Isn’t it a miracle that in spite of all the technological advances, what we really want is the original old version that we actually started with

Also A nice comparision between cattle and office employees. Courtsey Dilbert

For every million rupees spent, roads raised 335 people above the poverty line, and R&D 323. Every million rupees spent on education reduced poverty by 109 people, and on irrigation by 67 people. The lowest returns came from subsidies that are the most popular with politicians – subsidies on credit (42 people), power (27 people) and fertilisers (24 people).

Swami has recently published a very good article on how roads can be one of the most effective way for poverty elevation.

Connectivity enhances the value of every other rural investment, since it empowers people through improved mobility and access. People can more easily buy agricultural inputs and sell their produce. Children can go more easily to schools, cattle can more easily get veterinary help, and the sick can get to health centres. Remote areas have, by definition, the worst connectivity. They are among the poorest and slowest-growing, but accelerate when given connectivity.

Roads can incubate a thousand small businesses, and can convert villages into towns. Government staff are much more willing to be posted to places with good connectivity, so roads improve administration. Rural productivity cannot be high without roads, but can be very high with them.

No wonder even in America the railroad boom came first and then came the rapid growth and development.

When will Indians understand it

Finally, the riddle was solved. A social-scientist arrived at a simple and logical conclusion.

When the bride, accompanied by her father, starts to walk slowly down the long aisle, she sees the altar at the end and hears the choir singing a hymn.

Walking down the aisle, the conditioning process where the brain absorbs these three stimuli: aisle, altar, hymn, begins.

She becomes mesmerized as she continually reinforces these perceptions: aisle, altar, hymn . . aisle, altar, hymn… aisle, altar, hymn . . . and finally, as she stops beside the groom, the conditioning process is completed.

She looks up at him lovingly, smiling sweetly and thinks ‘I’ll alter him!’

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BTW Dilbert has an explanation why bloggers make such lousy dates

I heard a good old joke today:

A little boy goes to his dad and asks, “What is politics?”

Dad says, “Well son, let me try to explain it this way:
I’m the breadwinner of the family, so let’s call me capitalism.
Your Mom, she’s the administrator of the money, so we’ll call her the Government.
We’re here to take care of your needs, so we’ll call you the people.
The nanny, we’ll consider her the Working Class.
And your baby brother, we’ll call him the Future.
Now, think about that and see if that makes sense?”

So the little boy goes off to bed thinking about what dad had said.

Later that night, he hears his baby brother crying, so he gets up to check on him. He finds that the baby has severely soiled his diaper. So the little boy goes to his parents’ room and finds his mother sound asleep. Not wanting to wake her, he goes to the nanny’s room. Finding the door locked, he peeks in the keyhole and sees his father in bed with the nanny. He gives up and goes back to bed.

The next morning, the little boy says to his father, “Dad, I think I understand the concept of politics now.”

The father says, “Good son, tell me in your own words what you think politics is all about.”

The little boy replies, “Well, while Capitalism is screwing the Working Class, the Government is sound asleep, the People are being ignored and the Future is in deep shit.”

Ah, the viewpoint of a child!

courtesy Karthi

That means that a privately held company had 10,419 Acres of farmland. Now as per my understanding, most states in India have implemented Land reforms. They put a limit of 25 to 40 acres of land that a single individual can hold. The only exceptions to this rule were
a) Plantations. (which needs size to get economies of scale)
b) Privately Held forests (Seizing this land would not have resulted in any benefit to the government, as the only way govt could reuse this land was by cutting down trees. And that does not go really well with the environmentalists.)

Now I know Emmar is just like any other Real Estate development company that has amassed a huge landbank and intends to get it converted to residential/commercial property and develop it. But my question is under what laws was it allowed to purchase such large tracts of agricultural property?

And don’t tell me that the company seized over 10,000 acres of land and is just waiting for the government approval to pour concrete over it. Most of the land must be fertile and the company must be growing some crops/vegetables on it to generate some revenue. If so, isn’t it return of Zamidari System?
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On a lighter note, I liked this cartoon on Premature Ejaculation

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A cop stopped a man for speeding. “Sir, are you aware you were doing 80 in a 40 mph zone?”
The man answered, “I have a good excuse, officer: it’s my new sneakers. They were made in China and they’ve turned me into a lead foot!”

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BTW Augustin has forwarded a wonderful ppt describing how Indian Management works.

Dilbert Blog is one of the most if not the most interactive blogs on the net.

The song writing started out by Adams asking the blog readers to write catchy phrases which almost mean something.

Write a Song

A band weeded the response from the readers and based a song with them.

The Hit Song You Wrote

And now we have a video:-

She Amazed Me

Ruhi has published a nice flowchart which can solve almost all of the life’s problems.

And women, please be clear about WHAT you want.

Free Viral Advertising!

The bank tortured me for more than 3 months before they issued me my chequebook/debit card. (This was after I had transferred more than 3 Lakhs into my trading account).

If you intend to call one of their call centers, then please keep the rest of your day free. Firstly, you will be made to listen to a long commercial informing you about different ways to grab your money. Then you would be asked to navigate through a maze of confusing options and any error their would result in being thrown back to square one. After about 20-30 minutes, if you do get a chance to talk to a real person… then the moment you open your mouth, they will say “Sorry, this is a wrong help desk… please chose .. blah blah blah” and before you know you will be back to listening their advertisements and recorded announcements.
If after half an hour or so you do finally are able to get in touch with the right person… then go ahead treat yourself. However, please do not ask them any questions, because those incompetent SoB are not there to help you.

What is triggering this post?

Well on 10th of Oct, I made this big mistake of depositing a high value USD cheque at one of their drop boxes. Being an international financial instrument, the date of issue on the cheque was in standard USA’s month/day/year format (10/01/07) and not in the country’s proprietary day/month/year format. Hence ICICI bank did not forward it to the issuing bank, but returned it to me.

A pardonable mistake… but the only problem was that instead of taking 1-2 days to notify me about this… the bank took 33 days. By this time I not only lost interest on my amount, but also lost more than 5,000/- because the USD weakened and the exchange rates moved in unfavorable direction.

Who should be blamed:
Fool me one, shame on you.. Fool me twice shame on me.
Inspite of the repeated messages and signs I need to be out of my mind to continue troubling the ICICI Bank with my banking needs.
My mistake. Sorry ICICI bank, I will never trouble you again.

on a lighter note… here is how ICICI call center works

The barber puts a five rupee coin in one hand and two one rupee coins (1+1=2) in the other, then calls the boy over and asks, “Which do you want, son?”

The boy takes the two one rupee coins and leaves.
“What did I tell you?” said the barber. “That kid never learns!”

Later, when the customer leaves, he sees the same young boy coming out of the ice cream store. “Hey, son! May I ask you a question?

Why did you take two one rupee coins instead of five rupee coin?”
The boy licked his cone and replied,
“Because THE DAY I TAKE THE FIVE RUPEE COIN, THE GAME IS OVER

Moral:
When you think the other person is dumb, you are making a fool of yourself.

She got up, unplugged the TV and then threw out my beer.

A married couple went out to dinner. The waiter told them the daily specials.
“The chicken sounds good,” said the woman. “I’ll have that.”
The waiter nodded. “And the vegetable?” he asked.
“Oh, he’ll have the fish!”

Did you remember Laloo’s famous statement that he will make the roads of Bihar as smooth as the cheeks of Hema Malini.. Well this girl is out there to test if its true.

Now Men… Men are like a fine wine They begin as grapes, and
it’s up to women to stomp the shit out of them until they turn
into something acceptable to have dinner with.

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BTW this is a nice cartoon from Dilbert about HR.

Villagers at a wedding in eastern India decided the groom had arrived too drunk to get married, and so the bride married the groom’s more sober brother instead,

read further

and how can I forget Dilbet’s wonderful comments on the honeymoon that will follow.

Friends are like butt cheeks: crap might separate them but they always come back together.

And here is a short video by Mr Bean on how to pack.

Finally a lovely picture which I saw here

In private sector, it is a bit awkward. The worker salaries are more or less standardized and everybody knows how much the other knows. The compensation package of the CEO and other top executives has to be disclosed to the shareholder (and hence public). Everybody knows Robert Nardelli received a $210m pay-off when Home Depot fired him for incompetence.

However what surprises me is that wages of the peers are rarely disclosed. What is so special about the white collar employees that their wages are never revealed? We all demand RTI (right to information act) in government departments when our workplace themselves lack it. I am a rational man, so I think there should be a sound logic behind all this.

Either the workers like you and me have a vested interest in not disclosing their salary. I am ashamed of the fat salary I draw and I do not deserve the bonus which the company gave me. Hence it is in my best interest to cover it up as much as possible.

Or the HR and management are screwing me. They pay me a quarter of what I deserve and hence they do not want me to be in the position to compare my salary with the others.

Since I cannot think of a third reason… lets analyze the 2 premises.

Worker: The Company would be a fool to overpay me. Even if due to a temporary market conditions I am getting more than what I deserve, the company will adjust it in the next pay review/hike or they might even fire me. Other reason could be that I live in denial and believe that I do not care about the wages.

Since both are weak arguments, I think it is the HR and management that want to deny me of this information. The management thinks that I do not know that my company pays that fresh graduate/new guy much more than what it pays me…

Government employees do not switch jobs that often because they know that they are getting a fair pay. Most job switches in private sector happen when the new company corrects the distortion and offers to give the employees what they rightfully deserve.

The constitution guarantees us “Equal pay for equal work”, almost all companies advertise “Equal opportunity employer”. Yet you give no evidence to prove/disprove this theory. Companies demand loyalty from the employees, but they spare no opportunity to con them.

Also do read this wonderful article. compensation and this

A man came home from work late, tired and irritated, to find his 5-year old child waiting for him at the door. “Daddy, may I ask you a question?”

“Yeah sure, what is it?” replied the man.
“Daddy, how much do you make an hour?”
“That’s none of your business. Why do you ask such a thing?” the man said angrily.
“I just want to know. Please tell me, how much do you earn in an hour?” pleaded the little boy.
“If you must know, I make $20 an hour.”
“Oh,” the little boy replied, with his head down. Looking up, he said, “Daddy, may I please borrow $10?”
The father was furious, “If the only reason you asked that is so you can borrow some money to buy a silly toy or some other nonsense, then you march yourself straight to your room and go to bed. Think about why you are being so selfish. I work hard everyday for such this childish behavior.” The little boy quietly went to his room and shut the door.

The man sat down and started to get even angrier about the little boy’s questions. How dare he ask such questions only to get some money?
After about an hour or so, the man had calmed down, and started to think: Maybe there was something he really needed to buy with that $10 and he really didn’t ask for money very often. The man went to the door of the little boy’s room and opened the door.
“Are you asleep son?” He asked.

“No daddy, I’m awake,” replied the boy.
“I’ve been thinking, maybe I was too hard on you earlier,” said the man, “It’s been a long day and I took out my aggravation on you. Here’s the $10 you asked for.”
The little boy sat straight up, smiling. “Oh, thank you daddy!” He yelled.
Then, reaching under his pillow he pulled out some crumpled up bills. The man, seeing that the boy already had money, started to get angry again. The little boy slowly counted but his money, then looked up at his father.
“Why do you want more money if you already have some?” the father grumbled. “Because I didn’t have enough, but now I do,” the little boy replied. “Daddy, I have $20 now.
Can I buy an hour of your time? Please come home early tomorrow. I would like to have dinner with you.”

Culling as solution to control the herd population

Why is it important to have meaningful names.

Trusting parents can be hazardous to health.

Whose Idea it was?

Why it is important not to state the real truth.

How to spice up life.

Another day at office

I had heard a lot about Body Language. now something about sleeping Language

Setting the tone right, let me continue my discussions on junta colony and merge it with the ideas I got from “Fortune at the bottom of the Pyramid”

If any one of you has actually visited slums, you would realize that you are more likely to see TV, coolers than toilets. Since these people live in constant fear of eviction, they do not invest in improving their living conditions. Hence there is no drainage, pest control, sanitation or even paint on the house.

Government cannot provide them with ration card (PDS), drinking water, electricity or even health care cards because for all these, you need a permanent residence. And providing these cards means legitimizing their claim on the land. Net result the schemes meant for urban poor never reach the poor themselves.

Since nobody has the legal ownership, the goons have a field day. They run their clandestine operations there, they settle all the disputes and rule the area.

Slum lands cannot be used by its owner because eviction/relocation is politically impossible. The poor who have been occupying it for almost 15-20years do not own it. I always believe land/house is an asset. If you have property in your name, you can use it to raise funds and invest properly. If there was a way in which poor/rich got the ownership, they could unlock its value.

As real estate becomes more expensive apartments, high rise buildings become cheaper. But since nobody is willing to invest in construction, poor continue to live in single storied shacks. What a waste!

Solution (refer the cartoon above): 1 lakh apartments.

Make 7-10 storied apartments, each with 1open kitchen facing the window, 1 bathroom (with sanitation, running water), 150-200 sq feet of living room, a door with your own lock and key. Most important make them have clear titles, so there is never again a fear of eviction.

The building will unlock lots of slum land, so even the govt/land owner might me more than willing to give the land for free.

The ground floor can have shops whose rental could pay for the apartment upkeep.

Does it not sound feasible?

Well each metro has room for 10,000 such houses (100 cr business opportunity in each city) multiply it by the number of cities and it will be a few percentage of the country’s GDP. Builder who made it possible is actually doing good business while also serving the poor

Poor happy because they will get quality of life.

Banks: give me one bank which will not like to be part of this humongous venture.
I am sure even the poorest can raise 20k for their dream house, and borrow another 10k from relatives. So net result bank can give a 70k loan against a secured property of 100k (sounds logical)

The EMI (@8%) would be 586/- p.m. on 70k. (so it will take 17 months of default for bank to lose 10k of safety margin… I think it is worth the risk for the bank)

Since most of the slum dwellers never had a banking account. This loan will give banks new clients and will give poor access to cheep credit and attractive savings schemes.

In appraisal you may need to cry and beg for even 10% hike.
In resignation you can easily demand (or get even without asking) more than 50-60% hike.

During appraisal , they will deny promotion saying you didn’t meet the expectation, you don’t have leadership qualities, and you had several drawbacks in our objective/goal.
During resignation, they will say you are the core member of team; you are the vision of the company how can you go, you have to take the project in shoulder and lead your juniors to success.

There is 90% chance for not getting any significant incentives after appraisal .
There is 90% chance of getting immediate hike after you put the resignation.

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Having a bad day?
Well just remember, you could be a Siamese twin stuck to your gay brother who has a date tonight and you share one a$s!

Courtesy: Dilbert Blog