Rantings against the big bad world

2006-07-07T13:18:00.000+07:00

Here is my World Cup team assessment

A+

Italy - The best defensive side of the tournament. The second best passing side of the tournament. The side with the maximum goal scorers. The side which knew how to win. Buffon was the man to beat in goal and Cannavaro for my money was the Most Valuable Player of the World Cup. This was a top show by a top outfit.

A

France - Irrespective of whether they make it to the final and win it, France's was the most compelling story of the World Cup. CNNSI's Bechtel lamented the absence of a Cinderella story in this World Cup. For me France was the Cinderella. They started the tournament with two draws, a quarrel on the pitch between Gallas, Makalele and Zidane and a tiff off field between Domenech and Zidane. But then they turned it on beating impressive Spain and fancied Brazilians.

Portugal - Call them divers, cheaters or whatever you may want to. But they know how to grind out results. Possibly the most efficient side on display (along with Italy). Turn up, do the job and go home. If only Ronaldo could pass more and dive less.

A-

Argentina - If the World Cup was won by beauty of play and team work, then Argentina had walked away with it. They were the strongest side on display. Nobody beat them. They were unlucky as well running into strong sides at each step of the way. And most importantly a single coaching mistake cost them more than it did anyother side in the World Cup. Its small consolation that FIFA rated the top two goals of the World Cup and two others in the top 10 as been scored by them. Messi, Tevez, Rodriquez, Mascherano will only get stronger and tougher next time around. By the way thanks for the Football Clinic.

Germany - This was supposed to be a classless German side. Not expected to do well. But boy did they play. They get an A- because despite all the attacking soccer and the semi final they still didn't beat an established power. Poland, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Sweden don't count as powers. They drew Argentina and lost to Italy. Maybe this was the precursor to a world beating side in '10.

B+

Spain - Fluid display of short passes. Ability to turn it on (okay it was against Tunisia and Ukraine). They dominated play against the French. If only they knew how to win. Again watch out for a Raul less Spain in '10 and boy wouldn't they be a side to beat then.

Netherlands - Scored thrice, conceded twice....in the world Cup (their quarter final encounter against Brazil had this scoreline in '94). Doesn't sound very dutch, does it? Young outfit, great future if only they can get Guus Hindink back. Watch out for Dirk Kuyt. Again a side for '10.

Switzerland - It took an Italian score to against Italy, but not even the Swiss could score against Switzerland. On purely aesthetic grounds you might want to bar them from the World Cup. But then you got to give them points for getting the job done, however ugly it might have been. In Euro '08, at home they will definitely be more of challenge.

B

Brazil - Enough written about them. Football is more than putting 11 superstars on the pitch.

England - Oh God, they were supposed to have a central defensive pairing stronger than Italy's. Their mid field was supposed to be the most talented. And then they had Rooney to crown it all. After Brazil they were supposed to be favorites. But playing at the World Cup proved to be a struggle. You might blame the coach, but hey nobody forced Erikson on them.

Ukraine - The most over performing side of the world cup. Not scared to score, not scared to concede either. A quarter final was just rewards for their ability and pedigree.

Australia - Now if it were another game played by 11 players with a ball on a pitch invented by the british they might have won the World Cup. Say what you will, the Australians know how to play hard. They might feel hard done against Italy, but then the force was with the Italians. Good show.

Ivory Coast - For a side which exited in the first round, you might say this is too much of a good grade. But boy in any other group (like the one with France or Spain) they would have gone far. But don't worry cote d'Ivoire you did yourself no shame.

Ghana - A little bit of luck, one less yellow card for Essien and a sharp linesman might have given the World Cup its Cinderella story and Brazil a big shock.

Ecuador - David Beckham undid them. But they did enough to merit a B

Mexico - If there is any other side along with Spain which has made a habit of underperforming it is Mexico. But then again they ran Argentina close and it took the goal of the World Cup to beat them.

B-

Sweden - Now what can I say, if your most pedigreed striker can't hit the target from the penalty spot. Offensively they struggled. Defensively, the Germans took them apart. I think it is back to the drawing board for them.

Czech - If ever there were points for a great start, the Czech would have them all. Against the USA they were the most pleasing side to watch. But when cool heads were needed they had Ulfaulsi and Co. The future will only be brighter. Feel sorry for Poborsky, Koller and above all Nedved. They get points for allowing my favorite "Pippo" Inzaghi to score.

USA - They played with their hearts on their sleeves. The only side to have consistently troubled the Italians, but I thought they didn't have the depth or talent to get past the others in the group.

C+

Poland - If you can't beat Ecuador what good are you.

Paraguay - No Chilavert no fun to watch

Trinidad and Tobago - Good show, but then did we seriously expect them to do anything more than they did.

Serbia and Montenegro - The biggest dissappointment of the World Cup. They might be a better proposition as just Serbia in the Euro '08.

Costa Rica - They get points for two goals against the Germans

Angola - They did well to hold the Mexicans and tie the portuguese up.

Iran - Lets hope their nuclear scientists are as capable as their footballers, for the sake of World peace.

Croatia - They are a bit like South Africa in Cricket, mighty in the 90s but now are just another team.

Japan - Strength required.

Korea - They were unlucky against the Swiss, but then they more than used up all their share of luck for sometime in the World Cup '02.

Togo - Points for celebrations of their only goal.

Saudi - They produced a thrilling encounter against Tunisia in their all Arab showdown. Sami Al Jaber has now scored in three World Cups. In their Persian Gulf rivalry with Iran they just might have shaded it.

Tunisia - Hannibal obviously doesn't play soccer. But then Riaddi and Jaziri do and they do well.

hats the matter with France?

2006-06-01T19:23:00.000+07:00

Twice in the space of six months, the world was rivetted to action from the "French street". Throughout the 19th century, action on the French Street evoked fear in the rest of the world (remember 1789, 1830 and 1848). In the 20th century, it evoked concern (remember 1968) but now the only thing it evokes is pity. France, at least from where I sit in Navi Mumbai, is seen as a lazy, has been of the previous century (a lot like Britain) than an ancient civilization to which the modern world owes a lot of its modernity to (like codified laws, republics, etc).

So what has changed? On the surface nothing much. Since 1789, the mobs pretty much have got what they wanted whenever they came onto the streets. Something they did as recently as last month. But there is a fundamental difference between all those revolutions and those of the last six months. Till 1968, the French street has always tried to achieve a discontinuous break with the past. In 1789 they wanted to get rid of the aristocracy. In 1830, it was Louis XVIII; in 1848, it was the Duke of Orleans; in 1871, Napoleon III and in 1968, it was the fourth republic which was at the receiving end. The street wanted drastic change and short circuited the process to achieve it.

The French Street of October 2005, was an incoherent protest (more like the American variety thatn the French one) against status quo. That of March 2006 was more even worse, it was a protest against change. The french students in 2006 don't want a break from the past, but wanted to bring the past back. When students are the most conservative elements in a society, the least that can be said is that the society is stagnating intellectually. It is not producing ideas to catch the fancy of its youth. A sorry commentary on a state which gave us concepts of equality, law, due process and the republic.

The French youth is a seriously conservative lot. In a widely quoted survey it was found that three out of four french students want to be civil servants!!! Why? Not because of the power, or any desire to change anything, but because it was a permanent jobs from which they couldn't be fired??? This is a pointer to intense risk aversion. The "Economist" deconstructed the causes of the this risk aversion brilliantly.

Read this http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_VPNPRRR

The summary of the argument is that people become risk averse when the chance of getting a new job is lesser than the cost of leaving the current one. Risk aversion will increase when new jobs are not being created as fast as possible, which might be the case when the umemployment rate hovers at 12%; or when workers are not sure that they have enough skills (or capability to acquire them) for the new jobs being created, also reasonably true due to defunct continental European education systems. Now jobs are not being created due to difficulty of letting people go when things turn out to be bad, so the remedy may be liberalize the sacking procedures. But then the whole lot of insiders (people with jobs currently) come onto to the streets since they are the ones with the most to lose if such reforms happen.

In essence, young frenchmen see no new jobs being created and conversely see that it is easier to get fired. And without a job the pleasures of a french life - wine, good food, two hour lunch breaks, 35 hour work weeks, 6 week vacations in July-August, etc are pretty much not attainable.

I will get to the solution part of the problem, may be some other time.

The Football Blog - Extra time

2006-04-25T15:26:00.000+07:00

Yesterday's rant was written immediately after the Milan vs Barca clash and when I was in the Ronaldinho trance. Today's ranting comes after the second semi final first leg Arsenal vs Villareal, and .... no trance. This semi final had the other outstanding midfielder in Europe now - Juan Riquelme Roman.

The interesting thing about Riquelme is that he is not gifted with the obvious gifts that football stars are supposed to possess. He doesn't have Ronaldo or Henry's pace, Ronaldinho footwork, Viera's strength of size, or the magic which Zidane used to produce. For most of the game, he ambles aimlessly around the pitch and he definitely doesn't defend. What he has is an immense game sense / vision and the not so rare ability to string inch perfect passes. But when they are combined together he produces that rare ability to unlock defenses around the world. One only needs to look at how Villareal play. Most of the balls are passed to him and he has to think of ways to make them useful. In addition, he does sizzle in dead ball situations. As a result he had emerged as one of the top playmakers in Europe. Just witness Villareal's progression to the Champions League semis.

Since I am sermonizing on my favorite midfielders, let me add one more name to the list - Fancesc Fabregas. Now he is only 18 and has dazzled only for the last month or so, so you might say what is the fuss about? The fuss is that if at 18 he can marshall Arsenal past Juventus then, what would he be doing when he is 25? Honestly I have not seen enough of him to cut up his game like that of Ronaldinho or Riquelme, but what I see I like and am hoping fervently that he goes to the world cup with Spain and the whole world gets to see more of him.

Now to the prediction part. I predicted Barca vs Villareal. I stick to it. Arsenal perhaps lost a golden opportunity to seal the tie, when Cesar Arzo cleared an Henry strike off the line. They will go to the Madrigal, with a 1-0 scoreline and in my mind, that is not much of cushion. I think Villareal will reverse the deficit and set up an all Spanish clash in the finals.

The Football Blog

2006-04-19T18:21:00.000+07:00

Now I have never been one for religious metaphors, but I saw God play for Barcelona yesterday. Ronaldinho. I have followed football for sometime now (the first match I saw on TV goes back to Italia '90), and of all the players I have seen in action - nobody, I repeat nobody has as overwhelming an influence on the game as Ronaldinho has had on this Barca side over the last couple of years.

There is an irresistible force about Ronaldinho, which is something way beyond mere talent and/or technique. An irresistible force, which despite all the hype I think Ronaldo doesn't have, neither did Romario (okay I haven't seen too much of his club football..But still) and neither did any other player of the 1990s or 2000s (include Effenberg, Roy Keane, Zidane, Nedved, Requelme, Juninho, Kaka, Ballack, and just about everybody else). Zidane showed flashes of that in the 2002 UEFA Champions League final, but that was it. The French side of the Euro 2000 vintage had it and I haven't seen anybody that irresistible since. I have never seen Pele pry his trade...But maybe I didn't miss too much.

The other thing about yesterdays game was inability of Italian side to match their Spanish or English counterparts. This year having seen Inter, Juve and Milan play in the Champions league and none impressed - Juve bowed out to Arsenal (of all people on earth), Inter to Villareal (Villa...?? Who, atleast in India) and Milan now seen to be overwhelmed by Barca, after having squeaked through against Lyon. The problem might be the lack of tempo in Italian style of play (atleast for these three sides). Their build ups seem to be too labored and when the opposition hurries them up, their passing collapses (Exhibit A - Juve at Highbury and Exhibit B - last night) and they look like a school boy eleven.

The last thing which struck me yesterday was that my top two midfielders - Ronaldinho and Requelme both ply their trade in Spain. Incidentally both their clubs are in the Champions League semis, with Barca obviously in pole position to make it to the finals.

And finally predictions - Barca is looking irresistible for the the Champions League and in June, Brazil will dazzle but I if you are looking for a dark, don't look much further than Arjen Robben's Netherlands.

The Great Indian Housing Disaster

2006-04-11T17:22:00.000+07:00

The last couple of years, I have been very intimate with Bombay. Bombay offers its denizens the best of India, in opportunity, professionalism and liberal attitudes; and the worst of the country, in housing and urban planning. I will talk of the former in this piece.

Bombay proudly claims some of the highest real estate prices in the world and simultaneously also has Dharavi, the largest slum in Asia (and which according to the Economist, has density in excess of a million people per square kilometers in parts).

The commonly attributed reason is Bombay's small spread. As is well known the MCD (and NDMC) in Delhi has two million fewer residents but three times the area of BMC. So obviously housing in Bombay should be more expensive, right? Though I have no statistics for that the FSI* in Bombay is higher nullifying Delhi's space advantage (there are more high rise residential towers in Bombay than in Delhi). There is more to the housing disaster in Bombay, than just area.

Like everything else, urban housing in India has witnessed a massive governmental intervention since independence, and is much worse off for it. After independence, the government India assumed the sole right to develop land in cities. DDA became the only body to develop land in Delhi. I am sure some such a body exists in Bombay as well.

Housing, like everything else follows the laws of demand and supply. When the demand for housing far outstrips its supply (like it does when DDA fails to deliver enough houses - in 1993 against a demand of 100000 dwelling units, DDA delivered only ....5000!!!) then the prices move north. In this process a lot of people get priced out of the market.

These people still need shelter - so in Delhi they end up in illegal housing (the unauthorized colonies) with no amenities and in Bombay where land is scarcer, you get the infamous slums. At the very heart of the housing crisis in urban India is a supply constraint. This constraint is the making of the Indian socialist state.

The solution to slums is pretty straightforward - massively increase housing supply. This isn't as simple as it appears. There are two strong lobbies who stand to lose with an increase in housing supply - existing house owners and builders. Due to high prices, people have invested heavily into buying in the cities. Now if the supply increases rapidly, these people suffer a massive capital loss. Imagine you invested a crore in buying a house in Central Bombay and now due to the mill land development the prices drop to say 80 lakhs. I am sure you wouldn't be too happy about that. Some say it was this lobby which stymied the mill land redevelopment in Bombay for so long.

In addition, there will always be the very well connected builder lobby. An artificial shortage of housing boosts house prices boosting the builder margins in the process. An increase in supply will mean smaller margins and smaller RoIs for builders. Builders will not want to increase housing supply beyond a point and they have enough clout to put a stop to a lot of things.

The Urban housing crisis in many ways is a little like the Palestinian problem - everybody knows the solution, but nobody is able to see it through.

*Floor Space Index i.e. given one square foot of ground, how much space has it been converted into. If on 1000 sq Ft of land you building a three storey building then you have created 3000 sq Ft from 1000 sq Ft leading to an FSI of 3

The other side of the IT boom

2006-03-16T20:01:00.000+07:00

Yesterday, I was watching one of those programmes which deals with "Great Infosys Story". Narayanmurthy in the programme said that if one were to point of the one single success of liberalization it was Infosys. I don't disagree with that, and I actually think that Infosys is a great Indian firm. But IT is neccesarily an island of excellence and high productivity. This high productivity has translated into high wages and high profitability of the firms. The profitability bit has in part contributed to the stock exchange story, but it is the wage bit that I will to deal with.

The IT boom in India has created a class of people who are young, with high disposable incomes and concentrated in a few urban areas like Bangalore, Delhi (Noida / Gurgaon), Chennai, Hyderabad and Bombay. In my mind, this boom has created some totally new urban dynamics which are best reflected in cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad and chennai.

The first change in urban dynamics has been the boom in rent rates in these metros. IT folks have gravitated to these cities since the jobs are here. Considering the highly constrained housing availability in metros in India, these guys with more money and fewer responsibilities/obligations, are willing to pay more than others for their houses. Our historic middle classes (government/PSU/bank employees and people working with manufacturing concerns) have been priced out of the prime housing markets. Just try finding a house in one of the "hip" Bangalore localities (Koramangala, National Games village and Cox town) with a manufacturing industry salary.

The second change has been in services getting more expensive. Again due to younger guys with more money to throw around, maids and domestic help market has seen a big demand surge. Consequently wages for these kinds of work has increased. I used to pay a lady 1000 rupees a month for something like 2-3 hours of work a day at my place. Although the domestic help market is not supply constrained, it does create some really unstable and undesirable equilibria (like taxi costs at tourist spots) in certain places.

The third key change is the sprouting up of expensive leisure zones in our cities. Our citie s are seeing the emergence of expensive watering holes, really expensive movie halls, really really expensive restaurants and so on.

The downside of these urban dynamics is that the traditional middle classes are hurt the most. There salaries have not kept pace with the IT sector but the costs of houses and services definitely have. This not only creates heart burn, but our cities develop a schizophrenic character - really swank rich zones and not so swank not so rich zones.

Another reason about why we need equitable growth across manufacturing and services.

The High tide lifts all boats up

2006-03-16T12:10:00.000+07:00

One of the key discussions which has emerged post the IT and services boom in India is the so called "Bangalore Bug". The phenomenon goes this way - IT pays big money to fresh engineers, non IT cannot. Consequently non IT industries which need skilled manpower become non competitive due to high labor cost or are starved of high skilled labor. If an engineer can make 20,000 rupees a month in the IT, why would he be willing to work in a manufacturing set up with half the pay, longer working hours and no foreign trips? Also this wage inflation is hurting the IT industry's global competitiveness.

The "Bangalore Bug" is principally due to the pool of skilled labor being finite and subject to laws of demand and supply. My current engagement is with a very old economy manufacturing concern which is struggling to attract and retain talent in face of an onslaught from IT and services boom in India.

In services, the west grew rich before it become uncompetitive. Is India likely to become uncompetitive before it grows rich? Or is there a way out.

The current way out is to dig deeper into the hinterland and attract qualified labor there. There are two problems to this - (a) the IT / BPO firms are probably a little ahead in this, just witness call centers sprouting all over hitherto smaller towns like Vizag and Coimbatore (b) high skilled labor in India is pretty mobile, so if you passed out of university in Delhi, very rarely would you be unwilling to take up a job in say Bangalore or Bombay. So the pool of talent from small towns might already have been drained.

The more permanent way out is to invest heavily into engineering colleges and other such establishments. This will remove the supply side constraints i.e. the pool of labor will become larger, increasing supply and depressing wage growth. But this is beyond the industry's locus of control.

Besides these two, there is a third solution is emerging, at least in my current engagement. As engineers go scarcer, industries are now rationalizing jobs which they were doing. So some of these jobs are now being downgraded and being opened up to non engineering graduates like diploma holders and B.Sc. This solution is attractive due to two reasons - (a) engineers are being put to more productive uses in the old industries (spiking productivity per man-hour) hence greater firm profitability (b) on an overall national basis, the high tide of service growth is actually lifting the smaller boats up.

Finally the IT boom might be helping the non IT brethren.

History, Science and the art of writing

2006-03-08T19:09:00.000+07:00

Of late I have been reading two books - "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" by Edward Gibbons and "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond. The first book is arguably one of the greatest work of the "What" of history. Written by Edward Gibbons, this is one absorbing book to read - sarcastic, ironic and simultaneously entertaining and immensely knowledgeable.

The second one is an eye opening and supremely illuminating treatise on the "Why" of history (for example why did Francisco Pizarro beat the Inca king Atahuallpa at Cajamarca and not Atahuallpa beating the Spanish king Charles I at Madrid). This is a supremely interesting read which will answer questions which you never thought you had.

The thing about the two books is that both have made history an extremely interesting subject. Gibbon converts history of Rome into an english language story like say any work by James Michener. He takes the novelists' approach to history. Diamond on the other hand converts history of the world into a scientific treatise not one of the greek letter scientific papers but more in the genre of Richard Dawkins. He presents the problem, the possible solutions, presents the evidence to support his preferred solution and raises questions on other solutions.

The other thing about these two books is the background of the authors. Gibbons is not a historian and neither is Diamond. For that matter the greatests of treatises on history like Carlyle (on the French Revolution) were written by non historians.

So am I hinting that history, like war and generals, is too serious a business to be left to the historians? Or is history readable only when it is woven into a thrilling narrative or into a hypothesis evidence and explanation set up? Or am I trying to broach the issue that like Chomsky on language, only outsiders seem to do path breaking work in any field.

I actually don't know what I am raising, but what think is true is that for any subject to be widely followed, read and appreciated a little of the three needs to be done - get rid of the experts who would not be able to simplify the message, weave it into a interesting narrative and lastly expertise in other areas needs to be tapped.

It all ADDS up!

2006-02-17T21:06:00.000+07:00

It all ADDS up!

Rantings against the big bad world

2006-02-17T21:01:00.000+07:00

Rantings against the big bad world

Is it really a small world?????

2006-02-13T19:15:00.000+07:00

In the last couple of weeks I have heard the phrase "its a small world" twice. Colleagues from different schools seem to know a common set of people. Later in the week, a colleague from my previous job knew a current colleague. This seems to be happening pretty often to me.

I know about the six degrees of separation (if everybody knows atleast 43 people than within six levels I should be knowing everybody in the world mathematically). But is really the world that small because in my specific cases the degrees seem to be one or two, at most three.

I attribute reasons for this sudden lessening to the degrees of separation in my life to Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru!!!

Let me explain.

Panditji was a great believer that Indians were capable of everything and consequently invested heavily in things like higher education and technology. Good thing, we have AIIMS, IITs and IIMs to show for that now. But unfortunately Panditji and his successors did not invest sufficiently in primary education in vast spaces of rural India. Also the successors let whatever urban schooling system we had in the government realm, collapse.

So the result is the top institutes of this country have a limited catchment area - those who can access good quality primary education, and nowadays coaching. India has about a sixth of its population of 16 and below (about 160 million). Assuming equal splits across age groups about 10-15 million kids should be in the 10th-12th standard level. Of them let us say atleast one tenth should be inclined towards engineering (assuming a quarter are scientifically oriented and amongst them about half should be try and appear for an IIT). So the largest engineering exam in the country an IIT should have about 1-1.5 million applicants atleast.

To my knowledge not in a single year have more than 200,000 students appeared in the JEE. Where have the rest of one million gone. They slipped our primary education net. Amongst these 4000-5000 made it and who were these - those with access to good schools and good coaching. And who are the ones who have that access - the ones with educated parents (they tend to value education and have the means to pay for that). Now that is a relatively small segment of people.

Another test - in my batch of IIM Calcutta 2003 about 40% of the batch belonged to Delhi (now Delhi has about 1% of India's population, but 40% is slightly obscene). And even amongst those 100 people most of their parents had similar profiles - professionals, doctors, engineers and government servants. When the catchment areas for the top institutes is so small definitely the degrees of separation would be very few.

And that is how Pt. Nehru is responsible for my keeping on hearing that it is a small world.

As an after thought - there is a lot of talk that number of places in IITs and IIMs should be enlarged. I am all for it - open more IITs and more IIMs. But more shouldn't mean a loser filter for selection. More IIT places shouldn't open up for the same catchment size of 200,000 (from our sizing above). We should look to put more of those who slipped our education net into the system. Mr Arjun Singh, we more investment in primary and secondary education and other alternate forms of schooling to put more people through the system.

Then, Sir lets open twice as many IITs and IIMs.

Man of the Year, 2005 - Ariel Sharon

2006-02-13T19:03:00.000+07:00

You might say that the man is in a coma in a hospital in Jerusalem, that makes me all mushy eyed and sympathetic to call Ariel Sharon the "Man of the Year" for 2006. But in my world view, the most courageous decision of the year was when he risking life, limb and his political career Sharon decided to unilaterally disengage from Gaza, in the process dismantling all Jewish settlements there.

Israel is a very small country (5-6 million people max) surrounded by a sea of hostile Muslim Arabs. Their security was imperiled right from the start. And whenever they were in trouble, they looked up to one man - Ariel Sharon. He'd barks, another former general and prime minister, called him the greatest ever Israeli field commander. After soldiering for nearly three decades, Sharon entered politics. He entered politics on the right, served as Defense Minister where he possibly made the biggest mistake of his life when he invaded Lebanon. He was the overall commander when the Sabra and Shatilla massacres happened. He was also the man many hold responsible for inciting the second intifada (when he along with 900 armed soldiers visited the temple mount in 1999, or 2000) which finished off what remained of the Oslo process. He was definitely a dyed in wool, right winger.

And then he became Prime Minister. A feature which has repeatedly been mentioned about Ariel Sharon was that he as housing minister in the 1970s fathered Israel's settlement program. This is accurate and true, but the difference was for Arik the military man, the network of settlements was the first line of defense of the Jewish state in case of an Arab invasion. For him settlements were a security barrier and not the Jews reclaiming their biblical lands of Judea and Samaria. Sharon as prime minister was confronted with issues of security of the Jewish state. The intifada was raging, there were suicide bombings in Israel and in the occupied territories. His solution was two fold - the palestinian terrorists were subject to some of the heaviest Israeli repression (which at a point assasinated Sheikh Yasin, the Hamas spiritual leader and his designated successor with in a fortnight) and he commenced the building of the security barrier between Israel and the Arabs. The whole of Gaza was beyond the barrier, and all but 15% of the west bank was beyond it as well. Was it a two state solution, Arik style? Now that the man in coma, we might never know the answer.

Anyways, I think this was the two state solution on Arik's terms. There was a problem to this two state solution - settlers who were first brought in by Sharon and invariably voted for Sharon's Likud party. Sharon was willing to evict the settlers in the interest of the nation. But by then Arik was not poster boy for the Likud - he had previously unilaterally withdrawn from South Lebanon irritating the hardline Likudniks no end.

Now in which country would a politician be willing to evict his most loyal voters out of their home in the national interest. Not in India for sure, BJP opted out of VAT to appease its trader base and the Congress will kowtow to the leftists on economic reform. George Bush for one, shows flashes once in a while (Iraq and all that) but surely crawls when asked to bend by his conservative base (evolution, tax cuts, budget deficits and all that). Clinton smokes and doesn't inhale, Tony Blair is in the Clinton camp. Chinese don't have voters and even if they did, they wouldn't care two hoots about them. Junichiro Koizumi is gutsy like Arik, but then his problems are economic, more esoteric and definitely not in the consciousness of Indians. And lets not talk of the Pakis.

Arik evicted the settlers, went on TV taking full responsibility for the Gaza withdrawl (to date in India, nobody owns up economic reforms; they are sold as being a World Bank - IMF dictats) and asked the piqued settlers not to blame the soldiers as they were just obeying orders. The problem with Israeli right wingers is that they have enough deranged men and enough guns to shoot prime ministers down (remember Yitzhak Rabin). Sharon was showing a red rag to them. His Likud party were alienated by his withdrawl moves, they are a little like the Indian pols - no backbone and will crawl when asked to bend. They decided to sack him. But Arik being Israel's greatest military tactician trumped them by calling for fresh elections and forming his own party and leading the opinion polls.

For sheer courage Arik is my man of year. As mentioned earlier Koizumi comes close (he too took on conservative elements in his own LDP called an election and beat the old guard hollow). And it is a loss for Israel and middle east peace that Arik is out of the scene.

If only, we get Arik to lead India, what all can't we achieve.

Indian weddings

2006-01-01T18:52:00.000+07:00

Christmas Day, 2005

At the fag end of the year, in the winter months starts the Indian wedding season. I for one have been a mute spectator through the last 25 of these seasons. This season a bunch of folks I know have got hitched and moved on. A close cousin of my (one of atleast 50 cousins I know) was one of them. And this ranting is a reflection of what I noticed at her wedding.

First, Telugu wedding ceremonies are atleast 3000 years old. The various rituals and iconography reflect a rich and not so proud agrarian past of ours. The iconography if full of green rice plants, prayers and appeasement to the gods of agriculture and not the least use of enough rice to feed Bangladesh in a famine. Also the clothes the groom wears and other things are very agricultural to say the least. India might not be an agrarian nation any more (one a quarter of the GDP is farm based) but definitely when investment bankers marry software professional, they do it like their forefathers did in the Godavari / Krishna delta atleast 5,000 years ago.

Second, the great south Indian wedding is as much a shown of pomp as the Punju wedding in Delhi is. South Indians are less pompous then the Punjus in the north (although they might be equally rich if not richer than the P folks), but come the wedding season, the peak to mean ratios of pomp and ostentation are the same for both sets of people. You only need to see the finery and the silks on display at the weddings to know what I mean. No wonder thieves target wedding households for a good loot.

Third, the wedding season is also the matchmaking season. All the eligible guys and girls turn out in their finery (and in the north Indian version dance as well) so that the opposite sex (or more likely the parents and the various intermediaries of the opposite sex) notice. The objective is to impress the prospective pater/mater familias (usually it is materfamilias) so that the good looking and highly eligible bachelors / bachelorettes can be snared into matrimony by the next wedding season.

Lastly, in large families a good wedding is the re-union of the family at large. I come from an especially large family. My mother was one amongst 11 and my father one amongst 5. So a count of my cousins reads like the census survey of Andhra Pradesh. The cousins are spread across continents (most in the USA) and don't typically meet. A good wedding is an occasion for all of us to come together meet, take pictures one last time, until atleast the next wedding.

PS: The great convergence of cuisine in India can be best observed in a South Indian wedding. The north Indian options available in a Telugu wedding are indicative of a Punjabi takeover of India or more likely the great convergence of cuisine and culture in India

The whys of the Culture Wars

2005-05-10T13:20:00.000+07:00

Iraq is supposed to be the war that broke the west. Yes the differences of opinion in the west over use of force against sovereign nations did come to the fore on Iraq, but did the west really break on this issue?

Amongst the litany of grievances listed by Europeans against America (and now Anglo Saxons) is the relatively innocous one called cutlure. The American Empire is different from the other historical empires. It isn't militarily nearly as mighty (Romans have fought on numerous fronts and won, whereas America is struggling to manage two relatively small states) but it projects enormous soft power not least through its media and culture. It won significant victories when it took over other Anglo Saxon states like Britain, Australia and Canada (illustrated by the decline of these states' film industries). And over the years with the great increase in media around the world, the hitherto non Anglo Saxon countries are bearing the brunt of this mighty American culture machine.

The reason many say is the size of the American economy. The economy is a magnet which attracts the brightest of the world, who take back the American culture. Alternately the prosperity is such a strong magnet, the America becomes aspirational which the rest of the world emulates, right from junk food, to MTV. But is the economy the only driver of American cultural onslaught. If that was so, Japan is a huge economy (with a very proud and very ancient history as well) at the heart of the East Asian miracle, but nobody accuses them of projecting their culture.

Back home in India, the state which is projecting its culture is not the largest (who has heard anybody humming a Manoj Tiwari number) or its richest (heard any Gujrati or Marathi songs doing the rounds of countdowns) or one with a glories past (we still don't appreciate Rabindra Sangeet that much, do we?) but a small state in the northwest called Punjab. And lets not even try calling one culture superior to another. So what makes UPwallahs living in Mumbai hum punjabi numbers or south Indians like me appreciate their music?

Societies that are aspirational do manage project their cultures. But what determines aspirations? Is it well being (how many of us watch Swedish or any of the Scandinavian movies) or is it simple wealth of its richest (nobody aspires to be like the Arabs) or is it history (but then why does Pink flloyd sell more than Mozart)?

If you know the answer to this, just drop me a line. We would make the world our little cultural domain!!!!

Right, Wrong, the Church and Democracy

2005-05-04T13:10:00.000+07:00

The election of Joseph Ratzinger as the Pope raised the most unfortunate question in my mind - does (if yes should) the majority determine morality?

The 20th century was definitely not one belonging to God. The dominant ideologies of the century were either the secular liberl democracies of the West or the Godless communism of the Russian empire. God was definitely on the decline.

But then how is God relavent to this discussion? God lies at the very nub of morality. Historically the western rights and wrongs be traced to the ten commandments, something which moses brought down from God. In the Islamic cultures, it was Koran, Sunnah and the Hadith (all having come down from the Prophet and thus from God). In the oriental religions it is slightly vague, but the rights and wrongs are defined in relationships with sins they incur and thus again flow down from the God.

But what happens when the Divine God is replaced with a more earthly secular God i.e. people? Does our morality start reflecting the trends prevalent in society. Morality in effect becomes a fashion - a new trend every season.

Abortion and birth control are fine today, but tomorrow that can extend to the handicapped and the day after to may be a race. We have all been through that once - remember Hitler. Nobody in Nazi Germany really protested the Jewish persecution and it was accepted by the people as well. So did it become right? So the question - why should birth control be right now? Quality of life is a moving target, and should not determine right to life. The new Pope has described this as "Dictatorship of Relativism". And I believe there is a point there. There have to be constants across time. The catholic church believes, it knows those constants.

Islam is also fighting a similar battle, but it is much more brutal and unlike the church there is lesser tolerance of dissent. Some believe that what was right by the prophet should be right now as well? So they go about enforcing that with guns and bombs. In essence it is the same as what the Church is trying to do in the west.

But have we in India, found those constants? Hinduism is probably the most democratic of all religions. After all, "Janata Janardhan" is an Indian concept. Hinduism vests divinity in all beings (and in non Beings). So the human flesh eating Aghori sect is as much Hindu as the purest of the Chitpavan Brahmins. By extension, it defines no everlasting rights and wrongs. The person himself is the decision maker and in the end as God incarnate he will lead himself down the righteous path. This is incidentally what the secular west preaches as well. But the crucial difference is that life in the west is about the pursuit of material well being, for the Hindus it definitely doesn't end with that.

Can Nicholas Kristof save the world?

2005-03-28T19:05:00.000+07:00

Can journalists/commentators save the world? They definitely are privy to some dirty secrets - even those which they don't understand (Shekhar Gupta and his unwritten memoirs). They expose politicians and have brought down regimes (Arun Shourie, Woodward & Bernstein) and some have died trying (Paul Klebnikov of Forbes Russia).

But has anyone of the lot really saved the world? Some like Paul Krugman (lets expand the scope of journalism to economist columnist) definitely are trying to save America from the Republicans. Others like Thomas Friedman are trying to save something, only God knows what (but it sure involves talking down to their readers)? The others are either cynical wannabe pols (Fareed Zakaria); or scholarly teachers (John Kay); or loony ranters (Yasmin Alibhai Brown). Lets not even try to get into TV journalism.

Among the lot there is one man who may not have saved the world the world, but it wasn't for the lack of trying. Since I first read Nicholas Kristof , I have come to know about underage sex slaves in Cambodia; the horrible genocide in Darfur; about the North Korean Hermit kingdom; and now he is in Zimbabwe exposing the despicable Mugabe regime. He has risked life and limb and the world has been better off for his efforts.

Saving the world needs the American public to be aware of impending disasters. Nicholas Kristof through his New York Times Column is doing yeoman's service in bringing these oil-less regions some much needed attention. Darfur for one would never have captured as much attention and whatever action it has, if not for him. We learnt (at least I did) about Darfur much before it came up on BBC and CNN reading his column in the New York Times.

But can Nicholas Kristof save the world? Yes but only to the extent a column in the New York Times can. He can only stir thoughts in the NYT reading public (and God bless him for that). Its the powers that be which need to do the actual saving.

Alongside saving the world Nicholas Kristof does write some really interesting columns. Read them.

Only sinners,losers and the patently stupid fly Sahara

2005-03-28T17:26:00.000+07:00

Count me amongst one of them. Though you might add a caveat - I didn't do so either willingly or out of ignorance. Circumstances forced me to fly Sahara, and how I regret that.

Lets start with the litany -

1. Sahara has no respect for your time - Once upon a time to fly Indian Airlines was a curse. IA has improved a lot since then, and has found a replacement for its old slot in Sahara. I don't remember when last I took a Sahara flight on time.

2. They have no courtesy to care to inform you about the delay - I have tele checked in most of the Sahara flights and left my contact details while doing so. Guess how many times was I informed about the delay? Zero, Null, 0. That is the amount of respect they have for your time. (as an aside - whenever Jet delays they call you up and tell you so that you can do something else with your time).

3. They don't respect your feedback. Twice have I registered complaints against them in Delhi and Hyderabad. Guess how many times someone got in touch with me? Zero, Null, 0. Why have a complaint book when nobody cares to read them, or react to them.

4. Their customer service on ground sucks. Try calling a hyderabad number to telecheck in. You will hear a million rings and about two million engaged tones on 4 numbers they provide in the website and on the ticket. I got a fifth number by calling Jet and guess what was the result their? Nobody picks up. If you want to tele check in be prepared to call long distance to their Delhi and Bombay numbers.

5. Arrogance of the on ground staff is appalling. Try complaining to them in Delhi and you will realize - very few in the world can get ruder (even Parisians don't treat tourists like that).

Please if ever you contemplate flying Air sahara - don't even consider paying for the full fare. If you have to in the rarest of the rare cases (mark the usage of words used to describe the occasions to award a death sentence, flying sahara is nearly as bad) you need to fly sahara - book a million days in advance and pay the lowest possible fare and curse God, your bad fortune and whoever fathered the idea.

Don't be stupid. Don't fly Air Sahara.

Morality, Equality and Evolutionary Biology

2005-02-07T16:59:00.000+07:00

What do good people do? What do moral people do (on available evidence in America, they don't have gay sex and definitely don't vote Democrat)? The answers to these will involve a laundry list starting with the ten comandments and on to a variety of other things. But do these things deliver evolutionary success? If not, then was Moses (and by association God) trying to bring mankind to an end (don't make out with your neighbours wife is definitely an evolutionary loser).

On a more serious note - is there a disconnect between biology and morality. Biology tell us that genes have one single objective in life - to make maximum copies of themselves. Study of evolution tells us that genes which are spread the widest increase the chances of their survival. By extension it means creatures that have sex with the maximum number of partners increase their chances of propagating their genes. That in modern times is called adultery/polgamy and is morally repugnant, denounced in most places and is illegal in some. So is our morality altering the vital recipe of survival which may well be programmed into our genes.

Charles Darwin said that evolution would be the bible of a Devil's chaplain (don't remember the exact quote, but Richard Dawkins inspired by that wrote a book called - The Devil's Chaplain). Over generations evolution has involved exploitation, cannibalism, rape, polygamous relationships and every other conceivable moral evil. Success in Natural Selection involved ruthlessness and selfishness over generations and millenia. It is by means of such pathetically immoral actions that I write this sitting in a Boeing 737, 28000 feet above earth.

We are all different and there is a truckload of evidence that our differences are not skin deep. Intelligence and every other skill we have is programmed in our genes (for further details read Steven Pinker, in my opinion the smartest man in the world). If intelligence is an inherited trait (not all intelligent men produce intelligent children and vice versa), then our current focus on meritcracy gives an advantage to intelligent children. This advantage may potentially make them richer more successful or in simple terms better off than the rest. As our genes are selfish and they try to increase chances of success of the progeny, it will make it very attractive for intelligent people to mate with other intelligent people. Which might lead to a situation, that the intelligent people mate amongst themselves and produce an intelligent lot of people and not so intelligent ones do the same amongst themselves producing a not so intelligent lot, don't we end up creating a caste system. The intelligent ones are Brahmins and the not so intelligent ones form the other castes. Was Manu right when propounded the Manusmriti?

I am not really well read on biology, but whatever I read convinces me that natural and moral are independent variables. But then if I let what is not natural determine how I lead my life, then does it do justice to Copernicus, Gallileo and other who risked their lives to ensure that the natural won the war over the divinely ordained? And by doing so am I not increasing the chances of my being an evolutionary loser.

Economics can to an extent determine why I choose to be an evolutionary loser. It will tell me that we live in a rule based society, where the violation of rules has a cost associated with it. So if I jump a red light I might risked dying in an accident and if I make out with my neighbours wife, there is a fair chance that he might shoot me. So in both the situations I would take the less risky option and give my genes a fair chance to propagate themselves (dead men don't mate) and thus not jump a red light and not make out with my neighbours wife. And more importantly if the rules don't exist, there would be chaos and that would reduce everyone's chance of propagating their genes. It is reasonable and logical to buy this explanation.

But this determines my behaviour in a rule based system but doesn't determine the rules (which in this case are determining my behaviour). The rules by whomsoever and whenever they were framed definitely make me an evolutionary loser (it is because of the rules, that I might die, or be neutered in some countries, when I spread my seed around without consent).

I think the reconnect between morality and biology can be established by the fact that genetics are probabilistic in nature (I might have a hundreds of recessive genes which if dominant would have made me Einstein and since they are not dominant I spend my time doing silly things like write this). Whoever/whatever determines the choice of the genes express themselves (I have no clue, excepting that some people might want to call that God) is beyond my control. So maybe morality is just my way of ensuring that progeny - even if they are not bright enough or are plain stupid and incapable of surviving in a Darwinian world - do so in an orderly, just and fair world. Maybe the genes aren't just cut throat winners of darwinian battles but slightly more contemplative strategists who hedge their bets in the big bad world.

Death of a Prime Minister

2004-12-26T16:01:00.000+07:00

In the last month of the year, the man who created 21st century India died. Although he was prime minister in the 90s, he laid the foundation of India resurgent, India shining and all that we hear about and are proud of now.
And look how we are treating him now? Amongst the many prime ministers we have had - the man with the shortest term got cremated in the national capital, and the man with the longest, deservedly so, was cremated in the capital. But the man who made the most difference beside of course Pt Nehru to the way we looked at the future is shunted out to a provincial capital. My guess is that the next PM to die - VP Singh in all probability who presided over the country in a disastrous 11 month term whose consequences have probably taken away 1% point from our GDP growth year on year, will probably find himself cremated along the banks of the Yamuna with a nice memorial to go with it.
Well you might say that here I am seeing demons where none exist. Being petty, about a dead man's memory. I don't think so. The only other prime minsiter to be cremated outside Delhi was the first PM from the south of the Vindhyas. The second one treated that way is, is the second PM from the south of the Vindhyas. Incidentally these are the only two with nothing to do with the Hindi heartland or with the family and hence they can be shunted to provincial capitals (Gandhinagar and Hyderabad) comfortably.
Why is it so that some Prime Ministers are more equal than the others? I think politically India exists at three levels - at the top is the Family, then comes the Hindi heartland and at the foot of the table is the rest of the country. This is also borne out the by the disproportionate attention these parts of the country get. Its just that with real estate availability at the Yamuna ghat shrinking rapidly, place needs to be allocated to people there according to the above mentioned criteria. So non Prime Ministers like Babu Jagjivan Ram get cremated in Delhi, he was from Bihar; 3 monthers like Charan Singh get a ghat for themselves, he was a UP wala; Rajiv Gandhi was brought down to Delhi to be cremated in a very inappropriately titled Vir Bhoomi; even Sanjay Gandhi, not a prime minister and definitely an extra constitutional autocrat find places there. In about 50-70 years we might find Sonia Gandhi there as well without being PM.
Narasimha Rao was a wronged man. Agreed he lead the Congress to its worst performance in 1996. But the current helmsperson of the party has lead it to a worse performance in 2004, and is still hailed as a victorious leader. He was shunted out of the party and then out of the public consciousness - first because of criminal charges and when that stopped being a disqualification, because of his not so subservient past relationship with the Empress at 10 Janpath.
Over the last five years there has been a steady move to divest him from his legacy of economic reforms as well. When the BJP appropriated economic reforms, the Congress gave that up because it was Narasimha Rao's doing and not that of the family. But since reforms were something which had built for itself a constituency, that legacy was transferred from Narasimha Rao to the latest of the family retainers - Manmohan Singh. Its fashionable now to say it was Manmohan who reformed India. That may be about as correct as saying that it was Marshall Ferdinand Foch and not George Clemenceau who led France to victory in the First World War. An apolitical technocratic Finance Minister would have got as far as the French general did, without the firm support of his political master.
Perhaps the only good thing about his death is that he died a vindicated man. He was acquitted of all charges in court. His discovery was the PM of India. India booms and shines and is the darling of the western investor. And as he predicted the BJP on december 6, 1992 did destroy its emotive issue in chief, something which is haunting them now.
Although our countrymen and his partymen may not have treated him well, Narasimha Rao would be judged favourably by history.