New Delhi Times

My good friend and senior from IIT, Alok Mittal has setup the office for an early stage VC firm Canaan Partners.. This is really good news for two reasons. Firstly, India sorely lacks early stage VC funds so it is good to see that a firm is actually putting a stake in the ground by investing time and effort in setting up a permanent office. Second, Alok is perhaps one of best guys in town to lead such an effort. He has been there and done that and has lot of insight into the local internet space. All the best, Alok!

This makes no sense at all. Apple is closing down its India operations barely 2 months after commencement. That is too short a time to take such a drastic step. There has to be something more to this story. Unfortunately news items like this one are bad press for India as a whole. A more transparent article explaining the rationale behind this move would have been nice. Right now we can only speculate.

This is a message for kids in school and college worrying too much about their grades – worrying so much that they can even consider ending their lives. It is really shocking and disturbing that every day we hear of kids ending their lives because they failed in a course or scored badly in their exams. We seriously need to give our education system a relook if it can drive students to suicide.
But while changing the education system is beyond the reach of most of us, let me just point out that education, for the most part, is over hyped. I mean education is important, but success in career or life is unlikely to depend on how much you scored in Economics in Class 12th. And its also not going to depend on if you did have to spend an extra year in college. The thing is that when you are in school, one extra year or one failing grade seems like the end of the world. But if you really think about it, a typical career is roughly 35-40 years long. So in that context, can a couple of bad grades way back in college really make a difference? Do you think your dad or uncle or aunt would have had a more fulfilling career if they had scored more in Math or cleared Algebra in first attempt? I agree this is easier said than done but surely it is nothing so serious to contemplate killing oneself.
The other factor is of course parental pressure and expectations. I was fortunate during school and college that my parents never exerted any pressure on me and never expressed their expectations to me. But unfortunately all parents are not like that. I really wish there was some law to prohibit parents from exerting too much influence on their kid’s choices. Their intentions are alright but the consequences are horrible. I think the educational system also needs to preach more independent thinking. Kids in the West are much more independent in making their choices and hence study what they are really interested in. In contrast, we continue to give too much importance to a handful of career choices like medicine and engineering. Until this mindset changes, students will remain under unreasonable pressure to perform.
Well, I will just say it again in case anybody is really reading – don’t kill yourself kids! The education system is screwed up so if you don’t do well in it, it means nothing! If you parents are unreasonable with you, ignore them. They will feel bad but they will feel a lot worse if you kill yourself!

The current uproar about the decision to increase the reservation of seats in educational institutions to 50% reminded me of the darkest period in Indian history that our generation has witnessed. Most of us (us being folks in mid 20s – “desh ka bhavishya”) were too young or not born to witness the Emergency. But I clearly remember the mayhem the country went through when the original Mandal commission recommendations were enforced.

I was in grade 6 or 7 at that time and travelled to school by bus. It started with demonstrations near the Delhi University’s south campus area which was on the way to  my school. Our bus would be stopped by the protesting college students. Soon it started getting violent and few buses were burnt. Many political parties started organizing “bandhs” (call for closure of all business for a day). Our school being a more prominent one in Delhi decided to play safe and whenever a bandh was organized, our school was closed. It was a game for us kids to check the newspaper each morning to see if it was going to be a holiday or not. The protests continued to escalate and reached a crescendo when one college student immolated himself and very nearly died. Another student was shot by the police while protesting. At this point, all schools decided to call for early summer vacations. We had almost 4 months of vacations that year and even the school homework was mailed to us. I was too young to properly comprehend what was happening but it was apparent that this quota thing would affect us when we were old enough to go to college. That was also the first time we heard terms like “SC”, “ST” and “OBC”. That one summer caused a whole generation to become acutely aware of the caste differences that exist in our society.

The student protests subsided with time and the Mandal commission recommendations were implemented. But it led to the downfall of the V.P. Singh government – the first non Congress govt. since emergency. Congress soon came back into power. At this time India was on the verge of bankruptcy and had to actually pawn off gold to prevent from defaulting on loan payments. Manmohan Singh was forced to implement economic reforms and open up the economy. Rest of course, is history.

The summer of 1990 is etched in the minds of our generation. As a nation, we hit an abyss of despair and hopelessness that summer. It was the time when “kya hoga is desh ka” (what will happen to this nation) dominated drawing room discussions. Looking back, it was perhaps the year when we hit rock bottom and slowly started to bounce back. 16 years hence, the ghosts of Mandal Commission are back to haunt us. We have a good thing going and I hope we will not let petty caste politics to come in our way.

My stature as a cricket fan went up a few notches few days back when I learnt that I am only 3 degrees away from Rahul Dravid! Rahul is a friend of a friend of a friend! OK I know that doesn’t count for much but I am working my way up. One day I hope to be hanging out with the team in their dressing room (dream big, they taught in school!).
Last week I was priviliged to watch the one-day international between India and England in Faridabad. We had upper pavillion passes so the view was as good as it can be. Ashish was supposed to go but had to back out at the last minute due to work and I ended up going.
I wont go into the details of the match but needless to say, it was one of most dramatic comebacks India has made in recent times. Suresh Raina was amazing. He treated the English bowlers with disdain, almost contempt. And that too when he is all of 19 years old!
But while we are at it, please spare a thought for the cricket fan – who undoubtedly is the biggest sports fan amongst all. A one day cricket match lasts for roughly 8 hours. To go and watch the match live usually means leaving at 5 in the morning, standing in long queues, paying a fortune for the tickets and then sweating it out in the Indian heat. So after making such a big investment of time, money and effort, if the team doesn’t perform, the feeling of disappointment is immense. I felt that way when India had lost to Pakistan last year. I had almost started getting the same sinking feeling this time around too when India slumped to 92/5. We were losing wickets in a bunch and that too to poor shots. Everybody around me in the pavillion was starting to groan about what a waste of time it was to sit out the entire day only to lose so tamely. Fortunately India did make a comeback and won a close match. But even if we had lost, do you think that the fans in Faridabad wouldn’t have come to watch the next time India plays there? No way! The stands will always go full. People will continue to sweat it out, continue to take a day off from work to watch the match and continue to be eternally optimistic of their team’s chances. Such is the anatomy of the Indian cricket fan. I doubt any soccer, basketball or baseball fans can even come close! Long live the Indian cricket fan!

My post regarding job quotas in private sector got several comments. Krish also posted a detailed comment regarding this.
The crux of most comments can be summarized from this quote by sach1tb

For a private enterprise, profit is the only aim, which explains optimizing one’s workforce to achieve greater revenue. But the government, on the other hand, has a social responsibility. Few enterprises can boast of a social impact — most of them are large ones, who finally got time and money to help. Taking in a few of the underprivileged, not as a favour but a responsibility, is what small companies can do to decrease the social (read financial) disparity. And yes, a rising economy, when it fills our pockets instantaneously, and promises a much delayed and indirect impact on the lower classes, isn’t going to help too.

I do not agree that profit is the only aim of private enterprises. While social upliftment is not and can’t be a prime motive for most private enterprises, it is in the interest of companies to contribute to larger social causes. A more prosperous society provides for a stable political environment, creates a larger consumer base and allows for harmonious conduct of business. So almost selfishly, enterprises must participate with the government in bringing social upliftment. However, forced job reservation is not the way to go. Even from a logistics point of view, maintaining right quotas is a nightmare for a small company. If an employee from a particular category leaves, a candidate from the same category must be hired irrespective of availability. Secondly, such regulations are prime targets for the dreaded “inspector raaj”. This can only make things harder for small companies. Finally, job reservation can have an adverse affect on interpersonal relationships within an organization since anybody who joins via reservation will be percieved to have lower ability even though that might not be true at all. Reservation in educational institutions can be justified to an extent because it levels the playing field for everybody. But beyond that, ability and not caste should alone be the criteria for selection.
What we need are stringent laws to ensure there is no discrimination in the workplace based on caste, color or gender. Even private companies should have no right to summarily reject an applicant on the basis of their caste or sex.

“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime”
Apparently, our government has not heard this saying before. Pardon me for this non-stop government bashing but seriously, what were they thinking? I am of course talking about the rural job guarantee scheme. In between the cricket commentary (great win, btw!), the radio station was advertising government’s rural job guarantee scheme. Under this initiative, every rural household has a legal right to demand 100 days of paid work for one member of the household. If work can not be provided, the government must pay them all the same. While the scheme is well intentioned, the economics and execution will unfortunately convert it into a money sucking beast.
Given that India’s rural population is 720 million, the government has suddenly recruited a whopping 150 million people on its rolls. What is worse, by guaranteeing jobs, the government has also taken away its ability to fire any of those 150 million. I don’t think that is the right way to create more jobs. The biggest problem with this scheme is that the disbursement of salaries will inevitably rest with the local officials who will have a field day pocketing most of the money.
I think this time we have taken socialism (actually populism) to a new extreme. This money would have been better spent on education or infrastructure.

They will do anything, just anything for votes. Not that this bill has any chance of getting passed, but just the fact the government can introduce something like this is scary. Telling private companies who to hire and who not to hire is the surest way to kill enterprise and dry up the current flood of FDI. It is extremely disappointing that our learned prime minister even lets this sort of stuff brew in his ranks. Not even once has he strongly condemned such populist moves. Imagine a CEO of a Fortune 500 company thinking of doing business in India reading this article. What would he choose – India or China?
On one hand the government has lofty aims of 10% GDP growth, and on other hand they want to introduce legislation which will do anything but encourage economic growth. Disappointing. Really disappointing. There is a lot of truth in the common saying around here – this country makes progress not because of it’s government, but inspite of it’s government!

I have many times wondered what it must be like to be Sachin Tendulkar. Each time he walks out to bat, there are one billion pair of eyes watching. A billion hearts skip a beat each time he miscues a shot. A billion pair of hands applaud his Godly cover drives. Oh, what it must be to be Sachin Tendulkar!
But tonight, nobody would wish to be in his shoes. In the innings which made him the most capped player in Indian history, Sachin Tendulkar was booed by the crowd in his home ground. A string of poor scores perhaps justify the crowd’s disappointment. But nothing justifies their behavior. It was our own belief that Sachin is God. And Gods don’t err. To err is human.
I am a huge fan of Sachin. And a very forgiving fan too. A few bad scores (ok many bad scores) don’t worry me. Sachin is not God but he sure is super human. In many ways, my generation has grown with Sachin. Seen him rise to a billion expectations time and again for more than 16 years. Those of us who have been around know he will come back. A couple of bad seasons can’t undo 15 years of hard work.
I wonder what must be going through Sachin’s mind. The match is poised in a precarious situation. India will almost certainly be chasing a huge total to save the match. Will the little master show his class and give a fitting reply to the booing crowds? I sure hope so. And I know there are a billion or so more hoping for the same.
And remember what Saeed Anwar said about Sachin – “Form is temporary but Class is permanent”

I think I finally understand why there is such a prevalent culture of tax evasion in India. On budget day this year, one of the newspapers had published historical income tax rates in India. In 1970, the highest tax rate in India was a whopping 92%! So basically if you were in that bracket, you were working 92% of the time for the government. What incentive would have that left for any individual or corporate to make more money? Unless of course, you evaded taxes. By raising tax rates so much, the government not only killed all motivation for entreprenurship, it also promoted tax evasion. So in effect, higher tax rates meant lower overall tax collections. This was perhaps one of the big reasons why we developed a culutre of tax evasion. Today the tax rates are much more reasonable but tax evasion remains prevalent. The mindset that we developed as a nation several decades back remains the same. It will take many more decades of good governance (relatively speaking ) before things start to get better!