The Yaxis Live by Rajesh Kumar

I had heard of Right to Information Act as a powerful tool so when a premier academic institution delayed issuing the certificates to the course participants, I filed a query using RTI. My query was as follows:

Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, in association with NIIT Imperia conducted a certificate programme called Executive Programme in Supply Chain Management (or EPSCM). The first batch of the programme completed its requirements in January 2010.The institute has chosen not to inform the participants of the programme about the status of the certificates. The undersigned is one of the participants of the programme.

Please provide :

· the status of the certificates of the of EPSCM batch that finished the exams in Jan 2010

· the reasons of the extraordinary and ongoing delay

· The reasons for non-communication by the institute regarding the reasons for the delay to the participants.

Sure enough, I received the response soon enough. Reproduced below for your reading pleasure.

Look at the way the non-specific response has been craftily drafted, which defeats the purpose of seeking information.

Let’s examine:

Q 1: Please provide the status of the certificates of the of EPSCM batch that finished the exams in Jan 2010.

Ans 1: Certificates have been either dispatched or are being dispatched  (Oh God, why did they invent present continuous usage in English language at all?!) depending on(variable – it depends, you see) the status of the students(rich, poor, what?).

Q 2: Please provide the reasons of the extraordinary and ongoing delay.

Ans 2: The delay is routine (A 4 month delay is just ‘routine’, you see. Reminds me of passenger train somehow). There is no extraordinary or ongoing delay (Really? The Chandrayaan took only few days to reach the moon) in cases where students have followed the proper procedure(conditional if, and what is an ‘improper’ procedure, pray? Isn’t a procedure a procedure?).

Q 3: Please provide the reasons for non-communication by the institute regarding the reasons for the delay to the participants.

Ans 3: The service provider (NIIT Imperia) (Blame it on them) had been informed regarding the reasons for the delay(Finally, they accept, there was delay, but then, what if it did not reach us).

PS: Curiously enough, between the filing of this RTI query and the response, I received the certificate!

If you would like to access some quality discussions and resources on how citizens can use Right to Information Act to your situation, please check out  RTI India portal.

About 2 years back, I had argued in my blog post that the about to be launched iPhone would fail in the Indian market . While I leave it to your judgment to decide how my audacious argument performed on the time scale, here I am back with another set of observations for the Indian market, this time on iPhone 4.

The fact remains is that Apple has created the worst possible marketing mix, when it comes to the Indian market. The price of an iPhone is prohibitive in the market. While it sells under USD 200 in the US (with operator lock and under a long term plan), it costs over Rs 30,000 in India. Translated into dollars, that costs over 640 dollars at today’s rate. That is expensive even by purchasing ability of customers in the United States. For Indian customers, that’s even more in terms of impact. Besides, there’s barely any marketing campaign and even the operators such as Airtel and Vodafone who supposedly offer iPhone, remain lukewarm about the promotions.

The distribution of iPods has taken a slightly mass route, with even bookstores keeping it for sale. However, how does one see iPad? Where does one go for it? I am not sure, apart from the mental recall that there is an Apple iStore on R.K.Salai in Chennai. Moreover, in the US, the launch on the device is an event by itself, and that itself is the biggest promotion, that is widely covered by the media. No such thing in India. We’ve to get contented by watching Steve Jobs launch videos in USA.

That kind of impact is not available in Indian market, where its launch mix is much weaker than a Nokia phone that costs Rs 2000/-.

Moreover, where’s 3G in India? The frequency auction for 3G is on as of now, and the networks are ages to go. So, no video calls, as Steve Jobs demonstrated at WWDC.

This presents a great opportunity for Sonyericsson and other smartphone manufacturers. In short, Apple is leading the innovation threshold, but it is way behind the expectation threshold in market approach to markets such as India, where others such as Sonyericsson, HTC, Nokia continue to lead.

According to me, the best estimate could be of an Indian market of less than 100 pieces, if and when the model gets launched. That does not mean only 100 iPhone 4s will be used in India. In fact, there would be much more than that, despite the restrictions.

Till then Apple will only be news in India. If wants to be taken seriously in India, it needs to have a clear market strategy, which seems to be lacking at this point.

It is commonplace to have a dispute with a service provider and cancel a service, but if the service provider happens to a financial institution, there’s always a possibility of silent damage – at least in India. That’s because one can never be sure of how that reflects in the credit bureau records. In fact, India has Credit Information Bureau (India) Limited (CIBIL) established just few years back by a group of Banks and Dun & Bradstreet.

A big drawback for us Indians is that we are not used to seeing our banks looking at our credit score, and therefore, do not care what is written in there. Many of us do not even know about the existence of such a bureau.That means the credit report available to your bank may have some subjective elements inserted to your adverse impact, which you may not even realize. The best way to keep track of such obnoxities is to watch your credit report. Yes, very few of us know that it is possible to get access to your credit information report(C.I. R).

The process is fairly simple. A very basic form to be filled and sent along with a Demand Draft of Rs 142/- to be sent to CIBIL through the post office only.While many identification documents are allowed in the application, it is recommended to provide the PAN number, since all bank transactions require the same.

If you notice a discrepancy in your C.I.R, you can take that up with the concerned financial institution as the credit bureau cannot update the records at your instance.

Link: The CIBIL Site can be reached here. The report contains details of which institutions have asked for your data, maximum amount you ever borrowed, and how much outstanding you have with each bank.  To see what a typical report available on yourself and what information it contains, click here. Below is just a snapshot for quick reference.

Updated June 04, 2010: Learnt offline from my professional colleague Chinni Krishnan that the report does not carry a credit score, (as credit reports in US do). He feels that this is a good start and there is much scope for the report to have ‘less English, and more Math’. His experience in getting the report was marked by very quick response time from CBIL authorities.

Every Tom and Jane in the business of IT talks about the cloud strategy these days. Some see it as panacea to managing a server room or a data center, others think it helps them reduce their dependence on irksome IT staff, yet others think Cloud is fashionable, and there’s need to adopt it, without thinking much about it.

I think many CIOs take this decision without a serious evaluation. The resultant consequence – often ill-thought out adoptions that do not bring in the right efficiencies.

It is a fact that there is no copybook definition of cloud computing.However, there’s clearly an infrastructure stack, and an application stack. Often, this application stack gets referred to as ‘service’ or by another much abused term ’SAAS’! Quite simply, the application uses the computing power of anonymous machines sitting in some invisible data center managed by someone else. Amazon is a typical example of this.

Coming to the applications now. Adopting organizations often get swayed by terms such as multi-tenancy of applications. Frankly, multi-tenancy comes at its own price. A multi-tenant application, mostly, cannot be tailor made to your requirements. Take it or leave it.  Think about your apartment in a skyscraper. You cannot go grossly out of line with the rest of the building. You can maybe, change the colour of the walls if you like.  It is standardized customization, if you so like.

That of course does not mean business processes cannot be in cloud. Business Process applications are rapidly maturing too. Force.com is an example of organizations that are moving forward in a rapid fashion. Zoho is yet another example.

That begs the question – should I, or, shouldn’t I. My suggestion is as follows:

- Have your own reasons for moving to cloud.

- Don’t think everyone on the cloud is on cloud nine.

- Have your own starting point.

- IT problems will remain, even after you move to the cloud – only the nature will change.

Take YOUR call!

Dr C.K.Prahalad is no more. One had taken it for granted that he would keep coming out with one masterpiece of a book after another for eternity. Sadly, we make the same mistake of underestimating fate again and again.

I could hardly bring myself to agree to the idea of BOP in the way and manner I read it in the book. Angered, I made this post titled Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid – What I liked what I didn’t. Till I saw CK’s present this very convincingly at an event in Chennai. It changed my idea somewhat.

The New Age of Innovation, IMHO, was a bigger paradigm changer, though BOP got far greater popular acclaim. I felt that at least in part was due to the anecdotes on very popular brands in India in BOP. I felt that The New Age of Innovation should be a mandatory read for all CXOs, because, IMHO, the book sought to bring IT out of the closet to the boardroom. A path breaking idea, because I have myself seen how many a CXOs (except for the CTO and the CIO) think IT is a non-core and back room item.  I had even raised the question why modern day managers are scared of technology. My broader views on the New Age of Innovation were captured in this post here.

At Pan IIT 2008, I happened to watch Dr CKP. moderate a panel discussion involving some Tata group CEOs. At the end of the discussion, I managed to seek Dr C.K. Prahalad’s autograph on my copy of the New Age of Innovation.  I thought I would be the only one who has brought his copy, I found a dozen or so folks had done so. He asked me why I liked the book. I replied saying that this is the only mainstream management book that talks about IT. He looked at me straight and half dismissively said,”Yeah?”. My (then) seven year old daughter tried to take a picture and below is my treasure.

R.I.P Dr Prahalad. Let the debates started by you rage on. We will miss you.

It is not that one has to buy a book to read how contrasting thoughts across age, gender and states of India can be.  It is just that this combination of demographic, psychographic and behavioral contrasts give rise to situations that sometimes become anecdotal. This one happened on a flight that was connecting Delhi to Chennai, an just about five months back. The name of the airline is not important. The configuration of the aircraft really is.

It just so happens that Seat 27E of this flight is next to a safety door. What is more important that there is a seat at that safety door which is occupied by a flight attendant during take off and landing. In this case, the flight attendant occupying this particular seat was a lady, and if you like, you can use the conventional term which is air hostess. And if you are a young man by age or heart, you know how hard you must try to ignore the situation. More so, if your seat number is 28E, in which case the you almost face the air hostess during that time. And if you are on 29F, you not just get additional leg room, you face the airhostess completely.

This particular flight, I was on Seat 28E, which means that that I was almost facing the airhostess. We were waiting for the flight to take off. Not sure if you agree, but in the proximity of beautiful women,  lot of men in the middle ages feel teen aged, retirees feel in their thirties, and those in their thirties feel as if they just started wearing trousers to school. They also try futile ploys and invent logic in defence of their unexplainable mental pattern ( A cousin of mine claims he flies only Kingfisher because their flights are on time). Men make the most of their flying experience even more so when their better half is not in the same flight, which appears to be the case with most of the actors in this particular flight.

Our aircraft was tenth in queue for take off. Which means, if you take an average of about 2 minutes per aircraft, we waited about 20 minutes. The good old days when the flight attendants would offer the customary cotton ball, wet face towel and lozenges are far gone. Which means they have nothing worthwhile to do on the ground once the doors are closed till the time the flight takes off and they can begin their sky commerce by selling from their food cart.

The seat belts were on, and the captain ordered the crew on stations for take-off. So, while we wait for our turn to take off, the lady appears from no where, and to the delight of men who know their wives cannot monitor them, occupy the seat next to the safety door. The old man on Seat 29F, suddenly becomes even more straight and upright on his seat. The guy on 28C started pretended to be reading something in the newspapers, when actually he was rolling his eyes every 15 seconds – on the pretext of looking out of the window. The guy on 27E, who was in his fifties had actually very little leg room and must be in great inconvenience, but he was not displaying any symptoms of suffering from compressed patella or a femur that actually threatened to reduce his height by 1 inch by the time he landed in Chennai. In fact, he seemed delighted at his state and hardly had time to worry about such silly stuff. He was actually turning his neck  every thirty seconds and looking towards the airhostess, who was occupying that strange kind of seat, almost next to him, but directionally opposite. And I, well, I was giving that bored look on the face when actually I was looking at these strange specimen around me.

The  airhostess started to give a briefing on how to operate the emergency door. All the men within in the three rows front and three behind the emergency door actually listened to it as if the kindergarten teacher was narrating a jingle. Two of them were also nodding their head in appreciation of their newly developed understanding.

The airhostess started her first sentence beyond the official script by asking me, “Sir, are you from Chennai?”.

All the men looked at me jealously. I don’t know why I felt it necessary do so but I also started rambling, “Actually, I have lived in ten states of India, and started to count them aloud- UP, MP, Orissa, Bengal, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, Delhi, Haryana, Tamil Nadu….”. She repeated her question, “Do you belong to Chennai?” . I said well, I have been living their for nine years, which was a truthful representation of facts.

“Sir, how does one spend a day in Chennai?”

Before I had the scope to marvel myself at selecting a good shirt this morning, she clarified, "Actually, sir, this crew has a day layover in Chennai and we are not familiar with Chennai."

Before I could marvel my personality any further, the guy seated next to her interjected, "Visit the Kapaleeshwar temple in Mylapore I am sure you go there once, you would go every time."

Her next question, again directed to me.

"Sir,is it possible to go to Tirupati darshan and come back the same day?"

I began, "No, actually, it is 165 kms and then their it is waiting time in the queue. Frankly, same day could be a challenge."

27E interjected once again, this time barely concealing his displeasure at my dudness. He could barely wait for me to finish. That a particular question is not addressed to them often does not matter to old, opinionated men.

And by the way, all men feel of all others as old men.

"Go to T. Nagar. They have TTD office. They run same day buses from there. Very nice service. I have done Balaji darshan several times  by the same day bus service."

She again ignored him, and asked me,  “What if one has to spend an evening outdoors? Could you give me some ideas on places to visit”.

I started, “The Spencers is old, while it is good, you may want to visit the Inox theatre in City Center and the food court is not bad either”.

Individual 27E started again , “Check out the Hindu for the sabha listings. Check out some nice vocal at Narad Gana Sabha tomorrow. Check out the Kucheris this entire month. You will relish. You must make your booking today itself else you will not get any tickets. I will help you in that case”.

Jealous men, like jealous women, can hardly keep quiet. This guy too had the manifestation of mental displayria.

The flight meanwhile had reached the stable height and the captain pulled back the seat belt sign on.

The air hostess left her seat to start the sky commerce and 27E started to immediately whine about how uncomfortable his seat was.

Important to note that while landing, the name badge of the flight attendant who occupied that  seat read ‘Vinod Sharma’! And if this is of any interest, there were no conversations this time round.

No, I have not trained and become a pilot, much as I would like to. I recently visited Hindustan University to attend a programme. I was pleasantly surprised to see a simulator and when invited to try my hands, I could not say no. The simulator is configured to give an experience of flying a Cessna. The computer is programmed to simulate and experience of a real airport and there is a giant screen in front. With some difficulty, my craft took off. As I flew for few minutes, I felt confident and decided to make a landing. I took a U turn, located the landing strip (had a ‘visual’), and then lowered the height gradually. The landing was less than perfect, but I sure had a great time. I even loved the sound that plays in the audio to compliment the flying experience.

In those few minutes behind the control, my respect for men and women who pilot us in the commercial flights went up several time. Next time I get a bumpy landing, I am going to take it easy – I now know it is tough!

I was looking at my Hindi blog after a while my browser, the ever helpful Google Chrome offered to translate the page into English. I okayed, and the entire page became hilarious. Here’s my intro of myself, as it existed in Hindi and what it reads after English translation.

After reading the translation, I came to the believe that humans have no threats from robots. At least not for the next few decades.

I came across this excellent cartoon on Vikram Nandwani’s blog and liked it.

It is the same Google that the darling of the websphere for a long time. Actually too long a time!

This particular clip covers Milagrow’s distinguished CEO and and transformational business leader Rajeev Karwal at the unique CSR activity, called Venture Doctors. The programme shows a short clip of a MSME entrepreneur taking Rajeev’s advice on his business venture ( a sort of Shaadi. com for rural masses). Once a month, all consultants in the company devote their time for counselling such MSME Entrepreneurs. To my mind, this is the most unique CSR one can think of. I am proud to have devoted few days of my time to this activity and what a happiness one gets!

Coming back to the clip. The visiting crew also decided to take a short clipping of some of us, and I found myself in the final clip that went on air. I realized in the process that speaking business in Hindi is far tougher than running a Hindi blog! Take look!!

To me, having worked with Rajeev and participated in Venture Doctors is the quiet reward for me. That I feature in the clip is incidental.