Telecom and Inclusive growth

Being in the telecom industry for almost 9 years now I have been fortunate enough to see the industry evolve from being provider of some services of desires to being the necessity and a pillar of infrastructure in the country’s development and this, who could have imagined would have been realized in a span of 12 years since the telecom industry was privatized. Today, however, my article is not about glorifying this industry but to actually bring about the dark side of the development of technologies involved in this industry. People may opine this to be a kind of betrayal or on a soft note a personal censure but today it is important for us, the urban population, to know as to when to stop.

Years ago a voice call used to be a matter of luxury. There were no mobile phones and there were only the fixed wire phones, that too, not in all houses. This was the symbol of an under-developed country.Today, almost everybody has a cell-phone. Every person is reachable. Every person can be tracked. You have Wi-Fi, 3G, video calling and what not to communicate and entertain yourself but still there seems to be a kind of restlessness in the urban population. So much development; so much technical innovation; but just one thing to ask; how much of it is actually necessary today. Today a person has a cell-phone, a laptop with wireless LAN, internet, video calling, live-TV connectivity, interactive television and what not but the statistics say that the same urban person is far away from his family, his parents, and his relatives. The social circle that he maintains is on facebook with 300 friends on an average 293 of them he never meets. The urban youth prefers to surf the you-tube on his mobile or laptop rather than going out and exploring the world.


Our communication industry is exploding, growing day by day. Technologies are being upgraded day by day but for whom, only for the urban population who are actually developed and need less of such development. The reach of this technology upgradation is only limited to 20% of the population of this country. People in the villages who actually dominate around 50% of our economy are still not aware, or rather not made aware of the advantages that these technologies can do for them. Statistics say today that the usage of internet is actually for the following purposes.

60% ------ for Pornographic and adulterated material.
15% ------ For online gaming
3% -------- For E-Commerce
10% ------- For entertainment content download and social networking.
2%--------- For study purposes.
10% ------- For communications like e-mail, chat and live talk.

Thus to see the least the largest chunk of the BW is actually being used for the most frugal kind of activities. Does this actually mean development? We have actually ushered in a bandwidth evolution but we have failed to actually guide people as to how to constructively use this bandwidth. The major part of this bandwidth is being not used in the proper way. A day will come when everybody will have a satellite atop their heads but still the usage of bandwidth would be for unscrupulous ways.


The solution is also very simple. While we provide bandwidth and this should not stop at any cost, there should be a kind of group that actually educates people how to efficiently use this bandwidth for their own upliftment and development of the nation.
There should be focus on the rural market, as this is the population that would use this bandwidth and rise to the occasion to develop this country. I know that there would be fear or ROI, but hey, somebody will have to take this risk. Somebody will have to do this. Because if this works out fine the ROIs would be four-fold from what the company actually gets from the urban market. There should be innovative ideas in service provisioning for the rural masses to make this technology affordable for the rural people. As the affordability increases the purchasing power will increase initially. Now as the sales go high, albeit with low margins initially with the help of innovative services this in an effect raises the bar of living for the rural masses.


This would now raise the demand even more from the rural market and ROIs will keep on coming for the companies in a better ratio that they actually come in the urban market. This would be rise in sales without increasing much of pressure on the sales staff and also evolving people in the way. This calls for a development that is inclusive and more comprehensive in nature. There would be rise in demand due to genuine reason; no demand will have to be created because now the technology has already caught the right pulse. The companies prosper, the people develop, the economy grows and in some ways the urban population also benefits. This can be the story of inclusive growth through communications.


So today as communication upgradation becomes necessary even more necessary is actually to educate the people how to use this technology. How to channelize this technology in the proper way so as to give maximum impetus to the communication business as well as development of the country at large.

The fight against corruption

These days there have been a lot about corruption and the fight against it. While, I as a citizen was bewildered by the sudden awareness, it also came to my mind as to why people are being so agile now against this age old problem. Corruption is not a phenomenon or a property that existed only since we had our independence; this is an age old problem of our country. Since the times of the Mahabharata there have been incidences of deceit and corruption in the political machinery and administration. So why this brou-ha-ha over this issue after so many years?

I am not aware of the contents of the Lokpal Bill but then the brief synopsis I got of this so called hope for the common man was as follows:

1. The bill empowers the common man representative not on an electoral basis but on a meritorious basis to a committee.
2. The committee has the powers to actually prosecute/recommend to prosecute/impeach a person, sitting in an office of power, if found guilty of corruption and other malpractice.
3. It actually gives the power in the hands of the people who actually deserve to have it and empowers the feeble minded common man towards being more confident and adhering to the system of the country.
4. It is a system under which there can be a significant reduction in the segmented corruption that we have not only in our political machinery but also in the administrative domains.

While the picture seems rosy enough, what I fail to understand is the following.

a) How sacrosanct would be the committee which will be formed to deal with such cases?
b) Daily there are about 1000 or even more cases of corruption or corruption related crimes, how these will be prioritized by this committee?
c) What is the guarantee that in this event of prioritization of cases there will not be any sort of nepotism in the committee itself?
d) As the time passes by, how do we actually monitor and analyze the work of this committee and on which exchequer and fund will this committee run (centre or State)?
e) If it is a centrally run committee then what is the guarantee that this committee itself will not be parochial to certain regions?

While Anna Hazare has done a wonderful job and that too in the most decent ways about taking an initiative towards fighting this problem called corruption, however, I feel that to fight this demon which is actually within us for so long a time will take much time and effort than just a fast.

Joelle Brown Girl in the rain

Makar Sankranti

Often we wonder sitting in India, which is a land of festivals, what actually is the meaning of the numerous festivals that we celebrate. Some national, some regional and some universal; these festivals are actually the small elements that bind our country in a single cultural fabric. One of the many festivals that actually exist in this country is Makar Sankranti. I have heard a lot about this festival, and tried to find its meaning, however most of the times I only realize this festival either as a harvest festival and a festival to fly kites. Today as I went to the Jholi Parv of BAPS in Mumbai I had the chance to listen to the exact meaning of this festival and today I would like to present to you some very good words of HDH Shri Viveksagar Swami of BAPS.


Literal Meaning of the Festival:

Makar Sankranti in the literal meaning is the movement of the sun from the Sagittarius constellation (Dhanur) to the Capricorn Constellation. In other words it is the “Sankraman of Lord Surya from Dhanur to Makar” and that is the reason why we call it Makar Sankranti. The festival is also called as Uttarayan in many parts and this is because of the fact that from this day the Sun actually traverses from the Southern Hemisphere to the North. So it is a journey of the Sun towards Uttar and thus called as Uttarayan. Days start to become longer and nights become shorter from now on and this marks the beginning of a new year. Technically speaking Makar Sankranti is the actual beginning of the New Year for Hindus and all the auspicious works start from this day on.

Metaphorical Interpretation:

The rise of the sun from the southern hemisphere to the Northern Hemisphere is actually a sign of progress or “Unnati” as we call it in Hindi. This is the reason why all the auspicious works are done after the onset of Makar Sankranti. The rise of the sun actually indicates the start of a new beginning, and inspires people to go ahead towards the rise of character and content. It is said that the rise of the sun towards the north indicates the rise of spiritualism in one’s life. It is very important to have a spiritual growth with the materialistic growth that one strives for. A person without a spiritual growth is somewhat like an envelope that is decorative in nature (with lots of embellishments) but then inside it has no content or no good news to bring in. The content of a human being depends on the spiritual growth and as long as this doesn’t happen we will not be able to traverse the knowledge era in full form. The message of Uttarayan is actually to usher in this spiritual growth in one’s self and to actually make people believe in the essence of inner growth.

Today the whole country is talking about inclusive growth but then to see it in its entirety where is it? India is moving from one decade to another and telling new stories of success. However, to think about it, only 22% of India is under this influence of economic development and is not totally sound. This is a fact that actually relates to the fact that there is a superficial growth and no growth in substance. The growth of a country is to be measured by the index of happiness and peace rather than actually how many people can actually go to McDonalds’ and have a burger or ride on a Mercedes. Unnati (progress), as we call it comes from Unnayan, or good sight, which cannot be developed until the soul is purified of its own inhibitions. After all if you have more money you can probably buy a good bed but then does it actually guarantee you sleep?

Talking about Money Vs Happiness is really cliché and today I really don’t want to rake up this topic, because me as a human being always needs money and happiness both. Today my point of contention is not about that, however it is about what is superficial and what is spiritual and full of content. We have many educational institutions in India, IIMs, IITs, AIIMS, but how many Dhirubhai Ambanis have come out of the IIMs; or how many Einsteins have actually emerged from IIT’s? How many Nobel laureates have actually emerged from these institutions? None, if I can count. So, these institutions, as they stand tall today with huge salary packages to talk about (embellished envelopes) don’t actually contribute towards the growth of the country as a whole. To talk the least, most of the alumni actually reside abroad, slaving it out for dollar dreams. Can this really be called development?


Makar Sankranti is actually a festival that indicates breaking the shackles of superficial development and rise towards development that is more stable and more contentious in nature. Today, the importance of this festival is even more important as everybody is having a world war inside their hearts.
Let us now see how different regions celebrate this festival.

My Gujarati fellow Indians go for flying kites. Flying of kites indicates the urge for progress, the urge to rise high in life.

In Maharastra, there is distribution of “Til Laddoos”, sweet dish made from sesame seeds to mark the start of the new festive season.

In Southern India, this festival is called as Pongal, and this marks the start of the new sowing season for the farmers hoping for a better crop.

In Bengal where this festival is called as Posh Parbon marks the beginning of every auspicious occasion by distributing Pithes or sweet-meat made of new rice.

In Punjab, the day before Makar Sankranti you have Lohri, where people actually make a bonfire indicating the burning of all old inhibitions in the fire and hence beginning the new year with a new hope.

Likewise is all parts of India this festival has its own meaning.

Today “Damn Common Man” wishes in advance all its readers a very happy Makar Sankranti and wishes lots of progress (real progress) in all of your lives.

Air India.....More Content than others

I was coming on Thursday, 9th of September, from Delhi to Mumbai, by the IC 602 flight of Air-India. Normally, these days, when you are travelling the national carrier, you don’t feel really a sense of pride. Nowadays it is more about packaging. People love to see the attractive air-hostesses of the private carriers and like to convince themselves that they have had a wonderful journey through. I feel that somewhere our mentality has become cynical, and we always tend to look critically towards anything that is labeled as government. While I would not call this entirely fault of the Indian people but definitely this is an issue that needs to be handled.

I went into the terminal 1A of the IGI airport domestic section. The terminal 1A is not a much modernized terminal like the terminal 1D in the IGI airport, but nevertheless I had one thing in mind and that was to make my trip back to Mumbai to join my family for the weekend. I and my colleague both were around one hour early to the airport and we checked in properly. We were allotted seats 31 E and 31 F, the last row seats which did not recline. The start was horrible. We waited in the terminal after the security was done and had some snacks. Contrary to the feeling that people may have the IC fight started boarding at the right time. Just about when it was 20:30 hrs, half an hour before the take off the boarding started. The process was very organized unlike the other private airlines where they make you stand in the queue even when the flight has not arrived in the parking. There was no rush of the people although the flight was full. There were ample amount of buses that took us to the aircraft.



Inside the aircraft it was a lavish affair. Although we were the unlucky bearers of the non-reclining last row seats, but to my surprise there was enough leg-room, unlike private carriers and there was a fully operational in-flight entertainment system. The crew was the most courteous. The in-flight system had number of options and there was no announcement, unlike kingfisher, that the system was not available for this flight. There were good choices of movies and audio entertainments. The dinner was just served right on time and it was far better than any other airlines like JET or KINGFISHER. The take-off and landing was all smooth.


Seeing this good experience, I often wonder, why our national carrier is in such a bad shape as it is made out to be in the media. Why is there negative media propagation towards the national carrier? Why do the people in general put the brand Air-India, despite the good service they get, at a recognizable position? The reason is our biased attitude towards anything that is government and our flare for private company glares. In all my life I have had the worst service experience from the private sectors. This is because the customer support (that they claim to have) is totally untrained and naïve. If you excuse me, some of them are not even worthy of staying in a city and attending a phone-call. On the contrary the customer support cell of any government outfit may not be flashy, but yes there is content. Just like you have in the Air India flights; there is more content and less display.


Think about it.

MNS ......sometimes they are right!!!!

Over the years there has been a brow-ha-ha over the acts and means of MNS (Maharashtra Navnirman Sena). While I feel that there is some kind of depth in the opposition that the people are doing for the MNS but it is only the one side of the story. There are many people who might find the ways of MNS to be a little on the assertive side or probably un-constitutional. However, having said that there is a bit of logic or sanity towards the objective of MNS however. This, I even say, being a migrant to Mumbai and staying in this great city for a long long time. So, why am I saying this? Why today when the whole of the nation and especially the educated lot is being censure about the ways and means of the MNS, why all of a sudden I am trying to focus them as sacrosanct? This would be one of the major questions that anybody and everybody would ask.

Let us address this issue then step by step.

MNS doesn’t target the educated migrant class unless provoked:
What I see from the history of the agitations that the MNS has been doing so far that they have seldom targeted the educated migrant class unless provoked. I am a migrant, working in Mumbai for my living. Honestly speaking over the years I am over here and being here since the inception of this political outfit, I have not seen the party posing threat on my existence in this city. Yes, I do get a bit disturbed when public property is vandalized and the processes are sent helter-skelter, however this doesn’t in anyway affect my personal existence and to be very honest, this is not the only party that is doing these things. There are parties, who appear to be very disciplined but are actually perpetrating more insecurity among the people in this city and trying to jeopardize public peace at the cost of public money. My comments are not reserved for them in any ways.

MNS is not against the migrants they are against the people who are creating a political imbalance:
Let us take an example for this. You are staying in a house and the guest comes in; you are happy to entertain him and shower your hospitalities on him. If this is not a guest and is a tenant you are very kind enough to give him shelter in lieu of money. However, you feel really intimidated when the tenant actually wants to be a part of your house-hold and tries to involve in all the aspects and decision of your house which is your own. Today this is what is happening in Mumbai. A part of the political lobby is bringing people from some part of the country promising them rickshaws and taxis and then immediately getting their votes and thus seats. This policy is creating a political imbalance in a city which is essentially a part of Maharashtra. Of course the actions taken by MNS may be regarded as un-constitutional, but so were the actions taken by freedom fighters regarded when the freedom struggle was on.

Let us understand one thing that we have unity in diversity, so what needs to be respected is both the unity and also the diversity that we have. It is perfectly ok for a non maharashtrian to setup base in Maharashtra and strive for self growth, but what is not ok is the fact that a lobby of migrants encroaching the political space of Maharashtra. This definitely creates a sense of insecurity which is prevalent especially in Mumbai and not in other metros. Let is keep this thing also in mind that in other cities like Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad etc though there is enough space for cosmopolitan thoughts to germinate the essence of the political sphere is very local and very resident. There the politician lobby doesn’t consist of a huge migrant population, which is prevalent in Mumbai.

The very essence of having different states was actually to respect the kind of diversity India has and thus to maintain the regional representations for different provinces. Any party that sees this basic thought process being violated by some loop-holes in our constitution is ought to raise its voice against this and so it is being done by the MNS. Having said that; I also agree that the medium of protest should be tactical and within the framework of the constitution so that there is a solution to this problem by amicable means. Beating up people and damaging public property is definitely not the option.

If there were more like Ratan Tata

My Grandfather told me once that it takes ages to earn respect and it takes minutes to actually lose it. One of the most important aspects in our lives is actually not the process of living but the inculcation of values inside the living process. What is born is a living being, but what actually makes this living object a human is actually the character that it adorns. I was very young probably 11 or so, but his words later found their own meaning in my life and I realized that this was told by a person who probably devoted half of his life to the most respected corporate houses of India, TATAS.

I could never understand as to why a business house could be synonymous with heavy words like values, principles and so on. My understanding for business was the mere fact where it is a process in which money is used to make more money. Money brings power brings more money brings more power. The bottom-line of any business house was profit and nothing else than that. Yes there was a kind of social display of this power but that was probably to make people like me and you aware of the fact that these corporate giants also have a kind of social responsibility which they actually fulfill. I was wrong. I was really wrong about this for one business house, the TATAS. Many people told me about the value practices of the TATAS but then I would not believe such high standards of honesty and ethics being practiced in one of the largest business houses of India. I was wrong. So what made me change my mind? Which was the incident that actually led me to take a complete rethinking on my opinion of business houses?

None of us could forget the bruises of 26/11 Mumbai attacks. At least not who stay in Mumbai and had to go through those horrific 3 days when the whole city was held hostage. The drama ended for many of us after the 3 days. The news channel stopped reporting because the show was over, politicians shouted for some days and declared compensation, which is actually the regular practice after any kind of attacks in this country, and life, as they say, was back on track displaying the true Mumbai spirit. Life however had changed for two people, one coming from the lowest income group and one coming from the most élite strata of the society. This is a story of the two. A hawker who sat opposite the Taj Hotel and the owner of the Taj Group Shree Ratan Tata were both affected in that horrific attack.

The TAJ hotel had seen the worst kind of combat over the three days and there was immense loss to life and property. A businessman’s’ nightmare is a loss to the property especially if it has a heritage value like the TAJ has. The property required a renovation worth hundreds of crores of rupees and some of the part of the property that was damaged had antique value which was not available any more. Ratan Tata had one of the biggest challenges in front of him and that was to restore the TAJ. This however, did not make him wary. The entrepreneur thought about the lives that were lost. Not only of those who were inside the hotel but also of those who were in the vicinity among which was also the injured hawker. Tata made sure that those injured were properly nursed in the hospitals and full funding was given from his organization. The hawker also benefitted from it and is today healthy enough to again look after his family. The employees of TAJ who had lost business were not retrenched, as it would happen in any BPO or any kind of corporate houses if one of the units would have gone sick.

On the contrary they were given additional benefits and salaries did not stop for the TAJ employees. Tata probably knew that business is not all about process it is about people, which very less people in India or in fact the world knows of. Tata knew that Human Resource Development (HRD) is probably more important than the contemporary idea of Human Resource Management (HRM). He also helped every family who were in any ways directly or indirectly affected due to the TAJ attacks not caring about the fact that he had a hotel to restore that demanded more than hundred crore rupees to spare. Where contemporary business houses would actually shut shop, TATA went ahead nurturing the employees of the sick household.

Results of these good works followed. In a span of less than two years the TAJ was back to its glory. The employees who were not deserted by the corporate house put in their best to restore this magnificent structure back to its own glory. It was a slap on the face of terrorism by peace, it was a victory of hard work and more-over victory of values exhibited by one of the most valuable person this country had Ratan Tata. The utter humility came at that instant when the Taj was re-inaugurated and in the advertisement you had the picture of all employees of the TAJ but Ratan Tata. He never wanted to come to the fore-front. This gesture probably was not covered by any kind of media houses.

For me, from that time Rata Tata is the candidate for the Nobel Prize. I may be a bit unjustified for that but then if a person can restore life, restore faith, command respect and still win a battle against terrorism with all peaceful means then he and only he can deserve the Nobel peace prize. I came to know about earning respect and still being rich. Ratan Tata is definitely the Model Millionaire of India and the face of India for the 21st Century.

The Damn Common Man today salutes this incarnate called Ratan “NOBLE” Tata.