Slumdog Millionaire revisited..

Today I had a long discussion about Slumdog millionaire with my friend Bedu who is studying in US .His views were different than what I expressed in my last post about Slumdog Millionaire “About the Slum dwellers and the Millionaires..”.

My initial reaction after watching the movie was that the movie did well in west because it allows them to claim that Indian is still a country of hungry and poor, denying us of all the progress we have made in the last decade , when Mr Bachhan came up with somewhat similar theory on his blog I was patting myself of thinking like him. All the euphoria was short lived as I found Bedu’s argument much more apt and logical explanation of why the movie is doing wonderful overseas. As per him the movie remind the people in west about what London was 200 years back, they wanted to improve and they did improved a lot and now a progressive nation.

People won’t go to watch a movie in recessionary times by paying 15-20 $/ticket just because it portray India in bad light , they are watching the movie as it shows them hope that even a slum dweller becoming a millionaire (Feel good factor ) and the story is quite engrossing full of twist and turns. They don’t want to see the poor condition of slum but how a person can struggle and rise even from difficult conditions. They are comparing it with the likes of Oliver Twist..

The whole discussion was indeed lot of learning.

When Umpires comes under pressure..

In last three matches Tendulkar has been wrongly given out LBW by umpires and even if  we look at the past , he has been the victim of poor judgment countless number of time.  Is it shear chance that he gets out so often due to umpiring mistakes or is there some other reason?

Some figures become larger than profession they are in, Sachin Tendulkar is one such  player who has been worshipped by cricket Fans all over the world , His genius with both Bat and Ball , breath stopping performances and humility makes him the worthy owner of the title  “GOD of Cricket‘. As all good things come with a cost, the popularity of Sachin also has some intangible cost associated with it. I believe Sachin’s importance in the game puts additional pressure on umpires which makes them give poor decisions against him.

 All the decisions for or against Sachin goes through loads of analysis and scrutiny which only adds to the burden of umpires who are as human as the one playing the game and likely to make mistakes.  

With or Without you ..

Government of Pakistan has barred their cricket players from participating in IPL 20-20 cricket tournament where Indian Inc buys contracts for almost all the major players of the world to play and earn like lords. The decision came as a knee jerk reaction to the Indian government's directive of cancelling the Indian cricket team tour to Pakistan after the Mumbai terror attacks. It  look rather a routine decision but can have lot of implications , some of them can be

Risk Management Strategy: -Since most of the terrorism in India is direct or indirect effort (supported by state or entrepreneurial venture) of Pakistanis, it may reduce the chances of Pakistani players caught in friendly fire and getting executed by their own men.

Forex Reserve:- Pakistani state treasury which is running on outside support from past few months won’t be helped by this opportunity of earning at least a million US $ in foreign currency. The money could have been used to buy some arms and ammunition for the Pakistani army.

Politician’s effort put to rest: - With no real issues left for politicians, many of them had been trying to use the popular anti Pakistani sentiment and were openly advocating of not to allow Pakistani players to play on Indian soil, now all such issues cannot be converted into vote Bank.

News channel/Print Media loss of news and revenue: - Should India allow Pakistani players to participate in IPL, many more useless discussions like this ,both on TV and newspaper won’t be possible anymore, it can lead to loss of revenue to the media companies both by advertisements and SMS polls.

On a serious note the major learning for the Pakistani government should be that the Cricket won’t die without Pakistani players and the show will just go on with or without them.

Dream ..

Today I woke up at 7:30 in the morning; it was bit early for me as usually I am not able to get up until 8:30 every day. I saw a dream today of flying Kites along with my brother at our older residence which I’ve not seen since last 16 years.

The amazing part of the dream was that I can still recall all the names and faces of my friend in the locality. Our competitors in the kite flying competition were still the same set of people and even the landscape around the area was visible in the most trivial details.

I felt very nostalgic after seeing such a dream as I have not touched kites from so many years and it used to be so much fun. I started thinking about those old time friends which I have literally forgot for so long. The dream reminded me of Basant Panchmi , the festival of Kites when everyone use to fly kites all day and prepare for it for a complete year.  

But the most interesting and surprising part of the dream occurred in reality, It was when a friend of mine told me that today is Basant Panchmi , I was really surprised by such a coincidence , Dreams can be so enigmatic.

May be that’s why I woke up at 7:30 am as that was usual time to kick start the Kite Festival.

Peer Pressure ..

How many times it happens that when we make decision, we try to enquire about what others are doing. It can be termed as lack of confidence but most of the time it is Peer Pressure. “Peer pressure can happen when we are influenced to do something we usually would not do, or stopped us from doing something we would like to do”.

When we talk about the art of decision making and psychology behind it, I believe that peer pressure has the most significant influence behind our decision making. We may live our own life but the rules of the life are mostly defined by the people with whom we work or study. The reason is simple, we spend a significantly high portion of our time with them and hence their personalities and reactions affect our decision making process.

The more important the decision, the more is the peer pressure. Infact even the decision of selecting a job or going for higher studies is sometimes influenced by the peer pressure. People constantly fear that they will be judged by other people on the basis of their decision.

A study was conducted in a Top Business School, the students were given a set of activities, after the research was over the researcher told `They can't really step back and take a critical view, They're totally defined by others and by the outcomes of what they're doing.' . This is one of the main reasons behind the herd behavior what we see a lot of times.

The question again arises, what’s the use of all this education and knowledge if we can’t even make our own decisions.

About Bollywood Stars and Power Politics ..

Sports, Politics and Acting are arguably the three most glamorous profession in the world . Few of the people in such profession keep shifting to other professions to keep their name and charisma alive .May be the fame and attention are the most desired elements for people who have achieved a lot in their career or life and they keep doing different things to seek attention to remain in limelight or Page 3 of the newspapers.

It was not surprised to see Sanju Baba agreeing to contest elections from Lucknow when he is nowhere related to the issues or politics of the place. One of the prime reasons of the actors entering politics is their dwindling acting career which can no more guarantee them the popularity of their past. Likes of Rajesh Khanna ,Govinda,  Vinod Khanna , Darmendra etc all have tried their hand at politics with little success at the fag-end of their careers . What differentiates Sanjay from other politicians is his checkered past and his experiments with AK-47 which may not help him in becoming the Nawab of Lucknow but can certainly revive the ugly stories of his past.

Lord Byron says “What is fame? The advantage of being known by people of whom you yourself know nothing, and for whom you care as little.” But in this world of people seeking power and attention, the charm of fame will remain as the illusionary power which will keep driving the people to fall for it.

About the Slum dwellers and the Millionaires..

Slumdog Millionaire, a tale of impoverished Indian slum dweller who goes through troubled time but went on to become a millionaire by winning the game show “ Who wants to be a millionaire “. The movie showed abject poverty and humiliating conditions which will make you say the F word umpteen number of time .It’s a typical Mumbaiya bhelpoori with emotions of anger, pity, disgust, romance, action, evil, lust, crime all mixed together with music and a happy ending, good enough to be seen once but is no different than lot many other bollywood movies. 

Bollywood has a habit of over doing things, shows stuff which seems larger than life and involves far too many coincidences which are hard to believe, this time it was Hollywood to follow our suit and people just loved it.

If we actually go to dhaaravi, the second largest slum in the world, it houses a population of nearly 2.5 million people with an average density of population as high as 17000. Life is tough there and people are living in horrible conditions but things shown in the movie looked a bit over stretched. No wonders the film is doing great in western world. They are allowed to see what they proclaim India is about and it was not surprising to see the long list of awards and recognition the movie has got since its release.

I went to many movie discussion forums to get the feel of the opinion’s about the movie, people from different parts of the world are claiming that the movie shows ‘Real India ‘ , which may be a truth for about half of India but is definitely hard to swallow.

The main issue which remained unhighlighted in the movie is about the great divide between the Slum dwellers and the Millionaires. The country which boasts about the richest people in the world also houses the poorest amongst the poor. India’s Gini Index has increased from 34 in 1950 to 38 in 2000’s; it clearly shows that the wealth is getting concentrated among far fewer people than desired, certainly a cause of concern and requires some action.

Satyam Satya …

The recent fraud disclosure by Mr Rama Linga Raju of Satyam Fame just reminds me of one of the classic dialogues of the movie ‘A Beautiful Mind ‘where John Nash (Russel Crow) says “Terrified. Mortified, Petrified. Stupefied... by you “. It really makes me think about the possibility of a new crisis involving ‘Auditing and financial reporting’, which can be prevalent in many more listed companies?

The fraud of this nature was simply unprecedented in Indian history when a BSE 30 company has been fudging its balance sheet by reporting higher profits for years together and the system was unable to detect it. It may cast a dark shadow on the standards of accounting and auditing in India which was once seen as one of the better regulated market in the emerging world.

What was really surprising and a mystery was ‘How can Mr Raju alone do all the innovative accounting without informing or taking the senior management in confidence’ and bigger surprise was how could a company as big as Satyam operating on margins of 3% when the industry margins were hovering around 30%. The basic model of all big IT services companies is same and there is no considerable difference between the bench strength, the billing rates or the salaries of the employees.

Only the future will decide how will this lone incident affect the Indian IT companies , future of beleaguered Satyam employees , financial condition of various institutions like ICICI Prudential, Fidelity , Citi , LIC etc who have considerable equity exposure in Satyam and the confidence of FII / Mutual Fund about investing in Indian capital markets .

Some companies should be allowed to go Bankrupt..

Bankruptcies are normally associated as terrible news, something which disturbs the whole system and causes lot of unemployment. The biggest setback a bankruptcy causes is the lost of trust, the whole credit crunch situation has arisen due to this lack of trust among financial institutions to lend to each other. Year 2008 has seen all kinds of bankruptcies; some of them like AIG were saved by the timely bailout packages announced by the state while some were not fortunate enough.

As the company were going bankrupt so were the people of USA, as per a estimate the number of people filing bankruptcies in USA has exceeded I million in 2008 .

 But not everything is bad in bankruptcies and it is actually an integral part of the system. In case the company files bankruptcy it goes to the court of law where it is either liquidated or restructured based on the type of filing. Some companies should be allowed to go Bankrupt due to the following reasons: -

1.       Survival of the fittest: - If some product or service is not required in a certain scenario, than its best to shut down the shop rather than pumping money to keep it on artificial oxygen. It gives way to better technologies, keeps the research and development department on toes to improve upon the existing products.

 

2.       Reduces Inefficiencies: - Incorporating a company is easy but running it efficiently requires planning, implementation, technology and management. If any of it is missing, it’s better that the one who is more capable takes over. A recession actually removes lot of inefficiencies from the system which were developed due to excess demand.

 

3.       Fights Moral Hazards: If the government just keep saving all the companies from bankruptcies, it will create a moral hazard of lax regulation and control.

 

4.       Risk Management: - The stake holders learns a lesson of risk and return, otherwise everyone will take more risk to maximize returns. The risk management of the company should be properly thought of before taking critical decisions.

 

5.       Lax corporate governance: - Many a time in cases of bankruptcy, the corporate governance is the major issue. The management bonuses and salaries should be in line with average and should be appropriate as per the current financial condition of the company.

Biggest lesson learned in 2008

Last year when I read the book “ The Secret “ , heard the audio book by Brain Tracy ,all the mysteries of life became so clear , and during the course of one year I have realized that it’s the power of sub conscious mind and belief which drives everything in life . Indeed it was the biggest learning in last year. When I was 6 year young ,one of my primary school friend told me a trick for getting up at right time in the morning “ He told me to pray to the pillow to wake you up at the right time and it will help you “ . When I tried it, it worked for me but I thought that it’s just a coincidence and I doubted that power which I realize now was nothing but power of super conscious mind.

The most important lesson learned are:-

1.       Genius trust and believe in their insights. They trust their creatively and intelligence,

2.       All creativity is the way of improving the existing way of doing things .The more we use the creativity; the more we will improve it. The subconscious mind and data works on it. It brings us idea which lies outside our individual expertise. That’s why most of the major breakthrough coming from individuals who do simple things. See things from different perspective. It is even  capable of goal oriented intelligence.

3.       Bible says “ to those who are positive and excited and moving towards the accomplishment of their goal , they get more ideas , more energy and more creativity to those who are going nowhere , those who have very few ideas and goals and even the energy they have gets drained away and they become tired ,depressed and fatigued “

4.       Most of the inventions and discovery are made word perfect very first time. We can program our goal in mind and fire our mental torpedo and it will find its own target.

5.       The winners accept and believe that they are fated and destined to be successful and everything happened was required to give them learning which was valuable to prepare them to archive their purpose. Everything is happening for success. Every defeat has equal and opposite advantage, just have to look out for it.

6.       When the answer come from insight, immediately act on it. The more rapidly you act the more ideas you will get.

7.       Any thought, plan or idea will become a reality through our super conscious mind, whether its positive or negative .Sooner or later develop the habit of what you want to happen to you. Systematically remove all fears or negative thought from mind. It’s the most important powerful source in our mind.

8.       Discipline, Perseverance. Persistence, Control and determination about the goal is required for making our dreams into reality.

Soporific Value ..

Just a few years back Anchor came out with the advertising campaign which claimed that their tooth paste is vegetarian. It gave great boost to the sales of the Anchor as people assumed that the other tooth paste might not be vegetarian. This is how improved information can increase the perceived value of the products and services.

Nowadays there are all kinds of information written on the packets of different food products which ranges from the calorific values in kilo calories to the vitamin content in milligrams as the customer is educated and knows what exactly he wants.

I have always felt it time and again that some food products are more sleep inducing than others and hence if have some idea before consuming that food about the effect it will have on us we can very well avoid certain types as per our requirements. This information which I think is quite necessary to be put on the packets of eatables can be called as the soporific value of the product. Soporific value is essentially the indicator of value which informs us that X food product when consumed in Y quantity will cause Z effect on your energy levels and sleep after consumption. I don’t know if this calculation is technically possible but it surely doesn’t seem very tough to devise.

Such information would certainly help people fighting to stay awake for an important meeting or presentation after lunch or students like us who find it even tougher to stay awake in classes.

 

Helpless ..

26^th – 28^th Nov , Sitting at home, watching the live videos of destruction and misery of people who fell victim to the planned attacks , that strong feeling of disgust and utter helplessness which few of us had ever felt .

This is not a fact to ignore that some people actually came, killed for fun and we were just the mock spectators. It differs from the cowardly planned bomb attacks, this time they took the whole city for ransom for 60 hours, looked liked as if the freedom of 60 years evaporated in 60 hours.

After everything got over, the anger of the people came out; they showed their solidarity for the cause and wanted a swift action from the government machinery. They pledged to put all their energies together to fight against the evil.

The question remains -Are we civilians really helping out our authorities in putting an end to the terrorism. What can we people do other than candle light marches and shouting for justice? How can we make our effort count? Is it really possible? I think this case is much tougher and complex than any of the case studies we have discussed in class. Do anyone have any concrete answers to the problem. 

I believe that even the government is helpless to a certain extent. Diplomacy is not working out for us the way it works for other countries as most of the countries are looking safeguard their interests rather than seek justice for India. Starting a war in this crisis will not only weaken the country financially but it will also affect the foreign relations and image of our country. So what can the government do? 

Credit Rating Agencies ..

The origin of credit ratings agencies can be traced back to 1840 when agencies started rating merchant’s ability to repay their financial obligations. It was the gift of 1837 financial crisis which saw increased credit defaults and it led to the birth of credit rating agencies which can predict the interest and debt repaying abilities of the lenders. The functioning of these credit ratings have remained questionable ever since and this topic revisits itself after every financial crisis, sub-prime crisis is no exception.

The whole purpose of structural finance and financial engineering for sub prime loans was to improve the credit ratings of various financial instruments by credit enhancement and converting them into marketable securities. The underlying risk of the financial innovation and the difference between Prime AAA+ securities and sub-prime AAA+ was never contested before the whole system failed. 

The biggest issue with these agencies is their financial model where they actually get there revenues from the company they rate and not from the users of credit ratings, it causes two problems,

1. The credit rating company cannot be conservative in its approach as there is high competition in the ratings business and the company may lose out on lucrative deals if it starts giving conservative ratings. 

2. Most of the companies which undergoes rating process wants better credit ratings to reduce the cost of financing and no company wants to increase their cost of capital even after paying rating agencies.

If we actually compare the number of above investment grade to below investment grade ratings issued by different agencies, we will find that most of the ratings given are above investment grade. There is a need to change this financial model to make the whole structure more fundamentally strong.

The second crucial issue with rating agencies is their operating model, which relies totally on the auditor and the companies for all financial and non financial statements. It increases the risk of distorted ratings in case the auditor and the company are running a joint partnership firm which happened in case of Enron. 

I feel that the world has seen enough recessions and depressions, there is an urgent need of a single world regulator who can improve the functioning of various financial markets and limit the grey areas of finance. 

Tata’s love for Ferrari ..

Just one week back the whole auto industry breathed a sigh of relief when the federal government approved more than $17 billion dollars as bailout package for likes of Ford, Chrysler and General Motors. Due to expectation of unfavorable economic conditions people are actually delaying their plans to buy new car. The reduced sale of new cars is leading to increases inventories and losses for all major Auto and auto ancillaries companies in the world. 

Everyone knows that last one year has not been the best of the year for Tata Motors (TTM). The average four wheeler sales growth rates have also reduced from preceding year and has turned negative which has caused TTM to cut down the production and give paid holidays to its employees . TTM is suffering hugely due to losses suffered in Singur which is in excess of $100 million, the untimely buyout of JLR had caused huge cash outflows and they are paying huge interests to cover the deal. The rights issue launched to pay a part of the deal was also not fully subscribed and was financed by Tata Sons. The Tata-owned Jaguar and Land Rover continues to lobby the UK government for a £1bn tax-payer bailout when they are actually bailing out likes of Ferrari. 

When the companies are conserving cash which can save themselves from future trouble, it’s very tough to understand the Tata’s logic to sponsor Ferrari for Formula One car racing championship. The question now is about surviving next two years rather than expansion for new phase of growth.

There might be a long term vision or strategy behind such move but I as a person am unable to comprehend the logic of such spending when you need to set your house in order first.

Market Timing ..

All technical and short term investors usually try to achieve something called market timing. Most of the traders believes that they can buy at low levels and sell at higher level in short duration of time. Although the term might look very simple but it is one of the toughest task according to industry experts. 

Technical analysis is the study of demand supply which is analyzed by reading different chart pattern which can daily, 3 day, 7 day or 30 days moving averages. The logic behind this exercise is said to be decoding the fundamental nature of human behavior that react to market scenario in either Fear or Greed. Most of the time people behave like a herd and as per the technical analyst the chart pattern actually help them in predicting the future direction of the market.

I am never able to appreciate the art of charting. Infact I seriously doubt the technique of reading charts for predicting future market scenario is something which can be proved or done on a regular basis. 

If we check the history of stock markets, the research suggests that the past information cannot be used to predict the future trends in market as that information is already discounted in the share price. This theory is called Weak form of ‘Efficient Market Hypothesis ‘ and has been proved by several quantitative research experiments.

Few weeks back I was reading a book on market timing by a prominent author who was trying to explain in a very unconvincing manner that the market timing does exist and people can actually do it. It is actually this belief which is making the markets liquid, nearly 60% of the volumes on BSE and NSE is from day traders who want to make the most in a day. They have literally zero holding time in comparison to the Warren Buffet philosophy of holding the stocks forever.

All said and done but I am yet to meet a person who says that he makes money 3 times a week by day trading specially in such volatile markets.

Govind ki Chai ..

Getting good food is a big issue around NMIMS. Our canteen does not serve very good menu most of the days and most of the people have to go to likes of Cooper Hospital , Rasraaj or Dena Bank Canteen for lunch . I mostly go to dena Bank canteen where Madhav’s canteen food taste seems more palatable and the place is easily accessible as it is just opposite to our Campus in JVPD. 

When I today stopped for tea after lunch near Dena Bank, I met Govind , he has been selling tea there from past 18 years , he is a very silent middle aged person who generally don’t talk much with the customers . I just talked with him about how the business is going and what kind of issues he faces regularly in the business and I found that his replies were quite interesting.

He told me that getting a place to setup a tea stall is very tough in Mumbai as most of them are illegal and the other hawkers want to grab the space where they can do good business. He regularly has to fight with other people ‘ Bhai’s ‘ who want to get that place but since he is there for around 18 years now, the tussles have reduced. Surprisingly the tension due to internal fights for space among hawkers is much more than that of the threat from Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC) for illegal encroachment of space.

The business risk of these kind of setups are completely different from regular legal business .It cannot be easily evaluated by doing sensitivity analysis in the excel sheets. For example as NM has closed the main entrance for students from last few months, his business has reduced by nearly 50% as students don’t want to travel too far for tea. Again if less people start preferring Dena Bank canteen food, his business will again be impacted. These are some of the risks which are completely beyond his control. Although his tea tastes best in that area but there are very few students seen around his shop nowadays.

Govind misses the previous batches of NM, as per him those students were much more closer to him. They used to sit around his shop for long hours. Even now when they come to that area for some work they don’t forget to land at his place for a tea. He has lost the taste in business now as student nowadays does not interact much with him.

Tough Job !

When we people crib about job satisfaction, salaries and work life balance, half of India is still struggling to get the very basic necessities in life. I just came across a character who I was ignoring from last one and half year of my stay in our society. It was not intentional, maybe at times we just get too engrossed in our life that we ignore the most important part of humanity. Interaction

I met Mahendra , our society Guard while taking a late night walk today. I see him daily but never interacted with him, When I saw him today, he just smiled and I started a casual talk with him only to find how tough his job is. He is a short character of slim built aged 25 but looks 35 due to malnutrition and difficult nature of his job. The guy came from a place in Jharkand 6 months back where he was working as a day laborer and was finding it difficult to earn enough to feed his family. 

His duty starts at 8:00 pm in night and goes on till 8:00 am in the morning when the next shift guard takes over the charge. A 12 hour job when he has nothing to do, but just sit or walk off the time. He is ill equipped to take on any thefts but is being appointed just to make society people sleep comfortably in their cozy apartments. If any of the society inmates finds him sleeping during the duty hours, he is scolded brutality without any respect or concession. And after all this he is paid just 3000 Rs per month. He can’t afford to eat out and prepares his own food after the finishing his grueling job. 

The worst part is that he gets no vacations, has to work seven days a week, and can only travel once to his village to meet his family for whom he has made his life a living hell. 

I don’t understand when will these people get a respectable place in our society and when will we people start think of doing something fruitful for them except targeting them to sell our products and calling them the ‘Bottom of the Pyramid ‘. I don’t have any solutions yet.

Bollywood Underworld Mystery !

Bollywood and underworld linkage is a mush debated topic in the past and time and again it has been found that a lot of greedy film industry people have connections with the underworld. The worst part is that these underworld people are the people who actually promotes and finance host of illegal activity in India like drugs and terrorism . 

Dawood Ibrahim who has been repeatedly accused for having direct involvement in the Mumbai blasts. He is one of the world’s biggest terrorist and has repeatedly harmed India by his involvement in various terrorist activities in Mumbai .He was No. 4 on the Forbes' world's Top 10 most dreaded criminals list of 2008 as per Wikipedia . 

The recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai and alleged involvement of Dawood in it really makes me wonder how we people have such short memories. How can we people tolerate movies made on Dawood just for the sake of glorifying him . Dawood is one terrorist who has been glorified by host of Indian celebrities. Ram Gopal Verma has put great efforts in attaching glamour to his image by making movies like D and Company . In all the movies made by Ram Gopal Verma I could never found him portraying the character of dawood as cruel.This is nothing but the abuse of freedom of expression, just because India is a democratic country and we have got rights to express our self does not mean that these directors can make terrorists the heros. Interestingly Mr Verma was also seen at Taj after the carnage, Only God can know if he was thinking of another plot to showcase the ‘ bravery ‘ of the terrorists which only he can see.

Mr Anu malik along with lot of Indian celebrity were also once reported and shown praising and performing for Dawood in Dubai , nothing ever happened to them .Anu Malik was actually singing for Dawood ‘ Sabka bhai , gareebo ka masseha , dawood bhai ‘. India might not be able to have access to Dawood but why don’t they teach a lesson such celebrities and set examples for the generations to come. 

We have suffered so many terrorist attacks in last six months that the people of the country are in a state of total insecurity. The time is ripe now for the government to take some swift actions and stop testing the patience levels of people of the country.

Employees are our biggest Strength ?

IT companies are the major recruiters from Indian Engineering colleges and are one of the most attractive career destination for the students in engineering colleges. Some of the major IT services companies recruits thousands of people every quarter and are well respected in all the campuses. 

If we actually see the reality of the matter these companies are simply sucking life out of their employees, these companies are hiding their inefficiencies by hugely underpaying their employees. As a matter of fact the starting salary of a fresh graduate is nearly 12000 to 15000 in most of the Services companies, after 1-3 months of training most of people gets billable and work for nearly 8.5 hours a day which has now been increased to 9.5 hours a day in many companies. The billing rate for a fresh engineer is nearly 20$/hour here in India compared to 80-100$/hour in US which is one of the most important factor which brings work to India is this cost arbitrage. For 20 working days a month, the companies are making a pretax income of nearly 3800 $/month/Employee and paying just 240-300 $/month/Employee. In this business the companies are having a contribution margin of nearly 93% which is huge comparing to the other businesses. For working 9.5 hours on job a person has to stay for nearly 11 hours a day in office. If we include the traveling time too, nearly half day is gone in doing office duties itself the employees does not have any motivation left for other recreation activities.

The second point of distress is the quality of work which is being given to Indian software engineers , nearly 80% of the work in all top services firm is either application maintenance , Testing or doing minor changes in the old code which can be done even by a 12th class student . Infact in USA most of the work of this kind is being done by far less skilled people. Due to this skill mismatch the Engineer dont use their knowledge and the whole creativity and education gets wasted. The effects of the whole process are clearly evident as even after so many years India has not developed any great software product , the entrepreneur here lack the risk appetite to invest in research , they are simply too happy in earning through revenue contracts with assured returns by underpaying their employees. 

The third issue which is often ignored is the lack of efficiency and the abundance of middle managers in Indian IT companies. In any company it’s the engineers who are doing the real work of developing of maintaining the code but we have huge number of managers who don’t add any tangible value to the company. 

One issue which has been highlighted off late is the affect of large bench size on the efficiency of the company .Nearly 25-35% of Indian engineers are always sitting on bench due to improper demand supply estimation which impacts the earning of rest 70% of the people who are working 9.5 hours a day. This inefficiency, which is very high in India compared to western companies. It is not a healthy sign for the Indian software industry as working engineers have to compensate for it in the form of low wages. The coordination between Marketing and HR teams is under a big question mark here as they are not able to forecast the requirement of the human resource and the flow of services projects.

Nowadays the IT companies are not giving joining dates to the fresh graduates and causing lot of problems to them. Many of the new engineers have been assured of joining only in 2010. This kind of treatment when a company has once assured the person of a job and is not making good the contract is a very biased tool which makes life of a common man tough . In most of the engineering colleges students are not allowed to apply for other companies once one gets placed in a company. The student’s suffering starts after the end of the course when he has to just keep waiting for the joining letter from the HR offices.

So are the IT companies really caring for their employees ?

About Hollywood Movies and Indian Remakes ..

When I today sat to see the new Movie ‘ Dasvidania ‘ ,the very first scene reminded me of the Hollywood classic “ The Bucket List “ . My first reaction was to leave the movie as I thought there is no point watching another Hollywood remake, but as watched it for some time, I really liked the movie.

The plot of the movie has some inspiration from the Bucket list where two dying man forms there wish list and planned to enjoy their life before the D day. The star cast may not have the brilliance of Morgan Freeman or Jack Nicholson but I enjoyed the movie more than the Bucket list due to some obvious reasons. The main reason of it being something I can relate to , something which I see every day , something which is not copied and something which had lot of meaning.

It really feels good to see young Indian Directors coming up with fresh thoughts and making some meaningful cinema but the agony remains that people still want to see the old boring plots with no room for creativity and thinking. 

The movies like ‘Wednesday’ or ‘Dasvidania’ may not be doing very good on box office as majority of the people still want to see the likes of ‘Om Shanti Om’ but the things are changing for the good and it’s just the matter of time before people start appreciating the change.