War - good or bad?

War has been a method of dispute resolution among pretty much all creatures who have the intelligence to demarcate territories. It is unfortunate that toll of war among the humans has gone up significantly due to application of technology. Moreover, due to creation of nation states, wars of attrition have become more common and quick victories are a matter of past. Greed and lust, which were an important motivators for the foot soldier before, have now been banned from modern armies. Therefore, there is even a greater need of two other tools - hatred for the enemy and love for your cause. Creation of fear psychosis and propaganda practiced by modern leaders to achieve political or war aims are manifestations of this reality. Weather, war is good or bad, is relative, and can be judged only in hindsight. It also differs for different people. Abraham Lincoln had forged USA with blood and freed black people - at least in name. While the second world war was terrible for many countries - it in a way gave India its freedom. Just imagine the havoc full strength British armies would have created in India otherwise. Having said that, I don't want to become a guinea big of any hindsight analysis and therefore, I oppose war whenever my ass is likely to be in the line of fire.Cheers! Check out...

History, information vs misinformation!

For serious readers, I would recommend The Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire.

It was written by a famous Historian - Edward Gibbon. It traces the sequence of events that led to the demise of Roman Empire. Romans were a great civilization whose achievements were unmatched till the Age of Industrialization. The book is a masterpeice.

Two things stand out - an immensely powerful prose, and the impact it has had on shaping the thinking about Romans. However, the dark side of the story is that a well-meaning Gibbon relied on science and rhetoric of his times to extend his arguments. Unfortunately, the latter was far more advanced than the former. Therefore, a number of fallacies have crept in.

Sometimes of his arguments do not hold up to good scrutiny. To give a man credit - he wrote all of that all by himself. Very few people have been born who can do this much.

For example, the impression one gets about the successors of Romans - the Byzantine empire, is that they were often incompetent, corrupt and scheming. However, one only need to look at the fact that Byzantines survived till 12th century while the Roman story was over by 5th century to admit that the Byzantine empire was a durable state. Just for the sake of comparison, Indian democracy is not even 100 years old. Check out...

How to tame the Facebook privacy dragon?

These days everyone is complaining that Facebook is a monster which is out to sell our data against our wishes. It seems that we are helpless and can do nothing. WRONG!

Bizarrely, we blame FB for what is essentially our fault. We have willingly given so much information to Facebook, that many a times they know more about us than our best friends and parents. After committing this mistake, we crib about privacy issues.

If you go to Times Square, New York on a Saturday evening and dance naked, you cannot bitch about privacy!

So what is the solution? The solution is not to never go to Times Square, i.e. leave Facebook. It is a fantastic tool, I sincerely thank the guy who came up with the idea and will continue using it. The solution is cover up. Mess up your data and make it worthless for advertising purposes. A few simple tricks are

1. Set your age to 14. The only piece of information worth sharing is your birthday
2. Do not add your school and college information. You have the likes of LinkedIn for that
3. Do not click through links posted on Facebook. Copy and paste them directly into browser Facebook will never know if you liked a particular link or not.
4. Go like random stuff as well. Your data on preferences will be confused. Or just put comments saying you like it or not in weird language and weird spelling.
5. Go and reject all ads marking them obnoxious.
6. Change your sex. Your friends know about your plumbing even if the relationship is platonic.
7. Do not use Facebook provided tools to share information as declaring someone a spouse or a sibling. Mention that elsewhere – like in a note or in a picture

If someone builds a tool to implement some of the above mentioned ideas after getting inspired by this article, please acknowledge my contribution to your effort by declaring where you got the idea from.

Here is a CARTOON which talks about the impact of such an obfuscation exercise.

I am admitting with a lot of pain that I am not the smartest guy around. Therefore, I am sure you can come up with many more ideas. Please feel free to put them in comments below.

Please be advised that personalization is the future of human race. The way you fill forms to get accepted to schools, go abroad and get healthcare, even IT firms need information to serve you well. Trust me that you want those personalized services. Therefore, to some people, you will provide good information. The good people are those that are honest about their intentions. If they want to sell our data, they will explain it to us and will help us make an intelligent choice.

Therefore, what we need is a comprehensible transparent privacy policy and a reasonable code of ethics on part of every company which handles our information. We do not want reams of legal bullshit. They are as bad as a lie. An average internet user cannot comprehend them. We should have a few bullet points and 3-4 classes of data which can be either blocked or unblocked at user discretion. This is will enable us to understand what is at stake, and will help an average well-meaning Joe or a female Joe working at these firms protect our data.

If you think this article is useful, PASS IT ON and please do check the CARTOON. Check out...

Muhammad Ali, Pele and Indian Sports

Muhammad Ali is my favorite sportsperson.
He combines courage to combat the political and social system of his country, with excellence in the arena. He won an Olympic Gold, and then threw into a river to protest against racism. He refused to join the army even when he was offered a desk job - as a matter of principle. He had the courage to say the war his country was fighting was unjust. (I am not making a judgment call here about Vietnam war. It was just for many and was unjust for many others). He was jailed and was out of action for a while. After being released, he bounced back and topped his sport again.

I would like to have someone like that in India too. Someone who will win us a world cup and bring down the politician-bureaucrat-businessperson nexus holding down the Indian sports. It just makes me sad to realize that every single day, we are missing finding yet another Pele on Indian streets. Check out...

Guns, Germs & Steel> Wars & India>Human folly

We are a divided society. Divisions are natural. Human beings band together around identities and causes to lay claims to natural resources in order to prolong their lives and spread their genes. Divisions lead to inequalities as the more powerful groups begin to claim rights to resources - sometimes even divine rights. However, most of the time we miss this driver of social divisions on our interactions. Often we do not understand it even if we spot it. A book which has significantly shaped my thoughts on society is Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond.

In the book Author tried to answer the question - is there fundamentally different about Western "civilization" which has led to it being the technologically dominant society. In other world, is there a justification for the assertion that a race or type of people is superior to another race or type of people?

The answer is a resounding NO and Jared beautifully explains how various circumstances led to different developmental paths for different people.

This discussion is extremely relevant to our society of today where the young people are themselves discovering that all men (and women) are born equal, and are slowly eroding the rules of the old order. Often the youth acts on instinct and is carried away by the moment. He goes ahead an make a friend from a different section of society - sometimes a much maligned one - without understand why it is OK to do so.

This book provides scientific and philosophical underpinning to the assertion that all humans are equal. Each one of us can commit most horrific crimes, and is capable of supreme sacrifices in the name of the good.

It is a must read for anyone planning to wage war in name of nation, religion, caste or any other such human grouping. Check out...

3G - the Indian turning point

According to the Telecom Minister A. Raja, Indian telecom operators are expected to dish out $9bn to get rights to provide 3G services to the Indian market. There are 500 million cell-phone subscribers in India. Assuming half of them go 3G, Indian telecom companies are dishing out $36/potential customer just for the right to serve her. Is it dot-com like craze or is there some sense in it?

Indian telecom companies are operating at razor thin margins. The regulatory authority has done a decent job of maintaining a fair market. That the operators all have sufficient political capital and money also helps in maintaining the balance. Savage price wars have forced them to charge by the second! They are so desperate that they are trying to sell horoscopes and musical ring tones.

Although, Gartner says that there will be 771m subscribers in 2013, I personally think telcos will soon have milked the population potential because 42% of India is below poverty line. I am not sure how much of India can be a profitable telco market, but either that market penetration has already been achieved or will soon be achieved. The only way to make more money in such situation is to expand margins. As they look to do so, 3G appears as on the horizon as a ray of hope. Not only it will provide the telecom companies will incremental revenue streams, but also allow them to push value-added services.

As grains of sand together make a desert, half a billion subscribers make Indian telcos cash rich. They have money to splurge and are eagerly looking to invest. Specially after sinking $9bn in getting rights to 3G, they will be eager to make it work. Therefore, expect a massive and concerted private sector push to drive 3G penetration. After a relatively transparent auction, I expect the government to stay away – which is always good news.

The effort will bear fruit because internet penetration in India is very low – only 45m active users in 2009. A key issue is that the primary internet access device –computer – is out of reach for most of the Indians. Therefore, economical Smartphone devices blazing at 3G speeds will likely lead to an explosion in the internet usage. India has little to worry on content creation front. Indian is a software factory second only to the Silicon Valley/Seattle complex. Websites will pop up at the speed of light serving every niche.

Moreover, there is one more reality – it is impossible to lay out fiber optic lines to serve all of India. The private sector fixed line providers are concentrated in major metropolitan cities. Other areas are simply not profitable enough. The only way they can tap the grade B/rural market is by using 3G connectivity. This also means that, there is no large scale legacy investment in fiber optic systems competing with 3G and there will be no effective lobbying against and constraints on 3G rollout.

I believe that Indian consumers will lap up internet once the access problem is solved. I think a key entry point is the Indian education system. It is a mass exercise at a mass scale. Education is the over-riding part of a teenager’s life in India and mobile connectivity to process of education will meet with immediate acceptance.

One example is publication of examination results. Another driver will be the difficulty of getting things done in India. Any tool which will allow people to avoid wading through traffic or to cut bureaucracy will be extremely popular. A good example is the website of India railways which is one of the rare portals making over $1bn in revenues. It helps people avoid queues at crowded and dirty railways stations and exempts them from dealing with the unhelpful ticket clerk.

3G is the inflection point. I am betting big on the Indian internet space. I personally think that we will see an accelerated adoption of 4G too – how can you keep the Indian away from streaming cricket for long? Check out...

Why Indians run after a job?

I think a key driver of such a career choice is the inherent conservatism of the Indians when it comes to making a living. Some of the many key drivers are

1. Lack of an organised social security system reduces risk taking ability. In USA, if you are unemployed, the government will take care of you. In India, if you are unemployed, either relatives take care of you, or you starve

2. Marriage system controlled by family and community requires potential grooms to reach a certain level of prosperity and competence by a certain age. Otherwise, the quality of bride drops off drastically. Increasingly, similar demands are being made on the potential brides as well.

3. In a country which suffers from acute material and welfare shortages on per capita level, those who have it , hold a place of honor in the society. The sooner you get it, more honorable it is

4. Parents are the key decision making factors. Indian society gives them extraordinary influence and they don't hesitate from deploying emotional, financial and social levers in any dispute with their children. Usually they don't have the intellect to look beyond the obvious - making money now is better than hoping for more money later. They also make decisions based on their experiences, which are quite irrelevant in the world of Facebook and IPL.

5. There is a general lack of awareness. People in the metros experiment more, and people in the villages less

I am sure there are many other things going on. But these were my two cents. Check out...

Obama, citizens, moneybags, India's 3G auctions - new democracy!

Obama has been a pioneer in many ways. While, the rise of a Black American with the middle name of "Hussein" has great symbolic significance and has given hope to minorities across the world, his campaign managers have done something else which will have far greater repercussions. Popularization of internet fund-raising!

Till now Democracy is the government of the people, by the people, for the people, funded by rich people. While the power of vested interests has reduced, they still have massive influence. The ability to perform low cost fund transfers on the internet makes it possible to raise large funds from the common citizen. It will lead to democratization of electoral financing and will be giant leap for democracy.

If 100 million Americans donate $10 a pop, there will be enough funds to fund many presidential candidates. Given that US per-capita income is $46,000, it is not an unrealistic expectation. As a result, true mass leaders will be able to compete with money bag fronts - $ for $. The retail investors therefore, have come of age in the market of politics. Of course, the money bags can always bid up and raise more funds, but beyond a limit the marginal returns on extra dollar collected reduces. An American presidential candidate needs low hundred millions - which can be raised from the mass market.

A key tool needed for the success of the internet politics is free flow of internet information. All websites and all email addresses are technically accessible to all. This reduces the power of anti-democratic information brokers such as partisan media and censors.

I think that there are a number of implications of this dynamics:

1. Accelerated political careers: Even very young politicians will be able to grab center-stage by becoming champions on issues of the day. While experience, service record and credibility will always have importance, Obama has shown catching fancy of the people can bear quick results too.

2. Rise of demagogues: Given that masses are now capable of deploying significant political money too, leaders who will take advantage of mass emotions will have more power. This is damaging.

3. Reduced power of lobbies. The ability of moneybags to buy politicians and the people who can influence them will reduce drastically. The way the common citizen can now fund her favorite candidate for president-ship, she can buy lobbyists too. With fragmentation of financing, the power of individual financier will go down.

4. There will be fragmentation of political ideologies. The time is in sight that, Democratic and Republican parties will no longer be there in the current form. Parties will form around a wider spectrum of political agendas and people. There will be niches to serve specific electorates.


I sincerely hope that such democratization of fund raising happens in India too. Therefore, 3G spectrum auctions mean more than better communication to India. They are expected to reduce the cost of internet access and expand the % of people who go online. Hopefully, more will happen. Check out...

IPL, Modi, Tharoor, Sunanda and the X-Man

She was supposed to bear only 1% of the loss. However, her supposed 5% in the Kochi IPL franchise has already claimed two careers – Shashi Tharoor’s and Lalit Modi’s. Personally I think Shashi got a better end of the bargain. Due to the investments by a whole lot of powerful people, the matter will be whitewashed quickly. Shashi will be able to portray himself as a victim and reap political rewards.

Meanwhile, at the risk of beating a dead horse deader, I would like to look at what they call Sunanda’s 5% stake. According to the deal, she would have had rights to 100% of the profits. This implies, all future cash-flows belonged to her. Basic corporate finance then tells me that her economic stake was 100%. The other people simply held a form of debt in the firm. Perhaps, even they were acting as fronts to someone else who just decided to use multiple channels to obfuscate the source of investment and use one clean channel to siphon off the upside. It implies that when she gave up the equity she held, the principal behind her lost nothing more than a convenient profit booking channel. The investment remained intact.

So why did Modi take on a Union Minister? He would do so only if he had a lot to lose. Either, he had an indirect stake in the other bidding team, or having received a kickback, he was asked to deliver the goods. There can be a simpler reason too. His meteoric rise in past few years must have misbalanced his thinking and he genuinely could have thought that he can tackle the Union government. Poor judgment – I’d say.
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Should we pillory the banks?

There is a trend in power circles – attack on the banks and look good! While this is not healthy, it is very understandable.

I believe that all the banks have at least a few things to hide. Some have a lot to hide. At some places corruption is driven from the very top. Sometimes, banks cover up the damage because it could destroy the whole business. Sometime they keep doing the wrong thing in the hope that they will be able to get out before the whole house of cards crashes down. In some other cases it happens due to impossibility of policing thousands of extremely intelligent people – some of which may be crooks. Most importantly, the incentives of professionals are not aligned with that of society. More often than not, the benefits of financial bets are cornered by the finance professionals and their clients, while the downside is shared by the client and the society. Unfortunately, bankers have much power and impact of the society can be massive. Therefore, if something goes wrong, sometimes the society has to pay up to save itself. When the skeletons tumble out, there will be a loss of confidence in the market. I am not sure who to blame – for the market for having faith in the banks, or the banks for breaking that trust.

However, I do believe that the society is over-reacting and recent political actions may do a lot of harm. It is fine though - the society has the right to get screwed, and it enjoys the privilege often. Also, the bankers must shut-up. They lost the right to protest long ago and they get stop getting screwed by whining!

In such a situation restructuring of employee incentives is necessary. What shape it should take - I don't know! Check out...

What is happening to the investment bankers?

Investment Banking – one of the most dynamic environments – is changing even faster now. However, all is not well this time.

In many cases the changes are negatively impacting the professionals in the industry. While it will remain a lucrative career the compensation structure has changed. A part of the compensation in many publicly traded banks will be either in equity or will be deferred. Other restrictions in public banks such as greater compliance requirements will come into place. Moreover, political actions will continue for sometime around the industry - mostly punitive in nature. Alastair Darling's special tax on bonuses is one such example. In some cases the politicians will act vindictively to make a point for electoral gains. Moreover, due to massive budget deficits in US and UK - taxes are likely to remain high on high income bracket or even increase.

Therefore a large scale exodus of professionals to private firms and increase in importance of Switzerland and Hong Kong is likely. However, it will be tempered by the fact that USA and UK will continue to be largest sources of banking fees and the place where banks have very well developed and complex service delivery platforms. Check out...

Fortis Hospital - a mixed bag under a glossy veneer!

Recently one of of my Uncles fell seriously ill. We rushed him to Fortis Hospital in the Indian National Capital Region - which our extended family had adopted after suffering from blatant profit-chasing and lack of care at Apollo - a high profile hospital in the Indian capital city. I was surprised that such was the demand for healthcare, that Apollo was getting away with utter non-sense. They were off in my mother's height and hemoglobin count by a non-trivial amount in a regular health check-up. Many other such instances forced us to look elsewhere - and we adopted the neighboring Fortis - which did a decent job in most situations. However, I was surprised by what they did this time.


The Doctor who was going to operate my Uncle told us that the operation would happen the next day. My cousins went to the billing department, and asked how much they needed to pay. The billing department told them that they had no news. This happened multiple times. We were very uncomfortable with the situation and knew it was coming, and it came! At 11pm that night, they called my cousins and asked them to deposit Rs 200,000 by 8am and were uncouth enough to add that the operation won't happen without that money being deposited (we can figure that out - you moron!). Who walks around with 200,000 in pocket?

The next day the operation which was scheduled to happen at 1100, happened at 1600. While, the excuse that there was a critical operation which ran over was quite acceptable, we didn't really believe them.

After the operation, the doctor told us that the patient was perfectly find and would be kept in the regular ward. In the evening when we went to visit our Uncle, they had planted him in ICU without doctor's orders, and obviously charging us happily for that.

When my cousin raised a ruckus, they moved him to a ward bed. Unfortunately, this time again they failed the integrity test. Fortis had charged us for exclusive room, and they transferred my Uncle to a ward with 7 beds. Again screaming was required to set things right.

When I recently visited my Uncle, he asked for water. I rang the buzzer in the room, no one turned up. I rang it again, and no response came. Frustrated, I stepped out and politely asked a nurse for water. She went about her business and I waited and waited. Finally, I let go in style, and a grudging nurse brought water.

As I walked back home that evening, I was just saddened to think if that was Fortis, what poorer patients who end up at Government Hospitals suffer. Only when one was smart enough to audit and bold enough to scream, he could get things done right at Fortis. At many government hospitals - doctors just don't turn up. There is no doubt in my mind that Fortis is a giant leap forward in Indian healthcare. However, there is also no doubt in my mind that they are miserably failing their stated aim of providing compassionate healthcare. Their claim to fame now is that they are better than Apollo in some ways. Poor standard indeed!
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Opinion: Indian women’s reservation bill (Part 1)

Why the Indian legislature should pass the women’s reservation bill?

I was having a heated argument with an undergraduate friend of mine on whether India should pass a Bill to reserve 33% of legislature seats for women. Nice way to reconnect with someone after 8 years! While, he was against the idea, I supported the idea. We had a good debate leading to no conclusion whatsoever. I decided to post excerpts from our argument. As expected, my post let to a fire-storm of emails. I decided that my puny attempt at supporting the Bill last midnight was not good enough. Therefore, I decided to revise my post.

I will broadly touch five topics – network effect, social justice & compensation, the new equilibrium, futility of slow reform, and national need.

Network effect:

In my Network Structures class at Booth, I learned that studies have proven that success is proportional to the product of connectedness and competence. Often, connectedness outweighs competence. If your Dad was an Emir of an oil-sheikhdom, you wouldn't be wasting your life studying for an engineering entrance examination such as JEE in India with 1% chance of success while your peers elsewhere enjoy love, sex and sunshine. You would just go to a certain business school on the east coast of United States, and receive a very fine business education. Thereafter, you can choose to either just have fun, or make tons of money running a sovereign wealth fund. Go, and have a chat with your Dad!

Being a member of the top engineering school/top MBA club, I have enjoyed the fruits of connectedness. Most of the doors are manned by someone who has the same background as I have. I show him my ID, and he lets me in with a smile. He gives me seat at the table, and respects my opinion. In India, there are some firms who hire only graduates from the IIT – the top Indian engineering school, and IIM– the top Indian management school. Part of it is because usually very smart people go there. But that is only a part of it! I refuse to believe that the person, who is at 99.7^th percentile in management entrance test and therefore fails to secure a seat at IIM, is definitely less smart than the one who is at 99.8^th percentile. Can someone show me a valid study that proves that?

Most of it is because a network of influential people with the same background comes into existence, and it promotes its own. Naturally, they are more comfortable with their own type, mentor their own type, and give opportunities to their own type. Due to tremendous support rookies in the system receive, and the high morale sustained by such a positive environment, they dream big and achieve big. I am extremely skeptical of the fact that a person who was good at JEE, would end up becoming a top CEO as well, without a number of other forces not at all related to engineering excellence, and sheer smarts coming into play. Remember that being the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru was a bigger asset than being a woman was a liability to Indira Gandhi, being the daughter of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was a bigger asset than being a woman was a liability to Benazir Bhutto, and being the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was a bigger asset than being a woman was a liability to Sheikh Hasina Wazed. Networks matter!

This club mentality takes a more sinister form when the members of the club start looking down upon others. They always rubbish what a non-club member did, and create road-blocks to others' success. In worst form, the club degenerates into an oligarchy. Every oligarch is comfortable with sharing all the pie with a small set of peers. The actively, and often successfully, deny a fair share to everyone else. They used to call one such organization the Senate of People of Rome in ancient times. They murdered Julius Caesar because he diluted their power. Power did get diluted despite the Senate – and the Roman Republic became Roman Empire and lived for another 1,000 years in various forms. Not much damage done – isn't it? The term senate is still in used to mask the real intent of some organizations in some modern countries.

There is another effect in play. Everyone in the world wants to reduce risk. They would want someone who has a stamp of credibility and competence. Moreover, if you can't measure something, you can't understand it. IITs and IIMs have established a good brand, and score high marks on certain competence scales. Therefore, people just go for them. Easy and simple!

This network effect plays out in every aspect of life. Women have suffered its consequences for thousands of years. The men have formed a cabal, and due to their physical strength, have denied an equal share to women. Many men still look down upon women, and would prefer to suppress their own daughters to conform to social norms. There is glass ceiling everywhere. Men just trust other men more. Even if it is not active denial of rights, the men's network just promotes its own – the men, by creating an environment where men have significant advantage over women.

I hope that now we agree that it is myopic to assume that training women and educating them will solve the problem. This is a man's world fully geared to protect its rights. Then how do we break the men's power? When was the last time, a King relinquished power without a struggle?

One solution I see is to force women upon men, no pun intended, in halls of power through reservation. After endless suppression thus far, I believe women need to be pushed out of their homes, away from their children, to take their place in the world-order. Surely they will falter initially and we will collectively pay the price. However, hopefully perhaps over next 50 years, women will become competent and equal partners in the social structure.

Thank you for reading. My next post will be on "social justice & compensation."

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