Hawala at Midnight

If you want to find fault with someone it is very easy.. Especially when you claim that you are holier than thou, it becomes even more easier... 

Yesterday AVAM (AAP Volunteer Action Manch) reported that some of the donations to AAP are from dubious companies. BJP and Congress both receives bulk of their donations in cash, but that doesn't matter. 

AAP's defense is that everyone is bad. Wasn't that the reason why they were formed? If you agree that you are one among them, AAP loses its USP. Which is what has happened now. AAP is also questioning the fact that the folks from AVAM are now in BJP but that is not an issue. What is the point in shooting the messenger. 

This is well crafted move by BJP which is really under pressure to win the Delhi elections as many have claimed that this is their first real fight after the last year's general elections. Also the induction of Kiran Bedi as the CM candidate of BJP has not worked as they had expected. She was brought in to get the clean image and she being someone from the same IAC group was expected to give them the extra boost. However, her not so polished way of talking in public has not really helped the cause (which has also forced the BJP to enforce a gag order on her). 

BJP pressed the panic button and brought in many ministers and MPs to campaign. Their asking 5 questions is good publicity but the questions being asked are pretty childish. 

AAP's primary vote bank is the poor people which will not be hugely swayed by this recent issue. The middle class voters might move away from them. 

Coming back to the topic of discussion, the funds and the dubious nature of the companies that has given the donations -

1. AAP has to accept their mistake of not doing a proper due-diligence of the person giving the funds - In case they are hiding any ill-gotten funds in such way then they are proving that all political parties are the same - I hope that is not the case. That will help in getting back some of the sheen that has been lost 
2. Running a political party in India and compete elections is not easy. With the practice of getting cash for casting votes it is becoming even more expensive. There needs to be more transparency in the funding process. Most of the funds that parties receive is primarily from business people. I would like to quote an incident that Shekhar Gupta had mentioned about recently, when Suresh Prabhu was sacked as Minister from the Vajpayee government it seems that Shekhar asked Bal Thackeray the real reason for for his sacking for which Thackeray had responded after much persistence that he has to run a party and what is the point in having a minister if I cannot get money for the party :).
3. People give donations to parties for two reasons - To get something in return or as response to some thing bad they had already done. Either way it is bad. 

AAP started of as a party with difference which is what caught the fancy of the people and got them a huge vote base in Delhi. They came to power, thanks the Nirbhaya case, commonwealth games scam and not in small measure the protest that Anna Hazare led. Sheila Dixit government over the 15 years did lots of good work for Delhi but the incidents just prior to 2013 elections, mentioned above, helped AAP establish themselves. However, power got to their heads and they gave up the Delhi Government and contested the general elections in the whole entire country. This election in case they lose, is going to be a huge problem for them. It will become another Lok Paritran - not that I will miss them a lot if that happens. 

We are all Hypocrites

Over the last one week there are few incidences which highlight one basic fact of life - We are all Hypocrites

First Incidence is the Savile Row suit of our Prime Minster with fine print of his name - There was a hue and cry about how the Prime Minister can wear something which had his name all over it. Good question, I also found it stupid.. Then realized two things - One I wear so many clothes which has the brand names visible - either big or small and Two I have a cap which has my name on it. Is it ok for me to wear those but not the PM? That is when I realized the basic fact of life - I am an hypocrite

Second Incidence is about case of Evangelist IAS officer Umashankar - Let us look at objectively, he is allowed to do what he wants in his private time. We all have code of conduct at work and in most cases organizations don't allow us to propagate religion or indulge in political activities during work time. However, we are not stopped from doing anything we want outside our work time. That is not questioned but being an IAS officer shouldn't he be treating everyone as equals? IAS officers and for that matter the politicians also should act as if all religions are equals. 

Every individual has their own belief be it an atheist or fatalist or any religious follower believes that whatever he does his the right thing and is better than what others do. That's why the continue to do it. Otherwise, they would have changed their beliefs. That is precisely the main point of contention with what Umashankar has done. 

Even our PM has openly displayed that he doesn't believe in symbolism of wearing a muslim cap which was offered to him (It is a different story that he was ok with wearing a sikh turban). Everyone made a hue and cry about it because we wanted him to be a hypocrite. So are we expecting the IAS officers and politicians to put on a show that they consider every other belief as equally good? 

When personally we are OK with us believing that our belief is the best but when it comes to IAS officers and politicians we want them to act that their belief is nothing great when compared to other beliefs? Isn't that hypocrisy? Yes it is, we want our people in power (be it officers or politicians) to be perceived as treating everyone as equal. 

After realizing the basic fact I just have one question, how much did the Savile Row suit cost and who paid for it? 

Is Meeting Expectations Bad?

I am sure everyone who has been working in IT know that Meeting expectations is Bad. Is that the case? In normal circumstances HR will say meeting expectations is not bad but when it comes to issuing pink slips (as in the case with the recent issue with the large IT organization) this is communicated as bad performance by the same HR. I am not blaming them for the fiasco. So are the employees always expected to exceed expectations? 

Many organizations have a 4 grade system. There are cases where organizations have 5 grades or in some cases a 10 point scale. All these only causes more confusion and ambiguity. 

What is the solution to this? A change of nomenclature for rating to me is fine. You just have three rations - Exceeds Expectaions, Meets Expectations and Doesn't meet expectations. This way we can get rid of the ambiguity in the system. 

Exceeds expectations should be the people who did exceptionally well should be the top 10-20%. Meets expectations should be the majority of the populations - 75-85%. Doesn't meet expectations should be the bottom 5%. 

The bottom 5% should be put through the performance improvement program and set clear expectations on what they need to improve. In case the employee doesn't improve post that period also he/she can be let go. 

This is purely in the case of performance issues. However, that doesn't seem to be the only criteria with the recent case in the largest IT organization in India, where employees are let go because they were not utilized for sometime. 

Every mistake gives opportunity to learn. Every organization should also learn from each others mistakes. The current issue gives an excellent opportunity for everyone to re-look at their performance appraisal systems. 

Meeting expectations should not be considered bad. This is what the majority of the employees be rated as. 

I - Movie Review

Watched I last night at Santham. Watching a movie in Sathyam Cinemas after a very long time. 

There was a lots of expectations on the movie with Shankar, AR Rahman, PC Sreeram and Vikram.  

The cast includes Vikram who is a body builder, Amy Jackson who is a model, Upen Patel who is also a model, Suresh Gopi who is a family doctor for Amy Jackson, Santhanam who plays a friend of Vikram. 

Story is very simple - Vikram goal is to become Mr India and he also has a crush on Amy Jackson who is a super model. He gets to meet her once and things move along till they fall in love. Vikram becomes a model and replaces Upen who is a also a model. Upen also has a crush on Amy. Vikram rejects a cola ad for obvious reason which irks Ramkumar (Sivaji's son) who plays a rich businessman. Upen, Ramkumar, Osma (who is a TG stylist) and Suresh Gopi join together to take revenge on Vikram - Osma has a crush on Vikram and Suresh Gopi on Amy. The super model Vikram becomes the hunchback and the rest of the story is about how he seeks revenge. 

The story keeps going back and forth between the revenge part and the flashback. 

The movie runs more than 3 hours. And with a simple revenge story - you really feel that the movie runs. 

You get what you expect from a Shankar movie - grandeur and beautiful background. Other than that nothing that makes it a Shankar movie. We have seen commercials - but aila aila song is filled with commercials. That should be a first. 

Songs - Except Merisalayittaen and Aila nothing much to talk about. Not sure why that the third look of whatever it is (other than the hunchback and normal) is required in one of the songs. 

You need a strong villain to make the hero look good - you don't get that with Upen, Ramkumar and surprisingly with Suresh Gopi also. Vikram has taken lots of effort to play the body builder or the hunchback. Amy looks beautiful but surprisingly in many scenes there is no lip sync also. Santhanam can be said as a saving grace with his comedy - He has had two good movies - Lingaa and I in the last month. Vikram's age shows especially in close up scenes. 

This is a simple revenge story - which could have been made in a small budget without going to China or spending a lot of money and definitely in a lot shorter time (both running time and the time for filming this movie which took more than 2 years)

All in all I could be termed as a let down from Shankar. 

TCS Issue

There are rumors that TCS has fired nearly 25,000 people in the middle management and above. There were protests and some of the trade unions have also asked IT staff to join unions. 

A case was filed in the High Court and the court has stayed the firing of people terming it as illegal. 

There are also recording of exit interviews floating around which, if true, shows that it is not just about performance. 

Two things about the recent TCS statement issued via their Twitter handle yesterday

1) The data that they had provided is for the period till December - Most of the letters have been issued in December or January which make them effective from January or February. Their data doesn't include the fired people
2) They have also used the word involuntary - Which is not clearly defined 

Many company does similar stuff of asking people to go when they are on bench, but not in such large scale that is being talked about. However, the same is illegal as per the current labor law. All the businessmen are asking for the government for labor reforms which basically allows them to hire and fire. Till that is done this act is illegal. 

In the current context that it is illegal, what could they have done differently? 

1) Everyone working in the IT sector knows for a fact that companies do not grow at 40-50%. The new norm is around 10-15% and we need to reset everything to align to that. 

2) They could have delayed promotions - They could increased the time an employee has to spend in a role before getting promotion. For eg., if an employee has to be spend 4 years before getting a promotion change it as 5 years. 

3) In case the company is stretched in terms of profitability - they can stop giving hikes. All IT companies have variable pay and they can decide not to pay that.  

TCS also has to understand that the negative perception that has been created will cause even good people who are currently not impacted, to think about their job security and leave them. This will definitely cause an uptick in their attrition once the dust settles on this. 

There is another IT company which is still impacted with high attrition due to one bad HR move made few years back. 

All in all TCS has lost its image of a company which provides job security like a government job. 

God is a Gamer - Review of Ravi Subramanian's Novel

After Vanity Bagh, read God is a Gamer by Ravi Subramanian. With kids it's been difficult for me to read any book in a short duration. (Not that I do a lot of baby sitting or taking care of them). Read this book over last weekend. 

Like other Ravi's books this is a thriller with banking industry as the background. This book details how Bitcoins are used currently. 

This book is also like his earlier books where there are 3 or 4 stories and in the end he will show how all are brought together. 

In this also you have a Senator in US who is assassinated, a banker commits suicide in Mumbai, Another banker is killed in an accident, there is an ATM heist in US and the book is about how all this is ties together in a thrilling way. 

You have Aditya who runs a successful BPO and gaming company with his lieutenant Sundeep. They launch a new game which doesn't do all that well and in comes Aditya's estranged son Varun who takes care of the gaming business. 

Malvika who runs the Indian arm of NYIB commits suicide (but her daughter, Tanya,  feels she is killed by the Finance Minister). Tanya feels that the Finance Minister has an affair with her mother. 

Tanya and Varun fall for each other and Varun provides emotional support to her post the death of her mother. In parallel there is a Senator who is killed and a large ATM heist is carried out in the US where about 5 Million is taken from bank accounts in few hours. 

There are some random laptops that bursts because of overheating. 

Who killed the Senator, who is behind  the heist, was Malvika killed, why were the laptops bursting form the rest of the story. 

This is a very good thriller. Makes you want to finish the book quickly. The author will make you think about few people who could be involved but has some good twists along the way. Also this books shows how Bitcoins are currently used for all illegal purposes. 

All in all a very good thriller novel. 

Vanity Bagh - Review of Anees Salim's Book

I finally got to read Vanity Bagh by Anees Salim over the year end break. This book won the Hindu Literary prize in 2014. To be frank, till this book won the prize I have not heard of a writer called Anees Salim. Came to know that he has written four books and Vanity Bagh is his second. 

Vanity Bagh has subtle comedy running through the book. This story takes place in a fictional town called Mangobagh, which has two localities Vanity Bagh dominated by Muslims and Mehendi dominated by Hindus. The story is narrated in Imran Jabbari's voice. 

Imran is the son of the local imam and he and his friends form a gang called 5 1/2 men(all with Pakistan politician names) influenced by a half retired crippled don. They do re-possess a car and other than do nothing as a gang. 

After a while they get a job to be couriers and till a serial bomb blasts happens don't realize the enormity of what they had done. Two of them get caught and are sentenced to 14 years + in jail. Clearly showing how some unemployed youth get caught in the terror world without realizing what they are doing. 

The story goes back and forth between how Imran plots to jailbreak and the flashback of the incidents before he gets to jail and is also told with quotes from people from the town. 

Initial few pages are slow. Once you start getting into the thick of things, this is a very good read. All in all a good book to read. 

PS : Not sure what Anees has on Resul Pookutty. He has taken on Mickey on him in many parts of the book.