Tumultuous year is gonna end!

I have move my blog to www.spotalks.com

Year 2008 is unforgettable for numerous reasons. It might be remembered for the collapse of capitalism in US, selection of “Black American “president, Mumbai terror attacks in India. Many people in the world considered year 2008 to be tumultuous. According to me, this year 2008 taught lessons to the global leaders around the world. The supremacy of American policies is collapsed and USA is brought into knees. I was following “The Financial Times” newspaper’s editorial closely to understand the complexities of this “Global Financial crisis”. To be very frank, I didn’t understand much of it. In this blog, I’d like to share some of my thought process regarding this global economic crisis.

I think almost every person on the planet “Earth” might have read something about the financial crisis. The causes of this crisis must be left to academics to analysis and understand to come up with credible answers to be the unanswered questions of this crisis. One of my friends working in sector related to Banking remarked to me, financial world works on two phenomena i.e. Credit and Debt. Developed World such as USA and UK has left a huge hole in the credit by spending a lot and they also borrowed a huge sum of money from so called Sea of foreign reserve country “China”. In process, USA and UK markets are left with limited credit to finance their business operations. This failure was also accompanied by the apparent bust of housing market in USA and UK. Then everything else is history, the collapse of Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and near bankruptcy of American International Group (AIG) and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

All these lack of credit and too much of debt problems caused banks not to finance to other banks and other business. This has now led to the global recession accompanied by severe loss of employment. It is estimated over 3 million people have lost jobs in US and about somewhere in UK and Europe. Almost all the developed world is right now in severe recession. I am a resident of Singapore. Singapore doesn’t have a market of its own. It was very successful in creating hinterlands in USA markets. So when USA market was hit badly by recession and low consumer spending, Singapore acknowledged that it will contract its economy. The job losses in Singapore is also severe and Government is doing all it can do to prevent it. This is what all the Governments around the world are doing like bailing out its banks and companies.

What is really fascinating to me is the end of free market economy in the land which staunchly supported and campaigned for it i.e. USA. The people who work or manage Banks are considered to be high IQ people. Only selective people can go to Investment Banks and its one of the highly financially rewarding jobs. Ironically, it’s these high IQ people who screwed the system and got swayed by the money. Every common man on the street asks why should I pay my tax money to save those greedy bankers? We should also understand that Banks are epicenter of any recession because all the business activities depends on the financing of banks. Hence it may be rational to bail out banks.

This Global economic crisis will teach every individual some form of lesson. It will make some countries more competitive, some may embrace protectionist policies. Human mind constantly thinks to innovate. It is always said only at crisis time, the true potential of a human is tested. I think, we will innovate some model which will be resilient to this scale of crisis in the future. This crisis has once again reinstated those old Buddha’s words. The root cause of all evils is money. I think we should invent something else apart from money to differ each one of us. I am kidding anyway. I seriously don’t know what will happen to the world in 2009. I pray to God like everyone to be pleasant and enchanting.

Broken Dreams- Part2- Wonder girl Kalpana

Ezhil was grappling with superstition after his sister’s end and started contemplating incidents which may occur. He even had scuffles with his friends for saying this incident will occur. He once went to the extent of telling his friends that his mathematics teacher will die soon otherwise he will tonsure. Of course mathematics teacher did not die and he was beaten by his classmates. Years passed as usual and he got promoted to 5th standard. It was a norm in his village to celebrate every promotion of class because only a few students from his village used to get promoted. His village was gifted to have a river which used to taste salty and sometimes good. The river was used for washing clothes, sometimes children used to swim. Ezhil was fond of swimming but he was not able to learn swimming because no one was willing to teach him. Hence, he dropped the plan to learn it for now.

Some of his village friends who didn’t get promoted usually take up farming or other traditional occupations. Sometimes, Ezhil thinks he shouldn’t follow the path of others in his village. He thought of becoming professional and a unique person from his villagers. His semi town school was co education. His association with a girl called Kalpana who is one year elder than him brought happiness to life. It was his first association with a girl and she used to share a lot of things with him. The stories of Kalpana were interesting to Ezhil because it was coming out from the mouth of Kalpana. He could not understand what relationship between him and her is in that tender age. He thoroughly enjoyed her company during their tour to mahabalipuram. He also understood what all girls used to discuss among themselves. He was amazed when he saw these girls talk about love and marriage at 6th class.

One day at school, Kalpana run to Ezhil to discuss something very important. It was a shock even to Ezhil because what she said to Ezhil was something he could not handle at that age. Some guy from neighboring school was ogling at her all the time she goes to home and he follows her all the way to home. She also said, one time he even tired talking to her but she ran off from that place. Ezhil was puzzled and could not understand the situation clearly. He asked her to chuck it. She also consulted with her friends and decided to go in some other route to her house.

The school was suddenly buzzing with the talk of school pupil leader and assistant school pupil leader. The school has only class till 6th standard so traditionally only 6th and 5th standard students can become school pupil and assistant pupil leaders respectively. Kalpana approached Ezhil to cast in the election as assistant school pupil leader since she was close to the person who was standing as school pupil leader. Ezhil also heeded the request of Kalpana and campaigned along with that person. Ezhil won the election by vast majority to become assistant school pupil leader. He sincerely thanked Kalpana for her efforts and support. The relationship of Kalpana was ended when he shifted his school to some town English Medium matriculation board.
(cont........)

Broken Dreams-part one- Village Boy

I have move my blog to www.spotalks.com

This is a story of a man who wants to be one of those rags to riches story but it was shattered due to the hypocrisy of the people surrounding him and his unlucky life. He was born in the helmet of some unknown shanty village in the southern cone of India. His name was Ezhil. His parents were uneducated, poor and naïve. They were suppressed by the so called elite upper caste and doesn’t enjoy the freedom of education in their times. His mother badly wanted her children to get education. She cannot meet the ends because of inappropriate spending of his father.

He had three siblings, two sisters and one brother. One of his siblings died when he was at the age of eight. Unfortunately, other two of his siblings were enrolled in the regional language school of that southern state. This state is known for rhetoric speeches or demagogues by the politicians about the native language but they failed to protect or live up to their linguist chauvinism. The compulsory state language policies were totally failed and can’t stand against the charm of English language. Everyone in the cities and towns enrolled their children in English medium schools but ezhil’s parents’ were ignorant and forced them to enroll his siblings in native language. Ezhil’s sister savitha was known for her eloquence in her mother tongue. She used to win any oratorical or essay writing competition conducted in her school.

Ezhil’s brother Kalaignar was considered to one of the best muggers in his school days. He used to top his class until 8^th standard. Since he was enrolled in a state board school, he can top any subjects just by memorizing without understanding it. The state board system in this state is best known to be obsolete and purely based on rote learning. The academicians have criticized the state Government for not looking into the curriculum and change it to meet the real needs of education. Kalaignar was scared of filthy relatives who come to house and gossip about others. He is also famous among his friends for grand mom or father stories. His friends used to love him because of his innocence and harmless behaviour.

Ezhil was the second last child in his family. He was fortunate in the whole family to go to an English medium school because his father was enlightened by his cousin that only English medium schools return you with lot of money. His father got wooed by the money part since he was poor and enrolled Ezhil in English medium school. In his childhood days, Ezhil doesn’t like to go to his schools because he was literally helpless in his school. Though his mother was a housewife and had good formal knowledge on their mother tongue, he never learnt his native language from her. He always used to be very poor in his mother tongue subject. When he was at 3^rd standard his younger sister died, he was very upset and depressed. Though he couldn’t grasp the happenings of the event well enough but he cried a lot because he can’t feel the life of his sister who was lying on the table. The pain of the moment made him mouth struck in his class for a long time and he got relieved only after a month.

Story will continue………..

The Spirit of Entrepreneurship

I have move my blog to www.spotalks.com

Entrepreneurship is a new buzz word not only in India but also around the globe. This might be attributed to the fact that now “The world is flat”. I think, most of you may be amused because I say “The world is flat”. Seriously I’m not the one who discovered the world is flat but the famous journalist Thomas L Friedman rediscovered that the world is flat. What provoked Friedman to say that world is flat, He argues that everyone anywhere in the planet now has the opportunities and resources to compete in the globe. The person who taps those opportunities and turns into viable and sustainable business venture is called “The Entrepreneur”.

There exist thin line of difference between an entrepreneur and a business person. The business person runs or owns business entity through inheritance or he might have started with group of friends like a brick and mortar company. The entrepreneur is a person who starts a new business venture and turns into great money spinning viable business organization. Most of the Hawker or food restaurant owners are business people but the person who converts those restaurants into chain of restaurants like McDonalds or KFC are entrepreneur. The subject of entrepreneurship is very intriguing for research at prestigious management institutions like Stanford, Harvard, Wharton, etc. These institutions are rigorously analyzing what are the skills sets needed to become an entrepreneur and they also coined some of the programs for entrepreneurship education. Here, comes the question, Will these programs definitely make an entrepreneur?

I also had gone for a minor in Entrepreneurship at my university, NTU Singapore. My personnel opinion and feeling about these programs is molded on the basis of virtual business platform and makes you understand whether you have those skills to become an entrepreneur and it may acts as a platform for budding entrepreneurs to hone their skills too. The certainty of becoming an entrepreneur after these kinds of program is only meager. The next big alluring question is what personality traits entrepreneur must possess if he/she wants to be entrepreneurs. I learn it from some of the books on entrepreneurship; person has to be conscientious, extrovert, gregarious, loquacious (sometimes may help), shrewd, perseverance. The entrepreneur need not necessarily must have all these skills but must at least have some of the skills. Most of the entrepreneurs in the real world had conscientiousness which is considered to be one of the pivotal skill in the success of new business venture. The real world problems are many and sudden; entrepreneur must know how to tackle it, for that he/she must be conscientious.

The personality trait can be sometimes shaped by the environment but what about business acumen. The entrepreneurship is all about starting a new business venture, if they don’t possess business acumen in the beginning “Is it possible to start a viable business venture? Certainly, the epitome of the answer to this question is “Larry page and Sergey Bin”, the founders of the search giant “Google". Larry and Sergey doesn’t have a business idea when they started Google in Stanford university campus. They had strong passion for technology which searches the information in web rather making money. They are tech savvy and don’t want to be nouveau riche but strongly believed in the technology which will sometime revolutionize the world. They even approached the venture capitalist without having at least a business plan, VCs funded based on the positive attitude rather on business acumen; but now without Google obviously implausible for anyone to survive in this information rich world. Even though the CEO of Google is a business graduate but behind scenes operations are controlled by Larry and Sergey only.

I shared this example with you because entrepreneurship is not about making big money but it’s about conceiving some great ideas and turning the ordinary stone into beautiful statue. Starbucks founders realized that ordinary coffee beans can be converted into incredible business venture. They gave perceived value to those cheap coffee beans. Entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs converted delusive fruit “Apple” into real fruit which can employ more than thousands of employees. There are lot many entrepreneurs like these people who actually shaped the modern age of capitalism and amassed wealth not only for them but also for the whole country where they hail from. All these people really cherished true success because success is defined by how many people are well off because of you. So, entrepreneurship not only makes a person successful in life but also remembered.

Tamil Identity

I have move my blog to www.spotalks.com

I never ever thought of writing on this topic i.e "Tamil identity" till I read the book written by Nobel laureate Amartya Sen "The Argumentative Indian". In that book he extensively talked about the Indian identity in general. I'm an ardent fan of his highly intellectual, intriguing and inquisitive writing about economic sciences with convergence of social science. I admire and respect him for thoughtful writings and idea but I personally felt he has focused his thoughts mainly on the perspective of northern India including Bengal ( His birth place). He augmented to Indian Identity by thoughts of Tagore, Sanskrit literature, northern moghal rulers,Gandhi, etc who basically hailed from northern India. What disappointed me was, He hasn't even cited a single thought of southern scholars, literature, Rulers, etc. He generalized Indian identity only based on north Indian perspective based on historical facts. I presume that most of the modern Indians think that north Indian Identity is different from south Indian.
I actually hail from southern state of Tamil Nadu and I personally think the south India or Tamil Identity has lots of deviations from north Indian Identity. What makes me to think so, because I have friends from most of states of India and I find their thoughts, basic instincts is different from me. I'm some times finding difficulties to have good relationship with them, this may be attributed to the difference in thoughts and idea. Most of the thoughts and ideas we possess actually have great influence of our inheritance and circumstance.So, it boggles my mind to think what's the uniqueness of Tamil Identity where I come from. To understand the identity of any man we got to look into his history and environment. Lets us first have brief look into history of Tamil people in general.
BASIC INSTINCT
Only Tamil kingdom invaded other parts of south Asia unlike northern rulers. Tamil Kingdom was basically ruled by chera, chola and pandian. These three rulers have great influence on Tamil identity in general. These rulers established "sangam" to flourish the tamil literature. Thats one of the main reasons why there are more than 1000 Tamil sangams outside India and Srilanka to protect and flourish the tamil language. Rulers from outside Tamil Kingdom found it extremely difficult to invade them. It doesn't mean that these rulers were united but they are united when outsiders invaded them. There were frequent conflicts between these rulers but they preserved the temples, literature and everything which possess their own identity. During pre-independent era also madras presidency has seen lots of freedom fighters who fought courageously against British rule. This brief history has lot to say about tamil people in general. Most of my friends too remarked that tamils are very diplomatic, hard working, brilliant ( depends on individual too), introvert,loquacious. Every tamilian has to agree that unity, inter alia, is weak, this statement can be conceded by lots of issues happening in tamil nadu and expatriate tamil places too now.
Castetism in tamil nadu is wide spread and most of the conflicts and confrontation occurred in the past clearly depicts the arrogance of dominance of one caste on other people. In Tamil Nadu development is also spoiled by the conceited nature of the castetism among the people of tamil nadu. Today, caste is over thrown by the open mindedness of not just tamils but also Indian by western education. The unique feature of tamil culture which is pretty hard to see in other culture is loudness. If we go to any one of the festivals in village, we can see the loudness in all the activities. Lets us take an example of "Pongal" which is uniquely a tamil festival in India has long standing traditional value. Apart from worshiping sun and cow, it also has activities to outcast sixty four arts of tamil culture especially "jalikattu" which shows the men's brave. In ancient tamil culture, every men was supposed to possess sixty four arts which is pivotal for any king to rule tamil kingdom. Those sixty four arts related to gamut of subjects such as love, brave, etc.
LANGUAGE
Many Indians tend to blame Tamilians for their linguist chauvinism, other way around can also be seen now in urban areas. Let me first analyze why tamilians are very sensitive in their language. From 200 BC onwards Tamils started flourishing and protecting their via establishing "tamil sangam". Sangam literature is considered to be one of the oldest literature and it has great antiquity. One of the literature, "thirukkural" which has been translated into many different language due to its thoughts and neutrality. Its often said, language is pivotal for thoughts of a persons. Language certainly shapes the thoughts and ideal because we acquire those knowledge by default when we read, listen, and watch to the literature, conservation and movies. One of the very famous director of Tamil cinema reiterated that "He attribute his thoughts to tamil language". It all happened after independence of Indian Union that politician started choosing a language as official language of India to represent Indian Union. They wanted to chose an Indian language which represents the majority and easy to learn too. They chose "Hindi" as an official language of India which is inevitable because Hindi is spoken by majority of population of India. But this provoked the sentiments of tamilians and they agitated against this imposition of Hindi during 1960. Here is statement said by C. N Anna durai in parliament
"It is claimed that Hindi should be common language because it is spoken by the majority. Why should we then claim the tiger as our national animal instead of the rat which is so much more numerous? Or the peacock as our national bird when the crow is ubiquitous?". During agitations there were about 60 people killed and self immolated. This has changed the attitude of Union government and retained English as one of the official language of India to this date.
These incidents may sound like French people agitating against English but Tamilians like to flaunt in foreign languages. Nowadays, the scene has been changed due to the English medium education in Tamil Nadu. Most of the people who are educated are ashamed of speaking in tamil in public. This has recently provoked political parties to staging protest against English too which I personally consider insane. Expatiates Tamils who settled in western countries and south Asia established "Tamil Sangam" to promote Tamil Language among Tamil people. This is a laudable effect because through this sangam they are able to spread the awareness of Tamil culture.
CULTURE
There are lots of rhetoric statements about Indian Culture. People in Tamil Nadu used to say that Tamil Culture is conservative. I don't seriously understand the word conservative in the modern times because ancient tamil culture never imposed rules and regulations on women education, and freedom. Equality in the society of ancient Tamil Kingdom was clearly seen from literature and Grammar of Tamil Language. There were lots of female poets who wrote poems in praise and against the rulers, one such example is "Avaiyar". Tamil Culture has long tradition of tolerance in religious freedom. Not alone Hindus contributed to the tamil literature in ancient literature but also Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Jains . Tamil Nadu has a little record of communal violence unlike northern India. If culture and language has to protected and promoted, people of that race must understand their identity. I want to know your views also.

Trip to India(cont)

I have moved my blog to www.spotalks.com

Once I reached cuddalore. I felt elated because I'm going to see my family members and friends. I received warm welcome from my family members. I took rest for one day. After that I started visiting my friends. At First, I went to my maths teachers house to talk to him. He was very happy to see me back after one year. Its very difficult to find a teacher in cuddalore who is willing to teach IIT JEE syllabus. He agreed to our request and taught me for one year. I'm very lucky to have such teachers. We were started discussing about Singapore educational system and pedagogy. I told him, How Singapore was able to emerge as a first world country from third world country.
Suddenly we shifted our discussion towards the opportunities available to cuddalore students .Since cuddalore is a sea town. Fishing is the main occupation and next is agriculture.It seems Government of TN has banned fishing during may 1- may 31 in view of developing the breeding of fishes. So, most of the family have to depend on Government for food but TN government was very irresponsible to the voices of fishermen during this season. I found most of my friends family were suffering and telling me how they were managing their everyday activities. Most of the businesses in cuddalore indirectly depends on fishing , so even these businesses were affected. There was sweltering heat waves in cuddalore because most of the people stomach was burning without food. There are lots of discrimination in the implementation of ban also. Few boats are allowed to go to sea. I found even though India liberalized its economy, the free market economy is not well established in traditional businesses or occupation.
After staying in cuddalore for few days, I went to my mother's native place srilaki to meet my relatives. Most of the traditional businesses in srilaki is in ruin. Actually srilaki is located near many pilgrimage. One of the main occupation in srilaki is agriculture. The main reason for agriculture in srilaki is attributed to good irrigation facilities and stable ground water. Now, ground water is badly affected by poor rains and irrigation facilities is getting even worse than before. Most of the children of these families are studying in government school or private school.These students seldom goes to school because they don't have money to make living.
Educational institutions such as schools, colleges are very scarce in number. I seldom see students who are aspiring for higher education from srikali. We can see many hard working students in srikali than cities, but they at last end up in mediocre colleges because they don't know how to work smart? . They know only to memorize the stuffs given in the textbooks and vomit the same thing in the exam paper. They respect books more than their parents. We shouldn't blame students ,the teacher didn't know what they are teaching to the students. Is it possible now to expect an Abdul kalam from villages. One of my friend's father reiterated me, those days people used the opportunities available in the villages and migrated to cities.Currently the education and health care facilities are very bad. The people who are living now depending on the traditional occupation. Since traditional occupation is getting ruined, they don't have anything to do.Tamil nadu had experienced worst suicide of farmers in cauvery delta regions. Srilaki is also under cauvery delta belt. In the next post, I'll be discussing Special Economic Agricultural Zones(SEAZ) and how to make big money out of agriculture and traditional occupation.

Trip to India

I have move my blog to www.spotalks.com

After one year of stay in Singapore, I missed my motherland India and want to go back to home to see my beloved family members and friends. Since, I have to participate in the national competition in Singapore, I got only two weeks to visit India. So, I planned my schedule to cover all places which I have to visit. My heart started beating with joy because I'm going to see my India after one year. India is making headlines in the newspaper that economy grows more than 9%. Whenever, I browse through any newspaper in Singapore I always search any Indian news. Basically, Its the people view that as economy grows, the country's citizen per capita income increases and there will be an overall development. So, I presume that Indian people now becoming wealthier than before.
I read it in the newspaper in Singapore, India government plans to expand its airport due to overwhelming increase in the air passenger traffic. Economist often says that Singapore's development can be attributed to its strong infra structure which become a suitable place for foreign investment. This is very clear from the GDP of Singapore, about 60% GDP comes from MNCs headquarter in Singapore and rest from Singapore SMEs. Changi airport in Singapore is considered to be one of the best airport in the world which can handle about 70 million. On the contrast no Indian airport handles more than 10 million passengers currently. I don't know why Indians themselves hate Indians, in changi airport service is considered to one of the world's best but in chennai airport people scarcely respect the passengers. When the plane took off from Changi , I was anticipating time to go faster. Due to heavy traffic in chennai, plane has been delayed in landing.
Chennai was still almost same except traffic, air pollution has increased. I went directly to my hometown cuddalore in bus. Bus passes through by-pass, the road reminds me of PIE(highway in Singapore). Actually highway is better than many roads in Singapore. There is a signal of development but traffic is too heavy even in nights. I presume the reason for traffic in night was attributed to cancellation of train and construction of broad cage. I reached cuddalore and went to home in an auto. Difference in the lifestyles can be clearly seen in cuddalore which is a town located in erstwhile of pondy. Even though many countries like US, UK, Singapore are richer than India there is always something is lacking in those countries thats affection. You don't get affection anywhere outside India. Literally improbable to speak about affection in foreign nation. India is always India.