ramya bhaava chaitanyam

Thirteen years ago, when the internet boom was on, almost every acquaintance of mine told me I was a fool not to invest in tech IPOs that were a rage back then. I kept responding that I don’t like gambling in wall street. When the bubble burst around 2000, I was relieved that I didn’t have to look back and agree that I was indeed a fool . At the same time, I was sad seeing how some of my friends and relatives lost huge chunks of their investments overnight.

Not that I was not invested in the stock market at all. In my first job at Kodak, a couple of years before the internet boom, I was educated on long-term investing when I enrolled in their 401(K) plan. I subscribed to ideas like:

1. Historically, equities have always over-performed other investment classes and are likely to do so even though history provides no guarantee of future
2. Timing the market is a crazy idea. If you are not invested for just 7 days out of 365 in a year, your returns may be dramatically different from the overall market’s.

I continue to invest even now with a long-term outlook. And I believe, well regulated financial markets are necessary to pool capital, encourage innovation and build wealth for the globe.

But from the material I came across in the last few days, seems like today’s financial markets are a law unto themselves that are seriously in collusion with governments or even independent regulators (lokpals of the financial world), causing serious harm to the short and medium term destinies of people across the globe. When I read in http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-people-vs-goldman-sachs-20110511 how a senate investigation uncovered deliberate actions on the part of an investment bank to

• Bet against its own products that were sold at a premium to its customers
• Re-classify lower grade investment products and sell them at higher prices as premium grade products

I wonder if it is safe to even go near the wall street. I wonder why the regulators and governments are not cracking down on such malpractices and saving the globe from self-inflicted misery.

Worse! I realize that myself and almost everyone on this planet who are dependent on the well-being of our economies to lead a comfortable and fruitful life are endangered if a few ultra powerful institutions are allowed to play criminal greed games.

As an employee of a corporation that provides jobs to a very large number of people, I am sensitized to the importance of good corporate management. Lack of discipline in financial management and business strategy puts at risk the livelihood of those employed by a corporation. I also understand the need for financial markets to mercilessly de-value companies that are inefficient and destined to fail.

But what I fail to understand is why governments and regulators don’t seem to be preventing artificial inflation and deflation of the value of a company, possible through speculation stoked by what should be illegal trading. When I read http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/wall-streets-naked-swindle-20100405, it just doesn’t make sense to not sit up and take notice of how everyone’s hard-earned wealth is being played with in a poorly regulated game.

So when I come across a movement like #occupywallstreet, I can understand the meaning of that movement. Just like Janlokpal movement resonated in India, I can understand if that movement resonates in the US and the world over, in every economy where the regulators were lax enough to allow criminal misconduct in markets, endangering existence of businesses and wealth of common investors.

I’m no expert in these matters and hence, I may not be exposed to the counter arguments or fallacies in the stories I am going by. I’ll be relieved to be proven wrong!

Knowing that I’m also a fan of Arundhati Roy, a friend of mine asked me my opinion on her criticism of Janlokpal movement.

1. Firstly, she did Team Anna a big favor as most journalists and common ppl who have no time to read and understand AR’s position think of her as “traitor” . Had AR come out in support, pundits would have gone on and on citing her support as one more evidence of Team Anna being a bunch of extremists.
2. AR is bitter that media does not give the same kind of support to more focused causes bcos they r not addressing urban middle-class pain points. Her point is true but then I believe causes like janlokpal, if taken care of, will bring more accountability into the system and that will eventually benefit AR’s constituency as well
3. See that Medha Patkar, whom AR supported in Narmada andolan, is now part of Team Anna
4. AR is also critical of Team Anna for using nationalistic slogans but then (a) If that helps them succeed, why not use nationalist fervor; why do they have to be purists ideologically and (b) while AR is right in thinking of nationalism as an out-dated concept, she is also ahead of her times compared to common people

Logic and reason have a place and time. This is a time to celebrate the fantastic movement that common people incl. house wives, college students, working professionals joined voluntarily.
Pundits are underestimating the judgement capability of Anna’s followers. They are not blind followers like most political party members; they do not necessarily subscribe to all of Anna’s beliefs and causes. They backed him in the case of Janlokpal bcos Anna backed a draft that was put together by a seasoned team of Shanti Bhushan, Prashant Bhushan, Arvind Kejriwal, Kiran Bedi and Santosh Hegde.
While it is true that political movements need a good foundation, they really need lot more of pragmatism, mass support, operational support and media savvy to succeed spectacularly. Team Anna had a good foundation in the draft created by a respectable team listed above. Anna brought popularity to the cause with his gandhian methods and reputation. Good aides advised them on how to work with the media. Volunteers clearly did a tremendous job with operations. That’s why this movement succeeded. Bottom line is that none of the pundits who criticise Anna can claim credit for making a mass movement succeed as spectacularly as Team Anna did.
Team Anna doesn’t believe either that Janlokpal is the beginning and end of all battles against corruption. They have as large an agenda as any one else speaking on the topic (incl. all pundits, Nandan Nilekani and Rahul Gandhi). They are wise to start somewhere and try to take one step at a time instead of waiting for all pieces to get ready. [Btw, public funding of elections will not clean up elections unless we first force political parties to publish and audit their accounts].
Team Anna displayed a maximalist attitude to resolution and I believe that was needed to get at least the resolution they got at the end. They knew what they were doing and did not give a signal that they were willing to back down not because they are unreasonable individuals but because that’s the way they needed to play to get the system to listen and act.
For those who fear others will also try to blackmail the system adopting Team Anna’s style, I don’t believe cheap imitators will get the same public support and hence, I don’t have the same fear.

In other words, I feel pundits are jumping the gun. They need to hold their horses and trust that other people are as wise as them, if not wiser.

I’ve never been a die-hard fan of Sachin - e.g., I never walked away from TV when Sachin got out - my love was for the game of cricket and Sachin’s a part of that, and not the whole. Sachin’s significance for me was very different. As Sachin’s just one year younger than me, I’ve seen him as the representative of my generation of indians when he started playing for the country and succeeded. As a song in a popular telugu movie of 1993 said - “mana kannaa chinna vaallu, tendulkar manjrekarlu, lErA manak-example-u!”

In the initial years, it was inevitably Sanjay Manjrekar and Sachin Tendulkar who would rescue india with a wonderful partnership after the top collapsed. Of course, manjrekar is no longer on the scene; nor is vinod kambli. A lot have come and gone from the game but not Sachin. He has been the one constant.

Why am I thanking Sachin? For much more than cricket actually.

Firstly, for being such a wonderful example of successful people can and should stay humble and hungry. Most importantly though, for standing up tall yesterday and saying to the thugs of Raj Thackeray that “Mumbai belongs to all Indians. I am a Maharashtrian and am extremely proud of that. But I am an Indian first.” This is the first time I’ve seen Sachin make a comment connected to politics. He has in general stayed very clear of politics. But the fact that he has put his hand up and spoken against none other than the biggest goons in maharashtra politics today is really worth thanking. Thank you Sachin, for everything and this comment in particular!

It’s very important to recognize and appreciate good work so that we strengthen the hands of those few who eschew the easy but mediocre path and put in the hard work needed to do a good job. I’ve seen many friends complain about the state of journalism, esp. TV journalism in India. In that context, I would like to recognize India Today’s analysis of “State of States” as an example of how data-based approach to journalism (a la balanced scorecard approach in businesses) can throw the right light on state of affairs. TV news teams everywhere need to practice such methodology and eschew the broad generalizations in argumentative and shallow opinion based shows.

Coming to India Today’s analysis, I was pleasantly surprised to read the success stories from Sikkim and Himachal Pradesh. I’ve never been to both places - I would love to go to both these places. It was interesting to see that southern states such as Karnataka and Andhra where IT has created an economic boom are not really the leading lights when measured on a broad basis with objective criteria.

More than any thing else, I hope that this kind of analysis becomes main stream enough for politicians and bureaucrats to start measuring their performance in an objective way.

Found three interesting examples of management/planning (or the lack of them) in yesterday’s and today’s telugu newspaper (eenaadu):

• Food corporation of India’s warehouses in Andhra Pradesh are full as the wheat stored in there is yet to be distributed. This will mean farmers will find it difficult to sell this year’s kharif produce to millers who are obligated to sell a portion of their milled rice to FCI before they can sell the same in open market.
• Andhra Pradesh government over-estimated the revenue inflows and hence, is strapped of cash needed to pay its bills. At the same time, cabinet clears a Rs. 3 crore plan to build a memorial for the chief minister recently killed in an accident.
• AP Cabinet decides to increase the subsidy rice quota on ration cards only after the bogus cards are detected and cancelled. Understandable, isn’t it

When Obama asserted, “Yes, we can”, I wrote - I really hope “He can” and “They can”. I’m really sad that both Obama and america failed their first litmus test since then and showed once again that “they still cannot”.

Look at the latest incident of a very respected african-american Harvard professor arrested just because a white police officer felt he was offended by the tone of the professor’s voice. More shocking is the approval that police officer got from many americans, calling the police offer as some one just doing his job. What really sucks is the way Obama felt pressured and backtracked saying:

I actually just had a conversation with Sgt. Jim Crowley, the officer involved. And I have to tell you that, as I said yesterday, my impression of him was that he was a outstanding police officer and a good man, and that was confirmed in the phone conversation. And I told him that.

What nonsense! Come on president Obama! Please show some backbone in defense of justice. Why do you have to bow to the “we can never do any wrong” police in US? Why can’t you say,

“I think it’s worse than stupid,” said Mr. Medley, 65, the retired Chicago professor. “I think it was mean-spirited and ill-intended.”

America has a long, long way to go. I was and continue to be scared by their self-righteous attitude and belief that they can never be wrong in their judgment. Here are some quotes from the news stories related to this incident. I’m devastated reading such quotes.

“It seems to me that Dr. Gates was simply arrested for being upset, and he was arrested for being upset because he’s a black man,” said Wayne Martin, 25, an official at the Atlanta Housing Authority, who is also black.

“Wayne Martin is wondering when it became illegal to be angry at a law enforcement official.”

Mr. Vivian, 47, said that he had been unfairly stopped by the police in the past, but that he lived by “an unwritten code” for dealing with these incidents. And Dr. Gates certainly did not obey the code, he said.

Quiet politeness is Rule No. 1 in surviving an incident of racial profiling, he said. So is the frequent use of the word “sir.”

“People used to say, ‘Look, there’s a Colin Powell. There’s an Oprah Winfrey.’ Now they say, ‘There’s a black president.’ I say, I’m happy to see the exceptions. There’s always an exception. But I’m interested in how society treats the average person.”

Postscript 1: There used to be a prison near my home in avenel. I used to drive past it every day. The picture here doesn’t tell you how imposing it was. I used to dread being taken in there some day because of some stupid police officer’s mistaken logic. Thankfully, I’m now out of that police state!

Postscript 2: If you haven’t seen Crash (2004), you should.

It shows a white villainous police officer who molests a black woman right before the eyes of her husband in one scene become a genuine hero in a second scene, endangering his own life to save the life of the same lady he molested, and a helpless guy in the third, pleading with a black insurance agent to help pay for his dad’s health care. It shows how a well-meaning police officer ends up murdering an innocent black man because he is afraid that the latter may harm him. It shows with many may more examples how people have lost control over their own fate because of the way systems operate in america.

“nippulu chimmukunToo
nimgiki nE negiripOtE,
nibiDaaScharyamtO veeru

netturu kakkukumToo
nElaku nEraalipOtE
nirdaakshiNyamgaa veere”
- Sri Sri

All that I felt after reading Mr. Ramalinga Raju’s confession statement was sadness even though I work for a competitor of Satyam. No leader’s falling should be a cause for celebration, even by his/her competitors.

I’m dismayed by the amount of vitriol indian media has spewed on Mr. Raju. After all, he was one of the pioneers of the Indian IT industry; he took a high-tech services company from inception to a mammoth 50000+ people organization. Believe me, it’s no mean feat. Finding the customers, convincing them to win business, finding enough skilled people to successfully deliver, increasing the organization’s competency on a continuous basis every day - all these are incredibly challenging and Satyam did meet all these challenges on a large scale.

Who doesn’t make a mistake? Mr. Raju did a mistake too and it turned out to be a very bad mistake. But then, continuation of a mistake over years and years is definitely unacceptable. I’m sad for him - he did not have the courage to not make the mistake in the first place but he now found the courage to confess and push himself and his baby, Satyam, into the deepest abyss.

I just hope Satyam finds the right leader in this time of crisis, for,

• The number of employees who will be hurt otherwise is 50,000+
• Customers globally cannot be left in the lurch
• And finally, there is after all, still enough talent for business to be viable

A number of questions bother me.

• There is no independent verification of his confession - can be it a false confession? Could he not bear losing control of what he has built up painstakingly and hence, kill his own baby maliciously?
• Why did Mr. Raju confess now? May be he feared discovery once Satyam’s control passes into someone else’s hands but couldn’t he find any takers in a world where getting away with scams is not that difficult?
• Did Satyam doom itself by bidding at lower and lower rates, until there was no margin really left to operate with?
• Aren’t customers who drove Satyam to lower and lower rates (knowing very very well that it is nigh impossible to do reasonable business at such low rates) also responsible for the tragedy of Satyam? And if Satyam does die, aren’t overzealous procurement teams as much responsible as Satyam itself for the pain that such customers will entail?
• Didn’t the sales teams and business unit leaders at Satyam know what margins they are doing business at?
• Was Satyam driven to lower and lower rates because the management did not really have the self-belief needed to demand appropriate rates?
• Did Satyam sign on too many fixed-price contracts without being careful enough to understand the scope and estimate the costs to a reasonable degree?

Answers to these questions, as they unfold, will forever form the basis for a tragic but instructive case study.

The other day I wrote the phrase “handful of people” and a few hours later, it struck me that the phrase does not make sense? How can one count people by handfuls or fistfuls But you know what? The phrase is quite commonplace. Search google and you will find a large number of pages using the same phrase (I was tempted to write “tons of usage” ). Worse, webster uses the same phrase as an example.

Related reading: Checkout criticism of Friedman’s writing style

I can’t find a word for it in english - kakaavikalam is the word in telugu to describe my state as I watched terror unfold as horrifically as it did in mumbai last night. Senselessness and recklessness of terrorists shook me to the core. A part of me died as I saw dead bodies lying on the roads, people shot in chests getting shoved into vans, a cop pulling up the head of a dead terrorist so that media can photograph a face that’s dripping in blood, a man whose hand is dripping with blood - possibly from the grazing of a bullet - trying to get into a van hoping to reach a hospital but getting pushed out so that more critically wounded can be taken first, shocked commandos getting ferried in a van and staring puzzled at cameras and lights, foreigners who escaped from oberoi talking in frightened voices and wondering what else their india trip has in store for them, journalists getting shot themselves and not knowing what to reveal and what not as their live news reports may get used by the terrorists, hotel staff trying their best to still serve their guests even as terrorists shoot randomly in the hotels, and finally, terrorists - young people with sophisticated weapons behaving as if they are on a party with water guns - shooting people at random and using their brains to cause the maximum suffering - it was as if mumbai became what bagdhad has been for the last year or beirut for a long time.

How could this happen? It’s the result of a large number of system break downs - break downs like the one I experienced just yesterday morning - getting a photo voter id without being asked for any evidence what so ever - correcting my last name and date of birth without being asked for any proof there either and knowing that I can use a voter id obtained like that as proof enough to get a cell phone sim card and may be even gun licenses.