Connecting India !!

When it comes to digital divide and internet connectivity , For a country like India it will not be possible to make one size fit all , we will have to work on different models . The best way would be to take the best practices from different models and integrate them . Here is a framework

1) Use of WLL : Traditionally the infrastructural aspect of digital divide has been focus of internet connectivity . India must improve its infrastructure to support internet deployments across the nation , If it can not be done then we must look to alternate solutions recently Patrick Gelsinger from Intel suggested that developing countries should say no to copper wires and use wireless local loop and fibre optics for backbone.

Pabal, a small village located 70 km from Pune in Maharashtra, is all set to join the Internet revolution.
Efforts are underway in the village to provide Internet connections to an area of 2,000 sq km through the Wireless Local Loop Technology (WLL). The technology was developed by the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai, and is marketed by N-Logue.
2) Setting up Kiosk : The way telephone services were made available to the masses by setting up PCO’s similarly now it is time to set up internet kiosk where people can walk in and browse internet , the biggest benefit which consumers get out of this is cost effectiveness , here they are exempted from cost of buying a computer system and paying monthly rental to ISP . All an user has to pay is 15-20 Rs per hour. These kiosks can be set up in existing government infrastructures like railway ticket booking outlets , postoffices , schools , hospitals , panchayats . These are the basic government offices which are there in every villege .

3) Encouraging private players to enter in this field : Private players can be invited to setup infrastructure and resources , some players have already entered and successfully innovated business models in urban and remoter areas. The focus should also be there to organize these resources well .

4) More employment generation : There should be more employment generation with the help of internet so that more people can be attracted towards it . Specially in terms of setting up internet kiosk , small BPOs and data entry centres . n-louge and ITC both create local service partners who can earn their living by running these kiosks

5) Offline availability : Small backup servers and data repositories should be maintained which can help providing offline data when there are issues in connectivity . Electricity is also a problem even for tier 1 and 2 cities of India in such situation proper battery backups , UPS Circuit breaker and voltage stabilizer should be provided

6) Making internet more relevant : Information which are relevant to diverse sector of society should be made available online . It should include agriculture, Veterinary , Health Care, Education , current affairs and much more
7) Finding alternate ways : There can be still many remote areas where we may not bring IT revolution in such cases we should be ready to work with non conventional ways , for example the alternate solution implemented by DAknet where data is collected by mobile vans.

Shattered dream fo decoupled economy

http://www.coolavenues.com/know/gm/saurabh-economy-1.php

The bulls were all riding to the north till February, the celebration of Diwali, Christmas and New Year was still in the air, and above all, there were talks of India and China economies getting decoupled from US economy, India becoming more self-sustainable
and self-dependent. Then came the acid test of the de-coupling, US Sub-prime crisis started taking tolls on all the foundation pillars of the financial services across the globe. At initial stages, it looked as if only IT companies, which have major chunk of revenue coming from these big financial service providers and banks, will be getting affected, but then started one of the deepest bear hug of Sensitivity Index.
The crisis in US had down-sized the Indian growth story from a futuristic fairy tale of crown prince to a below average story of struggling man. Now the idea of decoupling sounds laughable, We have seen the result, how independent our functionings are with respect to Western Economy, US Economy is still the engine of world growth express. We are far away from being a decoupled economy, and how can we be one.
Complete Sensex was overloaded from FII and FDIs. All major financial institutions have picked-up almost every stock available listed in the sensex. What happened when they felt trouble in thier homeland? Obviously there was liquidity crunch, there was apprehension that US recession can send growth of complete world couple of years back . Institutional investors started selling their holdings one after another, and the result was the downward journey of Sensex. The same message was received clearly by Indian investors and they followed the way shown by wise men of the finance world.
What Next?
Asia-Centric Approach
Looking at the current trends, there is a shift expected from West to East, Indian investment banks are still doing better. Recently, Indian arms of I-Banks offered highest salary in premium business schools. In India, these banks are still showing profit and distributing bonuses, which are higher then anywhere else in the world. Same is also applicable for China.
Shift to Commodity
Commodity, metel and oil are still crossing new limits every day. Recently, oil crossed 112 Dollar per barrel whereas gold is its all time high of near 13,000. There is a direct correlation between prices of gold and oil and, hence, they are increasing together. For investors also, it makes more sense now to invest in commodity market as it will not only provide less volatility but also save value of their money from inflation.
Slowdown in Growth
With US recession, the growth in India and China will not be that fast, still Asian countries are highly export-oriented and US is the largest customer for them.
Further Rise of Europe
All this can be good opportunity for Europe to rise. Euro is continuously getting stronger in comparison to other currencies, and there are not many bad news coming from Europe.
Leadership Change
In a very short span of time, we are seeing leadership change for the biggest power of the world, Vladimir Putin stepped down from Russian president-ship, Soon there will be new president in USA and new premier in Pakistan. UK and Germany have also seen a change in leadership and for India also this is the last year of the UPA government before election. Although any of these changes will not be able to affect much in terms of economic factors, but they may change the sentiments of people.
Accumulation & Bottom Fishing
Problem for one and opportunity for other. It is shopping time for all those who were sitting on large reserves and waiting for correct valuations to arrive. Recently, large number of stocks have been accumulated by various investment firms, and the trend will go on gradually.

Kautilya's 7 pillars of organzation .

The ancient wisdom which Chankaya had passed to us is amazing , It penetrates two main areas of any orgaization 1) Finance ( Arthshashtra) and 2) Organizational structure and Roles and Responsibilities.
Here is an example of what chanakya's opinion was about organizational structure. In one of the verses of Arthshastra he quotes
Swami , Amatya , Janapada , Durg , Kosha , Danda , Mitra , Iti Prakariyet.
These are the seven main componenets of any organizations
AS par kautilaya shastra it is very important for any kingdom to keep all of these 7 factors intact for smooth functioning of the nation . Following are the 7 pillars mentioned by Chankaya.
Internal constituents :
following 5 internal constituents are important for an organization
(a) Swami: The master or king of the nation who rules the nation and has complete control , he is not involved in day to day activities of the nation . Swami is responsible for building long term strategic plans for growth of the nation
(b) amatya : bureaucracy, often loosely described as ministry, They work directly under Swami and control all functioning on his behalf .
(c) durga: fort, often identified as city (pura),
(d) artha or Kosha : treasury or finance of the nation . Kosha is accumulated earning from the janapada which is used for several purposes.
(e) danda : army of the nation. Danda is the workforce of the kingdom which is instrumental in any key implementation and execution of the task

External constituents :
As per chanakya there are two external constituents which affect any organization
(a) Janpada : Rrural hinterland, Can be translated as the end users or stakeholders who are directly affected by what is done by Kingdom.
(b) Mitra : friends of the nation who can help them in the crisis situation .

In todays organizations , these can be compared as given below
1) Swami is represented by the CEO of the organization
2) Amatyas are represented by different managers of the oranization
3) Durg is the headquarter of organization
4) Kosha is the reserves with organization
5) Danda is the workforce of the organization
6) Janapada is the market which organization serves
7) Mitra are partners and other allies of organization

Any activiy or problem of organization can surely be fit into one of these seven pillars and then can be solved accordingly !!

Based on a discussion with Mr Radhakrishnan Pillai , Management evangelist and strategic consultant

Want to build a sustainable organization !!

More than 80,000 company failures per year in the last 20 years, compared to 19,000 per year, on average, in the previous 30 years. Going forward it is becoming difficult for corporations and experts to predict sustainability of organizations. It is not at all surprising in this scenario every one is talking about making organisations more resilient.

Here is what I feel can make an organization sustainable

Connecting with Employees : It is said that employee are the biggest Assets of a company , accountants might not be very happy with this statement but in todays world where intellectual capita is considered the biggest asset , this statement definitely holds true. For any organization to be strong , to grow and break all the barriers it is very important that their management connect to Employees . Employee should be an integral part of organization , he should live the value of organization .
This connection works as bedrock on which whole organization can sustain. Leaders must make sure that they understand each and every team members to, get to know them - to build a connection based on trust, honesty and respect. Lets take a very simple example of Indian freedom fighters , they literally built an empire where every one was connected , Leaders not only gave instructions but also set an example and that resulted in a connection in all the members , Connection to an extent that every one saw the same vision , everyone worked on the same ‘s mission . Similar connection . Most important thing about connection is , its infectious nature , even if one employee is in synchronization with organization , his influence will work like a charm on other team members as they will be able to relate with organization via him very easily and hence will be transformed from an employee who simply does a 9 to 5 job to someone who will feel integral part of organization to such an extent that he will be engaged to it for always. An organization where leaders are able to connect with employees will never loose its valuable employees and will overcome the biggest problem which comes in way of companies resilience i.e. attrition rate , migration of talent. Once you are able to retain your master performers you will certainly be able to amaze yourself and team with a brilliance and consistent performance because when you have succeeded in creating a team that is connected, you can count on each of them having a higher degree of personal engagement toward meeting the goals before them

Change management: Change can be defined as "… to cause or to become different, alter, transform, convert. Implies a radical alteration of character or replacement with something else" [2]. As truly said , change the only constant thing in the world , when an organization grows from a small 20 – 30 people company to a MNC having headcount in thousands , it goes through in numerous changes . Accepting a sudden change is not in nature of human being , he likes to be in his comfort zone which he is familiar with so if these changes not handled properly they lead to a big panick and chaos. Change inherently brings conflict and turmoil to organizations.
According to Smit and Cronjé [18] management should be sensitive towards potential change in order to prepare for it and should be aware of the steps
involved in a change process to increase the possibility of its successful implementation. In the process flow diagram there are some important steps which need to be followed for implementing any change in an organization. A resilient organization must be able to manage it’s changes at the same time making sure that it’s employees don’t see new change as a liability on them and this can happen if and only if desire of excelling and improving can be generated in employees so that they can feel the need of change from within.

Eco Holi

As per recent norm by Govt of India , Color with chemicals should be avoided in holi so we used the ageold wisdom of India to play holi

Its very simple , Use a pit of 4 X 7 so that even tallest and fattest friend of your can come into that . Fill this pit with water and dust whichwill in turn convert into mud with a little effort and fun and you are done . Advantage ; Starte counting

1) Cost effective : its free

2) Eco freindly

3) good for skin

4) Its feeling of connecting to earth , you know what I mean

5) Above all now you are invincible and don't care whatever color or stuff people use on you.

And after this you can simply start throwing others in here

Holi Hungamaaa 1

On 22nd we celebrated holi in SPJIMR campus , here are the different colors. Even before we could prepare ourselves , evry one was red blue and black .

Gulal , color , WAter , Thandai everything was used to play holi and still there was much more to come

Be aware Thoughts can become Action

Dedicated to a friend who turned thoughts into action.
It was a session by Parimal Merchant , Prof has called 3 volunteers from near by slum area to introduce them to us and tell us about the work which they are doing in slums , these volunteers themselves lived in slums and earned their livings by small jobs of hawkers , domestic help which fetched them an earning of 2-3 K per month . During the discussion it came out that doing social work obviously was no cake walk for these people specially when they don’t have support and funding from big organizations . All they had determination to do something and courage and conviction to take it forward.
The agenda of session was not Social service of work of NGOs but it was the four C’s of Parimal Sir , Conviction , compassion , courage and Confidence. While talking to these normal people who have started very small in slums , many times they mentioned that the path taken by them was by no means easy but they had already decided on it and hence they did not have any other go but to follow their heart. Vedas and old sayings also mention “ Thought produces actions “ , what you think is what you become irrespective of environmental and other constraints whole universe will be in your support to materialise your dream into reality , no matter how big it is .Amazingly it also does not matter whether it is good or bad , what matters is how clear is your vision , how clearly do you see it approaching . I recall one of the interview by now hit pop singer Daler Mehandi , He mentioned , when he was in USA working as cab driver , he used to visualise himself as a pop singer , he would visualise himself performing in front of large audience . Later on when he became a singer , he designed his own attire and this attire was the result of his visualisations only.
Next Level of it is "Thought with faith produce and attract stronger action " , I could immediately recall one strange habbit of Henery Ford , Mr ford had a habbit of of touching anything he liked and promising to himself that I would have it before this much time , and he always managed to fulfil his promise . Obviously Ford had confidence on his abilities which attracted even stronger actions , Whatever people say repeatedly and with conviction is bound to happen , probably that is the reason in old days our elders used to say that we should not say something bad about someone , who knows it might come true. So next time think big , think creative and think larger then life who knows it may turn into reality , after all its Law of attraction.