Technical Services division

Allegations

1) Technical Services division was set up to illegally by Former chief of army General VK Singh
2) He had spied on Defence ministry officials using interceptors
3) He had bribed J&K Minister Ghulam Hassan Mir
4) He had tried to over throw the Omar Abdullah Government
5) Misuse of funds
6) A report submitted by the DGMO in March lists the above and also that he tried to change the line of succession

General's Response

1) There was a Technical Services division but it was not a technical but only a Human Intelligence organization
2) Army has paid not just Ghulam Hassan Mir but many ministers and NGOs who are working for maintaining peace in the state
3) Army has also carried out 8 covert operations outside the country
4) He has denied that interceptors were used to spy on defence ministry officials. Even though he has accepted that 2 of them were sold to a Singapore firm after they were found not worthy(there are reports that 2 interceptors were actually thrown in a river and typically army destroys everything and not sell to others to avoid security issues)
5) He has nothing to do with politics of throwing out the Omar Abdullah Government
6) The 2010 summer stone throwing was stopped purely by the Army
7) The whole controversy has erupted because of him sharing the platform with Modi

Political Parties Response

1) BJP claims that General Singh is targeted because of him sharing platform with Modi and questions why the Government has not acted on the DGMO report which was submitted in March
2) J&K Government has asked Congress to ask the Minister Mir to step down and there has been no response after Singh's interview that almost all ministers are paid and CM knows about it
3) Farooq Abdullah has asked for a CBI enquiry
4) Home Minister has asked General Singh to name the ministers who were bribed

Questions

1) Who gave the authority for General Singh to create such a division? Did he get the approval from Defence Minister/Prime Minister/Cabinet? Isn't the government responsible for approving such new divisions?
2) When RAW has been asking for the covert operations division to be re-started (this was shut down by IK Gujaral) who gave permission to the army to set up a covert operations division?
3) Does it make sense for the army to directly get involved in covert operations in other countries or shouldn't it be left to the RAW ?
4) Shouldn't IB be in-charge of working on internal intelligence and also working with NGOs etc. to ensure peace is maintained? Why was the army directly involved?
5) Why is there no clear demarcation of responsibilities?
6) Is it right for the army to bribe ministers to ensure peace is maintained? Don't the ministers take oath to stand by the constitution of this country? Do they have to be bribed to do that?
7) Understand that there are security implications, shouldn't the Government have acted swiftly and at least released officially what actions were taken? If the report is still being studied, shouldn't the government have reached out to the opposition and appraised them of the situation?
8) When General VK Singh is accused to have done some mischief is it right on the part of BJP to entertain him? Isn't national security of paramount importance to all parties?
9) As usual the Defence minister, is silent... Where is he? I think after the Augusta Westland bribery scandal, he is too shocked to even react to anything (how can a ministry under Mr Clean be accused of corruption? - that's why he is probably thinking)
10) Interceptors - What exactly happened, should come out.
11) Government leaks - Crazy timing.. everyone leaks information, but can't you be a bit more strategic and not leak information just when General Singh shares platform with Modi?
12) What was the armies counter intelligence division doing when all these were happening?

Interesting developments - Alliances

Very short post, there are some suggestions that I had mentioned that BJP and Congress should do in the part 5 of my series on 2014 elections things are starting to fall in place.

I had suggested that BJP should tie up with MDMK, PMK and other smaller parties. MDMK seems to be OK to tie up with BJP and in the recent rally Vaiko (the MDMK leader) was all praise for Vajpayee, clearly indicating his preference to go with BJP. Also BJP has apparently reached out to DMDK also.

I had also suggested that BJP should try to tie up with TDP as Chandrababu Naidu is feeling the pinch of being relegated to the 4th place in the state. During his visit Naidu has met with Rajnath Singh and has clearly stated that he is ok to support BJP. The irony is that Naidu walked out of the NDA to reduce the loss of muslim votes. Naidu is desperate to gain some ground in the state, at least through the alliance with BJP.

I had also suggested that Congress should tie up with YSRC. Today Jaganmohan Reddy has been granted bail and I believe things will start moving towards a formal alliance (if not a merger).

Don't think the leading National parties are reading my blog, but at least my thoughts are same as what is actually happening on the ground. Next 8 months till elections will be interesting.

Infosys - Getting all bad press

Infosys has been getting all the bad press for every exit of someone from the organization. You open the papers this morning and you see that Kartik Jayaraman who was the BPO head for Australia has quit and then before that it was Ashok Vemuri who was the North America and Manufacturing head. Before that it was the Latam Head of Infosys BPO. Then there was the sales head Basab who also quit recently. The Infosys spokesperson has rightfully said that they cannot react to every exit other than Senior level.
 
I believe that some of the newspapers (especially ET) created an application which mines LinkedIn and whenever someone changes their current organization from Infosys to something else that becomes news.
 
Infosys at its peak decided to fire Phaneesh Murthy due to the sexual harassment case. There was no major impact even for that. Phaneesh is known for his selling skills and there are many tales of how he had swung many deals with just a single conversation.
 
When Shibulal became the CEO Mohandas Pai quit Infosys. It was given such a huge coverage in all press. Mohandas Pai was the darling of the media during his CFO days and that ensured that his exit had good coverage. It is completely another story that Mohandas Pai, as the HR head, was the man behind iRace which was a huge HR disaster and caused huge attrition in Infosys.
 
Ashok Vemuri who was touted as a possible candidate for being the CEO of Infosys quit recently because he was in a hurry to become a CEO. Becoming a CEO of a much smaller company or waiting for an year or so to get a chance to become a CEO of a larger company is an individual’s choice.
 
Basab Pradhan was made the Sales head when Phaneesh was fired. He quit Infosys in 2005 and joined back in 2011. With the verticilization of the business, the role of corporate level sales head is fussy. Not really sure why he was brought back in 2011. Rightfully he has moved on as I feel a central sales head is not required.
 
Agreed every exit will take with it the customer contacts but end of the day customers work for what  company is rather than just the Execs who they have contact with.
 
Bias in reporting is also stark. When the Infosys BPO Latam Head quit he was replaced by someone from a competition. Also this person has actually rejoined Infosys after being with the competition company for an year. Why that wasn’t mentioned anywhere?
 
Other companies are also seeing Senior level exits. Everywhere people will look for opportunities. Why aren't those reported as much as what happens in Infosys?
 
When was the last time we read about exits from TCS/HCL/Cognizant/Wipro? Shouldn't the media houses have their application which mines LinkedIn looked at these companies also?
 
What has the poor Infosys done to get such coverage for every exit?

My Views of what will happen in 2014 elections - Part 5

Concluding part of this series.

I had missed Goa, the total seats in Goa is 2 and both should go to BJP

Total Seats

BJP - 158 (includes Shiv Sena, SAD, NPF)
Congress - 187(includes NC, SDF)
MNS - 2
JDU - 21
RJD - 6
LJP - 3
INLD - 1
JMM - 2
JDS - 3
Left - 24
BJD  - 15
DMK - 8
ADMK - 29
TMC - 25
TDP - 7
YSRC - 15
SP - 20
BSP - 17

If DMK is included with Congress they will get to 195. Will need another 77 more seats for absolute majority.

BJP with a total of 158 will require 114 seats.

Best Case scenarios for BJP

Even though as per my projections BJP is expected to win 158, what is the best case scenario for them?

1) Uttar Pradesh they can get 2 seats more
2) Assam with the alliance with AGP they can get 2 seats more
3) Punjab they can get a seat more
4) Uttarakhand they can get 3 seats more
5) Bihar they can get 2 seats more
6) Haryana they can get 3 seats more
7) Karnataka they can get 2 seats more
8) Gujarat they can get 2 seats more
9) Maharasthra they can get 10 seats more
10) MP they can get a seat more
11) Rajasthan they can get 4 seats more
12) Delhi they can get 3 seats more

If all the above happens then BJP will end up with 193 seats and still short by 79 seats. Where will they get those 79 seats from is the big question.

The problem with BJP is that it is not pan India present. In the following states they have no presence - West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Andhra, Kerala. These four states constitute 143 seats. They will most likely not win even a single seat in these seats.

Only possible allies for them could be ADMK, MNS, TMC and TDP which will end them at 256 seats that is 16 seats short of majority. That should be manageable somehow.

Only if all the best case scenarios work out, they can get to form the Government. That is highly unlikely to happen. In case they are more than 30-40 seats short even after the above allies join them, then they will have to sacrifice Modi as he will not be acceptable to any other ally be it JDU/JDS/BSP/YSRC.

Best Case scenarios for Congress

Even though as per my projection Congress is expected to win 195 seats, what is the best case scenario for them?

1) Uttar Pradesh they can get 10 seats more
2) Tamil Nadu they can get 17 seats more by allying with DMDK and DMK
3) Andhra Pradesh get 17 seats more by allying with YSRC

If that happens they will end up with 239 seats. Where will they get those 33 seats from? I would say the following parties will be willing to support Congress

1) JDU with 21 seats
2) SP & BSP with 37 seats
3) RJD & LJP with 9 seats
4) JMM with 2 seats
5) Left might also consider supporting to keep the "communal BJP" out of power with their 24 seats
All that will take it to 289 seats and into simple majority.

Third Front Scenario

When both Congress and BJP don't get close to that 190+ mark. In case that happens, all permutations and combinations are possible and we will have 2 years of third front rule before we have another round of elections. Following people will be definitely staking claim Mulayam, Mayawati, Mamata, Jayalalitha & Nitish. We could also have a surprise candidate like a Naveen Patnaik who should be acceptable to a larger number of regional and left parties. Also read that Sharad Pawar is also keen to become PM.

What should BJP do now?

1) Get MNS into the BJP/Shiv Sena alliance which will help them give a good fight to the Congress/NCP alliance
2) Try to open their account in Tamil Nadu by forming an alliance with whatever parties are left out like PMK, MDMK, etc.
3) Form an alliance with the Gorkha groups in West Bengal and assure them of more powers (no state party will assure Gorkhas separate state) which might get them 2-3 seats.
4) Firm up the unofficial ties with JDS(BJP didn't contest the recent by polls and supported JDS instead) in Karnataka which might get them 5 more seats
5) Tie up with Chandrababu Naidu's TDP. Already he is feeling the pinch of being relegated to the 4th position in the state after Congress/TRS/YSRC.
6) Tie up with PDP in J&K which can help them in getting couple of more seats

If you look at it, except MNS all other parties are in their wane and they are the only possible candidates for pre-poll alliances.

What should Congress do now?

1) Firm up an alliance with YSRC in Andhra
2) Firm up an alliance with DMK/DMDK in Tamil Nadu
3) Firm up an alliance with JDU in Bihar. In case he is not interested, then with RJD/LJP.
4) Spend lots of effort in West Bengal. Position themselves as the alternative to highly incompetent Mamata.

Possible candidates from Congress and BJP (other than Raga and Namo)

Strongly feel that Rahul Gandhi would like to have his own Manmohan Singh. The possible candidates
a) P Chidambaram - Who is known to be close to the Gandhi family and is generally acceptable to all communities (except probably someone in TN who doesn't like anyone from TN becoming a PM. Case in point GK Mopanar missing out in 1996)
b) Digvijay Singh - Highly unlikely as he is currently being sidelined in MP itself.
c) AK Antony - You will have another Mr Clean. Might not get the nod, as he will not be acceptable to the corporates
d) Sushilkumar Shinde - Possible if Congress wants to project a Dalit as a PM. However, his health is not good recently and that might go against him

As mentioned earlier, in case BJP is around 40 seats short of majority then they will be forced to sacrifice Namo. The possible candidates are
a) LK Advani - Don't discount the old man as yet. He will fancy his chances as he is now become more acceptable to guys like Nitish
b) Arun Jaitley/Sushma Swaraj - Both leaders of Opposition. Arun Jaitley is even postponed his becoming the President of BCCI to ensure he doesn't miss out on an opportunity to become the PM of the country
c) Shivraj Singh Chauhan - This guys has ambitions of becoming the PM. He will also win a 3rd term as CM this year. He is playing is cards well by positioning himself as all that Namo is not.
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With this I am concluding this series. Will write more about the elections as we get closer to May 2014.  

My Views of what will happen in 2014 elections - Part 4

Fourth part of this series.

Uttar Pradesh

Total Lok Sabha Seats - 80

The biggest state in terms of number of seats. Akilesh Yadav is at complete loss in handling the state. If there is one state that can be considered for partition it should be Uttar Pradesh. He has no clue of how to govern, with all the pullings from the stalwarts of the party including his uncles and dad. There have been so many riots in the last 1 year and the law and order is in a mess.

I strongly feel the Modi effect will be felt highly in Uttar Pradesh and that will help BJP a lot. With Amit Shah being made responsible for the state, things have started moving fast. BJP will gain heavily if they can consolidate the Hindu votes which they had lost a bit to Mayawati. She was smart in creating a social alliance between Brahmins and Dalits (which was unthinkable sometime back) to win a huge majority in the previous assembly elections. Brahmin votes have now more or less moved to BJP and she will definitely retain her Dalit vote base.

The VHP's plans for a Kosh Yatra which was stopped by the Akilesh government and now the riots in Muzzafar nagar all will help BJP in consolidating the Hindu votes.  What is to be seen is if the anger among the muslim community against the Samajwadi party in the wester UP (after the recent riots) spread to other parts of the state and will really cause their votes to move away from SP.

Sad part is there is too much politics with religion in this state. BJP getting more hindu words is a given. Who gets the muslim votes is what will decide who will receive how many seats here.

Congress is the joker in the pack. It stunned everyone by winning 20 seats in the last Lok Sabha elections. Don't think they will be able to repeat that feat unless muslims vote en-masse, which is highly unlikely to happen.

My Prediction

BJP - 35
SP - 20
BSP - 17
Congress - 8

Union Territories(except Delhi)

Total Lok Sabha seats  : 6

My prediction

BJP - 3
Congress - 3

Tirupara

Total Lok Sabha seats - 2

My Prediction

CPM - 2

Sikkim

Total Lok Sabha seats - 1

My Prediction

SDF - 1 (this will be part of the congress alliance)


Nagaland

Total Lok Sabha seats - 1

My Prediction

NPF -1 (this will be part of the BJP alliance)

Mizoram

Total Lok Sabha seats - 1

My Prediction

Congress - 1

Meghalaya

Total Lok Sabha seats - 2

My Prediction

NPF -1 (this will be part of the BJP alliance)
Congress - 1

Manipur

Total Lok Sabha seats - 2

My Prediction

Congress - 2

Arunachal Pradesh

Total Lok Sabha seats - 2

My Prediction

Congress - 2

Assam

Total Lok Sabha seats - 14

Tarun Gogoi has currently in his third term as Chief Minister and I feel the anti-incumbency will play a part in this election. The AGP is likely to tie up with BJP again.

My Prediction

Congress - 7
AGP/BJP - 7

The last part of this series will have my overall observations and the total seats that each party will get.

Syria - More Questions

Third blog on the Syrian issue.

The civil war is continuing and what I hear from the press is that the Government forces are gaining the upper hand. With Al Qaeda being part of the opposition, the West not attacking the Syrian government forces is the good thing. Can't imagine what would have happened if the West had joined hands with the Qaeda terrorists.

The large nation wanted to get out of the tricky situation and this move of handing over the Chemical weapons has helped them save some grace.

I have the following questions

1) If chemical weapons are moved to an international organization will the civil war end?
2) Will US pressurize the opposition also to handover the chemical weapons that they might have?
3) US has been saying that Assad has to go, as he was killing his own people. What has changed now?
4) Will the US completely stop providing weapons to the opposition forces?

 

Proud Moment for India - Mahindra Racing

India has had  a long history in motor racing. The Cholavaram race track near Chennai has been in existence more than 50 years and now we have moved on to Irungattukottai race track in Chennai.

However, when it comes to Indians or Indian teams at the very top level(F1 or Motogp), there has only been very few.

Narain Karthikeyan became the first Indian to drive  in F1 in 2005. 2008 we had an Indian F1 team with Force India. There was nothing Indian about it except the owner. Then in 2010 Karun Chandhok became the second Indian to drive in F1.

2011 had three debuts. Mahindra racing started participating in the MotoGP in the 125cc category. Mahindra has been racing for the last 3 years in the highest level of motor cycle racing. We then had S Sarath Kumar drive for a single race in the 125cc category in 2011. We also had an Indian Grand Prix in the Buddh International Circuit at Noida.

Mahindra racing is a fully Indian team with the vehicle manufactured by Indian. Agreed that it has a tie up with Suter Racing for 2013. They have had not so great results till last year but this year has been good for Mahindra racing.

Today as I write this blog, Mahindra Racing has gone one step ahead and has a first customer in Ambrogio Racing for the Mahindra vehicle in the Moto3 category. Ambrogio Racing is using Mahindra Racing from the Misano Grand prix happening this weekend. It is the testimony of the quality that Mahindra has been able to provide at that level.

This is a great moment for all Indians, that we have an Indian company which produces vehicles which is used in the Highest level of racing not just by that company but others as well.

Disappointed though, that this huge achievement has had very little (or should I say no coverage) in the Indian press.

However, true motor sport lovers like me are really proud of this achievement. Go Mahindra!!!