Entrepreneurship, my day and Chai

hi friends
How are you all doing? Wish to share what I have been doing all these months after my return from Boston/silicon valley.

My days are hectic but I am never "busy". In India, specially in the capital everyone is always busy. They seem to talk a lot on mobile ( service providers cant hide their smile and bank accounts) but forget to converse and listen to their own friends, wives, children and parents. This is a new side of India.

I have been observing a lot about my own communities I work and live with. There is a new shine to India. Middle class has every world class has gadgets, cars and homes ( houses, rather). They are brimming with confidence. A confidence of a child, who has just learnt to walk and don't waste time on staying with it, but tries to run.

But back on track. Tea/ Chai/ Cha as it is called in western world/India/China respectively; made my me, for me, act as a booster for my day. Though I have been strongly ( self ) advised to work on losing my weight, but Chai, that cant leave me, neither can I leave "her".

Calls can begin as early as 5am, i.e. if I get up on time. Sometimes scrambled eggs with bbrown bread ( remember , I am health conscious!! ) or curd with Chura ( boiled and beaten rice ) or boiled eggs ( without the yolk, needless to say) with fruits.

Amongst my pouring mails and calls , I manage to cook and survive. Somedays are completely "designer" days like yesterday. Brochure design, T shirt design and biodegradable bags design. Branding is what I love, working with creative people, mild and tough mannered, gives me a high. Some of the days are filled with myriad cups of Chai, which I politely discard after sipping one or two times. ( A chai should be perfect according to time of the day; aromatic and delicate or strong and refreshing) Between teas and coffees meeting happens. That's India for me.

1-2 days ina week, I have to survive on street food ( no no, I am not into junk food, despite Mc Donald opening shops in every nook and corner), that is boiled eggs ( without yolk), bananas, or fruit juices. These days are filled with travel across the cities and lobbying with different agencies or enrolling people in our green reality. Communicating about green technologies and solar energy, brings my blood rushing to every nerve. The infection most of the times rub on the audience and I feel proud in what It can bring to the world.

But this is not always the case. India was a land of knowledge, with google it has become a land "-mine" of information.But one thing hasn't changed over last 3-4 decades, the cynicism. People ask too many questions and to your surprise everyone has an answer how anything canNOT be done. No one would waste time on proclivities on how anything can be made possible. That's "information age" for us !

Unperturbed by this deep rooted cynicism, created by our loss of faith in ourselves ( due to long domination of English) I march along and blow my "solar" trumpet.

Earlier I used to get cranky and upset by this noisy and aggressive Delhi and "Dilliwalas". Now I enjoy their traffic fights, as I call them and observing people in different moods. Lovers; oblivious to the honking, talking in whispers, are omnipresent ( Indians maybe the most romantic people on the Earth but they don't respect their "lovers), auto rickshaw drivers, haggling with customers or a corporate person, trying to manage both; the spouse and the boss, along with the drive wheel. Interesting ! delicious. Human beings are so colourful.

Few of these days I cook 2-3 vegetables simultaneously. You cant imagine the intoxicating aroma of sauteed onion and heady mix of Kenny G's saxophone. The only thing I fear is that my neighbours complaining about my chorus ( maybe its imaginary, maybe after all I am a bearable singer or maybe they just tolerate it as I am rarely home).

Oh I can forget about my professional circle. Specially, lawyers and charted accountants.Being an entrepreneur you don't really have a choice. You have to live with their meticulousness, trashing of your ideas and their breathlessness ( due to overload of their self devised complex lingo ). What about the myriad thereof's, semicolons and hyphens of lawyers or P&L account of CA's. All tightly and immaculately dressed, straight jacketed in their expression, even a smile is customised for a customer. But, but but ! Don't get me wrong. These are the very people, who save you a whole lot of wrangling and money. I bow to them , my lord !

I think my writing has become like a lawyer , too many brackets and semicolons. Maybe I should meet artists more. Next time when our manufacturers call, I would rather discuss the design than the thickness of the biodegradable bags !

As Khuswant Singh, one of India's colourful authors would say " with malice towards one and all "

have a great refreshing day !

cheers pranay

The new face of India

hi Friends
Writing after a long long time. I was getting restless after almost circumventing the globe, from USA to UAE to India.

Back in India.Phew ! The first day got stuck in the big noisy Delhi. More than the traffic jam the noise irked me no end. Delhites are a bit more aggressive than in any part of India. The daily struggle of a big city and social profile of the population being big influential factors. Survival is given priority than innovative and clear thinking as in any big city. I love Delhi and my being critical of this beautiful city is a positive context.

A friend of mine called me for his salsa performance. And before his item there was an impromptu rapping by a teenager. I couldnot identify myself with this generation and looked around the parents of some younger children. The devastating look confirmed my fears. There was a major disconnect . Here in megalopolis and even in smaller cities, generation change within 5 years. So effectively I am 3-4 generations behind the young chap, who was gesticulating in not a very decent fashion. Though his rapping was good. But a pleasant event was to effect me, positively later that week.

There is this vibrant and young organisation IYCN (www.iycn.in), Indian Youth Climate Network, which spreads awareness about climate change and its mitigation. To put simply, I was bowled over by their enthusiasm, awareness and concern towards climate change and related issues. I was listening to a young tennager from Hyderabad, and was couldnot help but listen to her strategy for spreading the awareness in her neighbourhood, city of Hyderbad and beyond. Awesome. I learnt many things from them and my faith in this young leadership of India was redeemed.

Thanks for providing me these many new facets of a young vibrant India.

Love Pranay

Global currency unit

There is a strong case for making of a standard currency unit in the world, like SDR or Global Currency unit.

In 18th & 19th century Britain's Pound Stirling acted as the prime currency due to the dominance of Britain as the economic power. Later German Deutsch mark and French Franc was added to represent the rise in their economic ( and military) muscles. After World War II ( 1944), Bretton woods system, with US dollar deliberately placed at the center of the system, was agreed upon. Bretton woods actually defined the exchange rate of each currency in terms of gold, but shortage of gold led other countries to define domestic currencies in terms of dollar. Hence the US dollar became the center ( sorry, centrE) of this system .

The US government guaranteed all the holders of dollars that, they could sell the reserve dollars in exchange for a fixed rate of gold. When a crisis occurred in 1971 and there was a drastic reduction in reserves of gold at Fort Knox and many other places ( where the gold was held ), the US government declared that it would not be able to gurantee and currencies should be traded floating. Earlier it served the US central bank to run the deficit of US dollars as the trade deficit of US was being financed by the purchase of dollars by other countries.

Notably in 1913 Central bank of US , Federal Reserve was formed to contain the panic of 1907 as the third bank. Fed had government nominee on its board but it had large stakes in it of JP Morgan and other rich banks ( one of them controlled by Rockfeller family). So the government of United States does not control its own central bank, which takes decision on liquidity, flow of currency and impacts its trade.

So the other countries which buy dollars actually fund the deficit of United states and the loan people take is actually from the rest of the world. Being a prime currency also gives a leverage in buying commodities like oil & gold. But ultimately US population is under the debt of its own currency , due to result of promotion of spending theory. Spend more to expand the economy. Now most individuals dont benefit by credit, ultimately they have to pay them ( as you see now in this credit crisis of 2008-9. The value of the dollars have fallen and more unfortunately US is losing credibility as "the" economy. Then who is benefiting ? By playing and getting infusion of tax payers money big corporates are. They didn't take the responsibility of the credit crisis but they are being rewarded by the US government, as the government fears loss of thousands and millions of jobs, leading to further deterioration of its economy.So a few banks ( and its shareholders)would have more control over the economy of America and would be able to manipulate the money flow according to their whims.

In my opinion the control first should be taken by all the governments throughout the world, not only USA. Secondly a prime currency independent of any country's currency should be established as the standard. Now the question is how this world currency ( say) should be bench marked and what should be the rate of exchange.

In order to give each and every country its share there would be a formula to determine their weight in the currency, rather than just a few countries currencies like dollars, euros and yen. I propose a formula, which might be or might not be agreeable but its my point of view.

Lets say, world currency is denoted by W. The countries by 1, 2,3.. Their currencies by x1, x2. Their purchasing power of a basket of essential goods ( in comparison to other currencies in say, 2009) by pp1, pp2.. their population in 2009 by P1, P2... balance of trade by T1, T2... ( in terms of purchasing power parity) . Let ppavg be average of purchasing power parity of all the countries in 2009.

So the weight of each currency would be , W1= pp1*P1 +Function of (T1)

So the world currency would be

W= [(pp1*P1+T1)+ (pp2*P2+T2) +......( ppn*Pn+Tn )]/ Function of (ppavg*( P1+P2...+Pn)

This may not be perfect solution given the already inbuilt biases in the calculation of purchasing power due to economic positions of each country, which doesn't account for the future potential, but at least it takes into account the population and trade balance , which reflects the consumption and savings pattern of a particular country.

At least each economy would be represented according to its "real" buying power, not through artificial manipulations of currency market. In economic theory currency's value is determined by demand and supply, but it neglects the heavy influence of big corporates and countries, which can manipulate the flow of money and liquidity by injecting or buying certain currencies.

Wish to have your opinion and would like you to point at my flaws as I am not an economist. I am a student of economics.

Watch out this column in future and the comments.

Note: The world Currency proposed by Lok Sang Ho of Lingnan university, Hong Kong takes into account the conversion of weight of each currency into US dollars and proposes a basket of a few currencies of dominating countries in addition USA, Japan and Europe, like Australia and Canada. Though it would be agreeable due to less complexity in terms of agreement, it again sets the bias towards a few countries, leaving major countries like China and India and continents like Africa. The agreement would not be feasible because of dynamics of each country, but it would give a more equitable weightage to each country's economy and its population.

Love Pranay

musings from Mountain View, CA

Acknowledgements
http://e-articles.info/e/a/title/Dollar-Crisis-of-1971/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Currency_Unit

http://www.ln.edu.hk/cpps/wcu/index.htm

Where the mind is without fear -Gurudev

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high,

Where knowledge is free,

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments

by narrow domestic walls,

Where words come out from the depth of truth,

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection,

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward by thee

Into ever-widening thought and action,

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country *(THE WORLD ) awake.

Rabindranath Tagore

Poverty of Ideas & Courage

Friends, South asia is much in news, with Pakistan at its epicenter. Sri Lanka fighting against LTTE , one of the most sophisticated organization in the world. India; fighting its own callous attitude. And I don’t mean, shabby intelligence coordination or soft government. I mean Indians themselves.

Nepal; just out of a "revolution". Bangladesh, fighting tooth and nail against poverty; economic poverty but not poverty of ideas, which its sub-continental sisters share.

Lets take Pakistan. The Pakistanis, great people but victim of enforced non education and a greedy poitical class.Omnipresent military, using Kashmir & India to continue to divert attention from the economic and social poverty , which Pakistanis never deserved. No one in that "pak" ( pure) land with balanced mind wants war. They want peace, without India, without their military, without the US presence.

Nepal, again the same political bickering, political class struggling to take charge.SriLanka may have finally awakened, but will the war bring a final peace? Will some Indians try to wrest control from the legal government there? Hard to say.

Bangladesh, same story. Yet some people like Muhammad Yunus working with richness of ideas and creating socio-economic well being. But will the larger populace support such initiative and the government. Will they hold the government accountable?

India is a contrast. It build satellites at 1/3 the cost of western countries, but more sophisticated. On the other hand, some 10 men storm their sea front ; the Indian government flexing muscles in G-20 & G-12 & G-X, whimpering. But at the core of all this, the Indians themselves are responsible.. Yes, it’s a true democracy. Despite the hard wired corruption, governments fall through votes. Yet Indians forget their drama, in the cushions of cricket or another "C”. Callousness. Each voter is the deciding factor, but no one realizes the power. So what happens, a few crooks rule the governments? So after the few hurrahs, they sit back behind the Tvs, increasing the weight and life style diseases (specially middle class) and wait for the government to react and fail. Then they blame! Just blame anyone they can lay their hands on.

The middle class. Defined by the corporate as the biggest, rising, consumer class in the world. Wow! Can they choose products, when they can’t even choose their own lives?

The poverty of any type has entrenched in this sub-continent. But the biggest poverty is of courage; of leadership; of ideas. Anyone ! Anyone, taking notice! Its not by chance that this region is the most improvised regions of the world, with richest natural resources, the earth can provide.Masticate on the thought, hard to digest.

Love Pranay

Passion, Courage , Life !

Passion gives courage to create beyond the known.

Without exploration , life is but a stagnant pond. Possibilities lie in flowing like a river , despite the rocks in the path. Actually rocks create a rhythm in the flow, otherwise even the flow becomes monotonous.

Love !

AIG fat cats & rewards

Rewards for failures!!!

Now we are hearing that for the first time in history of any industry. Maybe AIG was more influenced by Freud and others, who claimed that punishment does not propel children in their life. Freud never claimed that they should actually be rewarded for mistakes, this actually may increase their propensity to commit mistakes, and they may even enjoy it.AIG is doing just that.

The executives are behaving like children; trying to cajole American government by beating their chest and try to instill fear in the government that people would lose jobs, if they are not retained. Mind it, these are the same people who in the first place were responsible for the collapse of AIG. As for stock market the share price of AIG is below 1 dollar, a year back it was around 60.

Some sections of society are backing their claim because they are also fearful that AIG and market will collapse. In this sense we should actually bailout Mr. Madoff also, who cheated investors of their money.

Any economy is not run by stock market, its run by basic fundamentals such as saving and consumptions. Mr. Obama is right in moving on and tackling fundamental issues of infrastructure like energy, construction, healthcare and education. But more of it in another note.So what do you say/opine? Should we feed these fat cats more? Lets move on to more relevant topics such as Nation's development!

News - And lo behold ! The AIG is contemplating of suing the very government , which rescued them

Love Pranay

Ethics

Hi Friends

Hope the audience of this blog is doing fine, despite the overuse of the word "crisis". When we are in the thick of the things, we tend to forget that situations,buildings, economy , everything is created through word. As its said in the Bible ( Genesis 1:3 ) : Then God said, " Let there be light". And there was light.

But let me come to the concern , I am having these days and words from a film I watched yesterday "Flash of Genius" professor echos in my mind. The film is based on real life story.A fight over patent between an inventor and the Ford motor company, over windshield wipers. As the actor says, "its not even about patent or money, its about Ethics".

Madoff case in USA, LTTE's and Srilankan governments fight, a non relenting judge in India, who is unwilling to resign ( even after indictment), Illionis governor's righteousness over attempted selling of senate seat and now Allen Stanford's ponzi scheme.

Yes the world is lot more richer ( except for this so called crisis) , more prosperous ( lot less people die of diarrhoea, malaria and more from lifestyle diseases like diabetes ) but are we together as humanity as ethical as, say 50 years ago. Not so far back, there were accounting frauds and Enron scandal. The point is the frequency is increasing. There would be many who would start counting numbers ( The population is more, so it should be propotional ) to negate this point. But Ethics is not number dependent. This is what make us different from machine. It is ethics which differentiate between nuclear bomb and nuclear energy, renewable energy and carbon energy, electronic tapping and surveillance.

Businesses cant be run without ethics. People these days have become so cynical that they accept this "as a fact of life" and give up the fight. Its not that the guilt doesnt sit in the hearts and minds of the perperator. It corrodes her/his conscience, like Satyam's Raju. So finally what did he get. Guilt, jail and downfall.

My belief is that the human beings are losing there "beings" and developing into a machine. Have you noticed , how many forwarded mails are on simple pleasures of life,the beautiful moments, which people miss, yet what they do is click the "forward" button.

Lets take a break and take in some fresh scent of air outside and look at the flowers and children, maybe they would remind us of what we teach to our children.

musings from Santa Ana

love Pranay

Elections and Infrastructure

Hi Friends !

After a long time the issues at hand forced me to start writing and break my long silence. I have been mulling for a long time, looking for a perfect excuse to ink my thoughts.

After Barack Hussein Obama took over as the president of United States of America, he has announced a slew of measures to control the , decontrolled economy and rein in the wall street wild horses. Another perceived horse, turned out to be a fox with his ponzi scheme, Dear Madoff...No one could see his name, Mad-off.

Now lets talk about the largest democracy in the world. Yes, my country India. Elections are round the corner and swords are being drawn. One of the most passionate electoral battles are fought in this country, sometimes even letting out blood. Though election commission has done a yeoman service to the nation and the Supreme court along with the president always have showed that they form independent pillars of the nation, with a mind of its own, this time its a bit different.

Election commission itself is in controversy now with the infighting amongst the commissioners. But lets not talk about trivial issues. Power struggle is the nature of human mind. Lets talk about power and enrgy scenario in India. at least 80,000Mw -100,000MW gap in demand and supply of electricity. Not to speak of other forms of energy consumption. Despite the parliament's and profit driven media's ( specially visual) undue attention on the nuclear deal and nuclear energy, lets admit one thing. Nuclear energy cant fulfill energy needs of India. the writing is on the wall, but the policy makers and industry is transfixed on that. Theres not enough uranium in the country and even the long term supply contracts with Australia and Russia wont do good.

The need , the gap is immediate and nuclear power plants take at least 10-15 years to build. India has abundance of sunshine, even in the northern region of Jammu, Kashmir and Leh. The proven technologies in solar energy production allow India to use all of them in different parts of the country. Whether it is Concentrated Solar Power ( CSP ) in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh or Thin Film technologies in Northern and North Eastern parts. The technologies are there , ready to be utilised , the only thing required is the government's will ( more so the bureaucracy's will). The bureaucracy's hold over the every walk of life is self evident. They still live in old british mindset, which even the modern Britain has abandoned. But more of that later.

So if the will of the government is there it can build the nation singlehandely. Then intervention of the courts would not be required to do, what the executive wing and the parliament should be doing. Its also required in the case of security apparatus, we cant keep blaming Pakistan for our lack of intelligence, coordination and security failures.

The next door neighbour, Sri Lanka has shown us how the will power of the government is THE determining factor. I am against use of violence, but how do you react when a certain organisation in the name of an ethnic people, kill the people of all the sides. Come on, they are not social service organisation. They and there leaders are power hungry.

Coming back to Infrastructure. I believe whichever government comes to power in India, would be forced to take steps in further building of roads, power lines and clean water facilities. USA, even with such a vast infrastructure already built by far sighted presidents and legislative, is heavily investing in energy ( renewable) , roads and rails.

So our focus in other parts of the world also should be to make the people aware that bailouts will not work , investing seriously in basic needs of the people would. Poverty eradication cant be discussed and implemented in posh hotels of Geneva, it has to be tackled everyday in Somalia, India, China and even USA. As it is, Bangladesh has started tackling its own poverty long back with the great visionary, Muhammad Yunus bearing the torch.

India should look in its own backyard to take a leaf out of Bangladesh and even the mighty USA , may save some money, while eradicating its huge per capita debt. A debt which every American owes to different parts of the world.

Musings from California.... comments welcome

Love Pranay