but is not an end in itself. I learnt that it is also necessary to look at actual numbers and interpret these numbers in order to make a financially and morally sound decision. This lesson will stay with me all my life.

(Disclaimer: This posting is not about Merck and its management decisions. The case has been condensed, some details might have been left out.)

The Games People Play...

Read a news report on The Independent . I was wondering if any thought was spared at all to those numerous families that will continue to be separated by a man-made boundary, to those young kids who will never find the love of one parent just because a few megalomaniacs calling themselves 'leaders' supported a narrow minded political view with a statistical game.

The votes in favour of this move were 6:5. ONE goddamned vote decided the fate of so many families. Like I always say... I cant help but laugh at the ridiculousness of man's thinking. We have this whole planet and all its beauty to cherish, but NO, we want to segregate ourselves into nations and stop people from moving around. And then we want to divide ourselves into states and provinces and fight some more. And if that is not enough we want to group ourselves into religions, sects and what not and fight even more.

Mission Impossible III

If you are really desperate for some mind numbing violence, blinding colors and deafening noise and you are not the kind of person who's bothered with some finer points like storyline, logic and other such things, you should definitely watch MI-III. This movie is purely 'of the stuntmen, by the stuntmen and for the stuntmen' material.


It tries really hard to position itself in the 'Bond' category (Bond fans, dont kill me!) but it just looks like a cheap rip-off. I mean, this movie gives you fast cars, exotic locales, beautiful ladies, unbelievable fight sequences and a cocky hero to boot, but still Ethan Hunt doesn't even come close to the smashing 007. Mr. Bond is in a different league altogether.

Just a few things that kept me wondering throughout the movie:

1. Why send a half naked lady to Vatican just to blow up a nice Lamborghini?

2. If the villain really wanted to kill the agents, why didn't he just shoot them? Why go to the elaborate trouble of shooting a "delayed charge into the skull through the nasal cavity"? And that too a charge that takes five minutes to explode after being activated? And a charge that can be de-activated by passing a heavy electric current through the person's body? I know hi-tech is stylish and all, but this is plain ridiculous!

3. 'Rabbit's Foot' (though the movie never explains what this is) is probably a biological weapon with a label that says 'DANGER: BIO-HAZARD'. Isn't it surprising that this weapon in sealed in a glass case and kept in a glass and steel skyscraper in the heart of Shanghai? Well, since the Chinese didn't care for the safety of their citizens in the first place, we can probably excuse Ethan Hunt for dropping the glass case on a busy street. Come on!

4. It took Ethan Hunt under two hours to plan and execute the mission to get hold of the 'Rabbit's Foot'. Within 1.5 hours, the team had set up a machine that shoots baseballs on top of one skyscraper (why they needed the machine is still beyond me), they had also put up the necessary equipment to help Ethan jump from one skyscraper to another. Thats raising productivity levels to new heights!

5. Considering that Ethan took under 20 minutes to get into a 'high security' area and come out with a biological weapon, I was half expecting it to be gift wrapped!

6. Was the cameraman part of the 'Blair Witch Project'? I am still suffering from blur vision 12 hours after watching the movie, thanks to the rapid camera movements!

Marriages are made in heaven.....

or so the saying goes. I wonder what this man has to say!

That's Customer Delight!

A brothel in Berlin has started a special service for virgins and first timers by providing them with specialist prostitutes who are sensitive to the needs of this special class of customers. Prostitution is supposedly legal in Germany and they charge €60 for half an hour.

Apparently 'The 40 yr old Virgin' wasn't considered funny in Germany. Now we know why... the customers of this brothel are not necessarily young men but often 40 years or older, according to the owner of the brothel. Is it any wonder then that Germany has a dying population! ;-)

Click here for original story. With this story, the rating for my blog has been changed from PG to R21. :)

Re-serve, my foot!

Rediff carries a small post today which shows activists 'All India Reservatio Forum for OBC and SC/ST' staging a dharna in 'Nai Dilli' as a response to the recent demonstrations against the proposed reservation. Their slogan was 'Reservation = Re-serve the nation'. I rest my case....


These dodos can't even be creative with their slogan, can you imagine what they will do to our IITs and IIMs? Can you imagine such people as the CEO's of our MNCs? Even under the current merit based system, there is so much politics & filth in private organizations. Just imagine what a reservation will do.

Now don't get me wrong. I am not against those poor tribals or the genuinely backward who are struggling to get even basic education, forget IIM. I am against those people who own multi-storeyed houses in cities, who move around in big cars and then claim their right to freebies quoting that they are 'backward'. And I am dead against those crooks who take the genuinely backward masses for a ride to garner votes. I earnestly believe that both kinds of people are a burden to our soceity.

If the so called leaders are earnest in their effort, they should first conduct a public study on how reservation has helped the backward classes and at what cost. Dont tell me that there is no soceital cost involved in employing and promoting a less-deserving person over a meritorious candidate. I am sure people can accept a nominal cost if the exercise is indeed fruitful.

Instead of wasting my tax money on worthless nincompoops, I suggest that the government come up with a creative plan:-
1. First, make schooling compulsory - not 4 or 5 years - the entire 14-16 years. If you want to spend any money, do it here. Establish more schools, hire more teachers (and for god's sake pay them!) and distribute scholarships (few) and loans (freely available - but should be diligently collected later. Better get some banks involved instead of a corrupt government body).
2. Provide optional vocationary training in high school. Let people choose their own skills instead of forcing everyone to study boring topics like Indian Freedom Movement, Five Year Plans and their objectives - who cares? Whats the use of studying how 'bravely' our ancestors fought against the so called tyranny of the British (as far as I know, they were more benevolent than our own governments) if I cant get a job?

These two steps will go a long way in creating a responsible, employable talent pool which will work towards a more productive and affluent India.

3. Encourage small scale 'specialist' industries. Not that bloody 'khadi gramodyog ' and 'agarbathi' kind of nonsense. If China can make electronics a cottage industry, why are we still rolling beedis?
4. Banish the trade unions and the CPI (he he just kidding! they are necessary to bring a balance in soceity and sometimes for the sheer entertainment they provide!)
5. Eliminate the complexities involved in setting up a business. (It takes an average of 85 days to set up a company in India!)

The above steps will ensure employment to the trained manpower that comes out of educational institutes and they will have more productive work to do than writing those stupid slogans and demonstrating for a cause they dont understand!

A Chance Meeting with the Fuhrer himself

As I Googled for some details on Pramod Mahajan, I found a link to a blog by someone who calls himself 'Hitler's Soul'. Below the title was his description, the words 'IIM Calcutta'. And I thought "Aha! an IIM wallah! Let's see what he's got to say about life" and I started reading. I liked his sense of humor, no doubt. But more than his hyper-imaginative, comic depiction of his own life, I liked the way he laughed at himself and I liked his down-to-earth nature.

We get bombarded with so many images by the media about these 'young achievers' that we hurriedly form an impression of a brainy, nerdy, ambitious person the moment we hear 'IIM' associated with these guys. Well, my image of an IIM grad was already changing thanks to our dear professors Das and Vish. This blog has really cast the new image of a 'fun loving, easy going IIM wallah' in concrete.

Hitler's Soul ( I wonder why he calls himself that) jots down interesting happenings with a comic touch - good timepass on a lazy afternoon! You can find a link to his blog under the 'Links' section.

A Sense of Deja Vu

The year was 2000. I was in my final semester of Engineering and I was closely following the Indian economy in general and one industry in particular - IT of course! To drill down further, I was looking at one company with utmost interest. Infosys was my dream, I wanted to be an 'Infoscion' from the very day I heard about the company and its charismatic leader.


Infosys was growing 100% every quarter and so was almost every other Indian IT major. Ah, those were the golden days of IT. Everyone was bullish about India and especially the IT sector. Everything was hunky dory. I was lucky enough to squeeze into Infosys in October 2000. And then in a flash, it was all over.

First, the dot-com bubble burst and NASDAQ crashed in 2000. The Bombay sensex fell from its heady 5300 levels to the 3500 levels. Then came the death blow in 2001. The twin towers came crashing down and so did the world economy. IT in India, which was majorly driven by US demand took a huge hit. The Sensex was probably doing 2500 levels by late 2001. What a fall it was!

Small time players shut shop and laid off people. Bigger companies stopped recruiting. They couldn't lay off people coz it would hurt their image. With their solid cash base, I guess they could maintain an employee base of close to 10,000 over a short term. I languished on 'bench' for ten months before I got into a live project. I still remember my 'bench' days with pain - the frustration, the hopelessness.

Fast forward to 2006. As my MBA program enters its last phase, I observe the Indian economy in general and one industry in particular. The Indian economy seems to be on a roll, growing at 7% every year. The stock markets are at historic high levels with the BSE Sensex at 12,000 odd. IT companies are upbeat and I see an article on rediff that says techies are having a ball in India. Every Indian IT major needs 25,000 people per year. Salaries have gone up 14% on average. Everything seems hunky dory again, and that is what worries me! :(



Is India such a good bet - Even when the morons in power think reservation in private sector is a good idea? Aren't wage hikes eating into India's competitive advantage - 'low cost talent'? Does anyone really believe that those astronomical real estate prices in Indian cities are justified, given the dismal state of infrastructure? When I look at all this, I cant help but look back at 2000 and ask myself "How long will this last?"

A selfish human that I am, I ask myself "Will this dream run hold until I complete my MBA? Can I get lucky once again and manage to sqeeze in just before the gates close? And how many months will I languish on bench this time around? Or is it too optimistic on my behalf to hope for bench time? With 60,000 people on their rolls, can the companies afford not to lay off people this time around, image or no image?" Only time will tell. Call me pessimistic, but I dont feel too comfortable with this dizzy growth.

(Picture Courtesy: Yahoo!News and Analisi Tecnica Online)

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men...

Apple decided to move onto Intel Chips last year. Intel was supposedly in talks with Apple since 2003 to push for this deal and was happy to see an Apple Computer with 'Intel Inside' launched in Jan 2006. Sales have been pretty good and Apple shipped more Intel based machines than its own PowerPC based macs this year. This was touted as a great move by the folks at Apple, Intel and pundits alike. For Apple, it was a show of its superiority over MicroSoft now that both OS worked on the same platform. Intel was happy that it could overcome the 'final frontier' of sorts.


But no one accounted for the number of attacks on the new Mac OS. I read today that the security threat for Mac OS (especialy on Intel) is growing by the day. Mac suddenly seems to have lost its aura of technical superiority. This news report should have brought the smile back on the faces of the folks at Redmond. Another legend falls by the wayside.....