And IPL 2014 winner is….

There is an interesting co-relation between Indian Premier League (IPL) and Indian State’s growth. (Refer to the table below)

Year	IPL Winner	Govt in the state	state growth(%)	National Growth(%)
2008	Rajasthan Royals	BJP	9%	6.72
2009	Deccan Chargers	Congress	10.1	8.59
2010	Chennai Super Kings	DMK (UPA)	11.7	8.91
2011	Chennai Super Kings	DMK(UPA), AIADMK	12.39	6.69
2012	Kolkata Knight Riders	Trinamool Congress (UPA)	7.5	4.47
2013	Mumbai Indians	Congress	NA	4.86

Is Indian Premier League contributing to additional growth of a state in some way (either directly or by increasing the happiness quotient of the people in the state or something else that I am not able to comprehend). Also one generally sees a pattern that the team that won belonged to a state government that was in alliance with central government. Seems to be there is more than what meets the eye.

Let’s see who will win the IPL 2014. My pick is Kings XI Punjab for obvious reasons. …… Maxwell silly:)

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Book Worm’s definition of Social Entrepreneur

The Social Entrepreneur are ir-rational optimists, who knows that the Reality is Broken, but have Infinite Vision and Imagine a New Earth.

Doing Nothing drives them Nuts.

They know The Secret of Good Business is through Delivering Happiness and Giving.

To them What Matters Now is Changing our minds so that we Own our Future.

Team building lessons from Grand Parents

The 7-year old was deeply engrossed in drawing her version of num tum on the sheets of paper her granny had given her, oblivious to the hot weather and the sweat that was forming on her brow. Just then her granny’s cell phone was ringing loud. Granny thrust the phone into her grand-daughter’s hand and said ‘It’s your mom calling’. The girl looked at her granny and furiously replied, ‘No. I don’t want to talk to her’ and gave the phone back. Now the 7-year old girl was spending her summer holidays with her maternal grand-parents which was a night’s journey away from her home. But the mother felt so ‘daughter sick’  that she called umpteen times a day to check how her 7-year old was doing. But the little girl found this annoying and she ignored the calls most of the times and only talked to her mom when she had something interesting to say. Like the little chicks, that her grandpa brought her, did during the day? Did those chicks eat well, did they grow, where in the farm did they wander is what interested her to talk to her mom about. But this same 7-year old talked for hours to her grand parents about her drawings, her school, her friends and her play mates on long distance calls. Not that she was averse to phone but there was something that caused her to rebel her parents.

What is this special bonding the grand children have with their grand parents. Why don’t the children have this bonding with their parents?

Or why do kids generally rebel their parents and tend to do exact opposite of what their parents want?

For e.g., your parents rebelled their parents (or your grand-parents), and you rebelled your parents but liked your grand-parents

Now let’s represent this with a simple wave.

It seems that every alternate generation in a family bond with each other. You could expect that your kids to bond deeply with your parents too.

I see a similarity between this and work-life. The difference being that a generation in work-life (and that too in IT) is about 5-7 years. Have you had a boss/colleague, who is 5 years more experienced than you but you rebelled/hated him/her to the core. Now what about the awe and respect you have for the benevolent veteran employee who has 15 years more experience than you. That’s why you would find a Zuckerberg works well with a Sandberg but not with a Winklevoss.

Maybe having alternate generations working together in teams is a formula for success.

What do you think?

Looking Good!

‘Her tender face showed no expression, unlike the smiling faces on the colorful t-shirt she wore. She was seated by the musical drums but her eyes fixed on a spot on the wall trying to recollect the next beat. She was trying to hit the drums for a popular song. The audience were eager that she get the note right. After a couple of minutes, she ended the piece and stood up. The face still wore a grim look. The audience clapped acknowledging that she got it right. Then the 10-year old effused a sweet smile while she left the stage.’

Was it that the little 10-year old has been taught a lesson to look good in front of others?

See if you could picture yourself in one of the situations below.

It was almost time. But…

That final touch to the makeup had to be done before the model walked on ramp

That final edit to the front page breaking news, before the editor gave the signal to print.

That final cut had to be made before the director released the movie.

That final brush stroke to the artwork by the artist.

That final change to the presentation before it was presented to the boss.

That final cut before the hair stylist smiled at you and said ‘Done’

That final adjustment to the Tiara, before every mom sent her sweet little one dressed as Cinderella on stage.

That final lines had to be rehearsed before he went and asked her ‘Will you Marry me?’

It’s in the animal instinct to look good so that it could find a suitable partner. The cuckoo’s song, crickets music, bird’s show of plume, frogs croaking are to look good in front of a prospective mate. But we humans, are the only species devoting way too much time and resources on looking good just so that people (besides one’s mate) acknowledge and appreciate.

It’s time we changed this!

Every job search starts with this!

It is for you to fill and others to consume,

Some wrote it a page long, for others did a book, bloom.

If you wrote one on your own, it made your friends fume,

‘No one ever read it word by word!’, each of us did presume.

In it, work, education, projects, achievements and skills definitely had a room,

‘Don’t have one? you aren’t prepared!’ one might assume.

It’s one’s history that some might even take to their tomb,

It’s is what every Interview starts with. Its a Resume.

 

El-Nino and Indian IT

 

   Tahiti is an Island of French Polynesia, which is located in the South Pacific, exactly on midway of the flight path between Adelaide in Australia and Quito in Equador South America. It’s as big as Bangalore city (including the sub-urban areas). But the comparison ends there. While Bangalore has one of it’s wettest month (July/August), Tahiti has one of it’s driest month of the year. Though these two places are seemingly disconnected in terms of culture or economy, there seems to be a link in their weather. Tahiti, being in the south pacific is in the middle of the El-Nino symptoms. A low pressure condition at Tahiti results in reduced rainfall at Bangalore (and in general across the plains of India). This interlink between weather systems in Pacific and Indian Monsoon is called El-Nino effect. Indian Meteorologists are like hawks in finding out occurrence of El-Nino as it would mean reduced rainfall which would mean drought in the plains of India. Indian Agriculture that depends on rainfall, contributes 15% to the Indian Economy and El-Nino occurrence would be a dampener on the GDP of the country.

   A phenomenon similar to El-Nino is observable in the Indian IT industry. Indian IT brings in about $ 118 Billion to the economy (i.e., about 8% of the Indian GDP). The IT heavy wights like Infosys, WIPRO, Cognizant, IBM and HCL not only make a huge contribution to this number, they also employ more than half of the 1.5 million software professionals in the country. Huge numbers these. And of course attrition is a problem the HR’s in these companies keep fighting against. A good year for HR (a downturn year) would see the attrition drop to high single digits. Otherwise the attrition rates average around 15% for these top five companies. 15% of 750,000 which is around 100,000 positions to be filled in each year. These positions give create a low pressure area to which prospective employees move into from other companies. (can you observe patterns of weather here?).

Wonder what would happen if attrition at these companies drop to nil (every HR’s dream)?

Will the environment become static instead of its current fluidic state?

Will the companies become stagnant (without new ideas or innovations)?

Will that be the doomsday Indian IT industry sans innovation.

Albert Einstein once mentioned that ‘If the Honey bees go extinct, Human society will follow in 4 years‘.

Does it apply to attrition and Indian IT as well?

We don’t want an El-Nino condition in Indian IT. do we?

Social Deposits – An Idea for Poverty Free India by 2020

Please read my earlier blog ‘A Bank to Thank’ to know more about social deposit or micro-credit

I am no tax expert nor am I a financial guru. It seems to come up with ideas to rid India of poverty you needn’t be one. Here is one such idea

‘Include social deposit(or micro-credit) with a limit of INR 50,000 in section 80C of income tax. Thereby extending the 80C limit to INR 170,000.’

With this we will reduce the poverty of India in 6 years time.

If Narendra Modi’s government implements this, he can for sure claim in his 2019 report card that he stood upto ‘सबका साथ सबका विकास’ which in my knowledge means ‘Together we prosper’.

Now your left analytical brain would ask how? Let me elaborate

Tax payers:

• India has a growing population of 1.24 billion of which 150 million people are below International Poverty line.
• Out of the 1.24 billion, there are about 34 million tax payers in India.
• Of these 34 million tax payers, only about 15 million are salaried and hence tax for them is deducted at source.
• Income Tax reports the total tax paid by salaried class as 1121 billion Rupees.
• That’s an average of 75K paid per person.

Here is a graph to illustrate these stats

Now lets consider the scenario if Government were to add a new category of saving called social deposit through RangDe (or other reputed social lending organizations) with an upper cap of INR 50,000.

Let’s assume that atmost 33% of the salaried tax payer’s (15 million) use this component fully to save on tax.

Therefore 33% of 15 million, i.e., around 5 million invest around 50K each.

This would result in 250 billion Rupees (or 25000 crore) in social deposits.

Now say the average social loan size that could be given is INR 10,000, you will have helped 25 million (or 2.5 crore) small street business or village women entrepreneurs in getting loans at low rates which will in turn help their business and help themselves to financially sustain and then payback the loan.

Now if you do that every year, you will have touched about 150 million (25 mi *6 years) people in 6 years time. And that too, if the lock in period of these social deposits in only 1 year.

If we have the lock in period at 3 years (like a tax saving mutual fund lock in period) we will reach the target of improving 150 million people’s lives in half the time ( i.e, 3 years)

Simple isn’t it?

Poverty free India by 2020 is achievable

P.S: I am assuming that the reputed social lending organizations aren’t Government based organizations, nor are they Banks. If it’s these then the social deposit scheme is no different from rest of the 80C instruments