Inequality in the "free world"

I remember watching Peepli Live a few years back. It was indeed a shocking reflection of the truth regarding farmer suicides. Apart from the protagonist, the writer's depiction of  a farmer who never bothered to talk but was shown as always digging a pit evoked my interest. Towards the end of the movie, the farmer dies out of exhaustion in the same pit.

In a corporate world, people keep on emphasizing that time is equal to money. Is it really so?Let's take the case of a farmer. Have you ever wondered how much time and effort go into producing 10 kgs of rice? If you really had to pay him by the hour...trust me you would have eaten much lower in your whole lifetime than what you ate in the  last ten years.

A few months back, I visited the Lindt chocolate museum in Cologne, Germany. The museum had loads of information about the cultivation of Cocoa. The plant only grows in tropical weather. Ghana is one of the key countries for Cocoa cultivation. Even the museum rightfully proclaimed that almost none of the children who assisted in drying cocoa have tasted a chocolate in their life! It is indeed this sleazy inequality which drives the corporate world today.

A major part of Bangladesh's economy is contributed by the Textile sector. The lives of textile employees in Bangladesh came into spotlight after the fire accident in 2012. Most American brands outsource their production to these unsafe places.

Set expectations straight

Whether it is to your family or to your most important customer, it is important to "set expectations straight". We are surrounded by people who expect something or the other out of us. Love, money, emotional support, social acceptance, service and what not...But over a period of time, inadvertently, the level of expectation rises proportional to the fulfillment of the expectations of the past...Some time in your professional or personal life, you experience that the bar is too high to fulfill.  Dealing with circumstances in today's fast new world  with unrealistic expectations requires a reality check on expectations. Its better not to give unrealistic promises- set expectations straight.

The  right strategy to set expectation straight is

1. Assess what can go wrong and why

2. Provide feedback to your stakeholders on a frequent basis so that they are aware of the fallacy of their expectations

3.

The PAISE approach

Writing is more of an art than a methodology. There is no cook book recipe for good writing.  My experiments with writing scientific papers has led me to ask questions like -  When should one start writing? What are the basic steps involved in writing? What needs to really happen before writing at a sub-conscious or conscious level?  I seek to explore some of these questions in this blog.

In my personal and professional life, there have been occasions where I have felt- "perhaps I could have explained it in a better way". I guess most of us are encountered with such situations whether you are a lawyer, journalist, engineer, researcher, student or a politician. Words do have a power to change. Sometimes, a few right words can explain more than a lecture.

Even before you start explaining a concept/ hypothesis, a set of steps need to be followed which can be summarized as the PAISE approach. The PAISE stands for Perceive Analyze Interpret Structure and Explain.

Perceive - Who is your target audience? What interests them? In a business scenario, the question would be - What does your customer/ manager want?

Analyze- How reliable is my perception? What is my concept? Is it based on intuition or do i have supporting data? Does the data fit with my concept? What would my target audience understand out of my data? To what extent can I analyze the data provided?

Interpret - What is the outcome of my analysis? Many a times, the data from experiments or surveys really don't provide conclusive evidence. Hence this phase is extremely critical for researchers.

Structure- Now that I have a perception of my target audience, analyzed the data available and interpreted the same, the structure of the argument needs to be formulated.Generally, some people might argue that the structure should be in place first. But that is for the author to decide if they would like to fix the result before analyzing them. Structuring your argument at a later stage avoids incoherence with the previous stages. Do not overdrive your claims without a possibility to substantiate.

Explain- How can I communicate my results? What does my approach solve? What are the limitations of my approach?

Although written from a context of scientific publication, this approach is applicable for technical writing, product marketing, technical/sales presentations or for improving your dissertation. Apply the same and let me know the results.

Clean up act

Last week, there was one incident which turned the world media towards the Japanese football fans. They had done something which Western countries had taught for years in schools and colleges but still failed to implement especially after a mega-event like the FIFA World Cup.  I remember once attending a new year celebration in Cologne a few years back on the banks of the river Rhine. People were drunk.Ambulances were parked anticipating casualties. Out of the blue, a fully drunk man threw a cracker ready to burst into the crowd.  A girl was badly injured due to this incident. The whole city was turned into a litter box within a night. The authorities cleaned the city the very next day and the city regained its cleanliness. 

What made the otherwise cleanliness conscious Germans to go berserk on such days? What made the Japanese clean up stadiums in Brasil in spite of not being told to do so? In India, from the great  Mahatma Gandhi to Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, every leader which India has produced has stressed on cleanliness. In spite of the same, why has it not translated into ground reality?  The answer to this is complex. 

In a country of 1.2 Billion people, it is hard for the government to indeed clean up every nook and corner of the country. I see that we as a population tend to discuss a lot about issues. We have very strong opinions about what the government must do to it's people, who should benefit out of that and so on. But at the ground level, we are unaware sometimes apathetic towards what our role towards improving the cleanliness in our cities is. In that sense,  i feel the ideas will not come from Chief Ministers, MPs or MLAs because simply it does not affect their votes. Even if it does affect their vote, how can you be sure that the opposite candidate will be sympathetic to these concerns? What is the real solution to the problem?

The answer lies in strong civil societies. Civil societies need to take proactive measures to make things like sanitation, water scarcity, waste management for plastics, glass, dangerous goods etc. their issues and engage in constant dialogue or maybe even lobbying to achieve their priorities. In that sense, AAP's idea of "Mohalla Sabha" was indeed innovative (only if they had the stability to implement the same) . Local self governments, schools, educators, NGOs  and the most important of the lot "common people" have a very key role to play in the execution. 

Another key role is played by culture. After the Fukushima disaster I read a story in the BBC, which mentioned that there were Japaneese veterans who volunteered to clean up the nuclear waste disregarding nuclear radiation. No matter how much you enforce, unless cleanliness is made a culture, it will be compromised at some point or the other. 

Along with fast rates of economic growth and prosperity of our population, environmental issues get bulldozed. A nation cannot be built only on industries and economic growth. China's smog and particulate emissions have reached such alarming levels leading to respiratory problems for its current generation and will stay for generations to come. It is important for our nation to think on its own feet and to find cost effective ways of dealing with such problems. New business ideas will also emerge for waste management if encouraged. 

The implementation of local schemes require a certain level of commitment from the local people too. Gone are those days where more than 70% institutions were run by the state. Slogans like "Less Government and more Government" have found its way through to the Indian voters. Government's role in the future will be that of just a facilitator or sometimes even a roadblock in implementing public interest. Hence it is time that one thought about the "clean up act" from the roots. 

Demand for change

At last the election in India is over. We have a clear winner in Mr.Modi. At last, its back to business and no more pappu jokes, no RTI, no women's empowerment, no more Gujarat model, no more minority fears blah-blah - now its "sabka saath sabka vikaas". Never before in the last 30 years had India given such a mandate for any leader who came through. Even Atal Bihari Vajpayee had to manage a coalition. The election results this time around reflected the belief of the people in a person ( ofcourse with a huge marketing campaign funded by corporates) who managed to market his ideas better than all others put together.

For India which was paralyzed by  government or the lack of it for a period of 10 years, it was indeed a new lease of life.  Hence it's become Mr.Modi's problem whether its managing power crisis (remember the promise of 24 h electricity throughout India for 5 years), improving roads, controlling food inflation, foreign policy, human resource development, industrial growth, national security, preserving federalism of the states and the list goes on and on.   Its always  better to rest your hopes on one man's shoulders and cheer for him from the gallery. How many times have we seen that? If the crowd cheered Sachin Tendulkar against Pakistan in the 2003 world cup, investors in the BSE sensex cheered when Raghuram Rajan took over as governor of the RBI. Nor many months ago a new party had amazing results in the Delhi assembly elections. An idealistic and honest man took over as the Chief Minister of the state. After 49 days of a"non-corrupt" government in Delhi, he resigned stating that he could not pass an anti corruption bill in the Parliament.

Now what behavioral trends do these events really highlight ? Before I begin, i am aware that one billion as a population cannot be generalized. It is just an attempt to provoke thinking about ourselves as a electorate/nation. Firstly, it says that India has always felt happy in resting it's hope on individuals rather than institutions. Even political parties which are cadre oriented had very strong and respected leaders when they won elections.  Whether it's  Narendra Modi,Raghuram Rajan or Arvind Kejriwal, these were individuals who inspired hope in their own ways. But on the flip side, the expectation might also become a double edged sword. It's easy to get carried away by the response of the people and promise more than what can be achieved.  Aravind Kejriwal, who rode on very high expectations and idealism in Delhi was humbled by the Indian voter in the previous election. Interestingly, if you have observed, Narendra Modi's language has changed to a "statesman-ish" after as he became Prime Minister. It's predictably a conscious shift and good for India. Another flip side is the lack of focus on institution building and continuity. Too much reliance on heros will only weaken the organization in their absence.

Secondly, emotions get the better of our people easily and end up discussing more than what is required. We react only when something drastic happens. Last week there were long discussions in television channels about road safety after Mr.Gopinath Munde's death. Only if we had looked at the statistics, we would have noted that the time for reform had come. Its indeed sad that we only talk about solving problems only when someone very important gets affected. In all other cases, debates in media end up being pure rhetoric and buck passing between the two major parties. All i have to say is -  Discussion is good but not the end of problems. Lip service doesn't really help...We need to get our hands dirty...execution is where we need to be at the best.

The third disturbing behavioral aspect I observed about India is the lack of patience and maturity in dealing with our own problems. Corrupt politicians , inert beareaucracy , lack of infrastructure, lack of law enforcement, unreliable public distribution systems etc. are all fuelling the emotions. A mature democracy will have all these problems too. Disruptive ways of dealing with problems will only lead to quick fixes. Only a well thought out strategy will serve the well being of it's people.

Not later than a period of 5 years, Indian voters will again exercise their divine rights to vote for a candidate. I am not optimistic enough to believe that many of the problems can be changed by a man at the top. We really need to introspect where we are going as a nation...and change the way we react to problems.


Jai Hind!

 

"Scope" of your engineering studies

Interestingly, everytime I visit India, I end up meeting someone or the other who talks about the "scope" of engineering studies.  "Is there scope for Mechanical Engineering nowadays? I saw an article in the paper yesterday that the scope for  it is declining!"- asks my dad. But it's not just him. Very notable journalists and career gurus come up with bizarre  statements in newspapers and magazines like- "there is little scope for civil engineering".Sources they look at are - private engineering college admissions.

Let's analyze the validity of such articles. The kids who get into engineering are almost 18 yrs old..so if you base your argument on a teenager's forecast of a job market and economics four years down the line in a world where even Nobel prize winning economists are struggling to predict the economy... Good job guys !!!

So what is this "scope" all about? - a good job with a good salary. Will you get one? The answer is...you will as long as you do your basics well and luck is in your favour. The success rate for such an event cannot be predicted. So instead of speculating on the scope of a field, try to learn whatever best you can ...do the basics right and hope for the best. The world is too big a place, there's space for everyone to fit in...so stop bothering children with all this crap....











 

Leaving Stuttgart....

It's the fifth time I am shifting in the last 3 years. The decision to leave a city like Stuttgart was not indeed an easy one.  I would miss the splendour of a being in one of the automotive capitals of the World. Its always seemed to me that the Swabian people had something very unique about them that created such prosperity in this region. "Schaffe schaffe häusle baue...!" which meant..."work ....work...build a house..." is something which other Germans used to remark about the key motivators for the workforce in this region.

Yesterday, I visited the Mercedes Benz Museum for the third time. This was the first time i took my wife along with me. After seeing a good part of the museum, we came back home. As we came back, she said- " There are certain inventions which served as a tipping point to the history of this world like the car, telephone, light bulb etc. It was as if the world was waiting for a spark and soon it spread like wild fire. Look at the first engine, it was invented in 1886. By early 1900s we had a  good car on the roads...". Stuttgart has been in the centre of activity related to mobility whether it was the invention of the combustion engine or the diesel technology or the air ship and what not.. Even today, migration internally in Germany happens from North to South. Here I am, taking the opposite route by keeping off the greener pastures.

From living in one of the most renowned industrial cities of the world, I will leave to Aachen. A city which rose to its prominence during the Roman empire era. Today, Aachen is a city which revolves around its university and its student population. 
A city where things are much slower, higher unemployment rates, less organized and less safe. On the brighter side,  friendly and informal people, with a huge foreign diaspora.

A new city, new job, more friends and lots of things to do.


Hariharan