Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Traffic baby begging !

Everyone in India, I believe might have gone through these sceneries in their way of life. Some might have observed this and felt petty and tried to do something like talking or donate , some might have shoved them away with abuse, and some including me we have just ignored as this is every day event.

Everyday when I commute from home to office and then office to home, I happened to see in the major junction when the vehicle stops when the signal goes red, then a Women carrying small child come and pled for help, in other words an young lady begging with the help of small baby. They need only cash. Be it in the hot sunlight or at cold evenings. I thought this was an unique feature of Mumbai at the traffic junctions., but I was wrong and I can observe at most of the junctions in tier II cities. This is just as controlled & planned mafia....
I have noticed even hours together the children doesn't cry , even for a while, when the lady is begging. what comes to my mind is, Is the child well feed ? or doesn’t bother at all or is the baby drugged as it gets into sleep. Is this the case of helplessness of a baby ??
we observe the reverse of the above when we visit and closely observe the parents and child behavior in restaurants, malls and movie houses. These parents are so concerned of their children and their cry. They start to give everything the child wants to ensure that it stops crying and try their best to ensure that the child understand their love. Is this a case of helplessness of parents??.

The thought that comes to my mind is:
To beg each and every day - Year after Year from where do they get babies ??

We feel petty about the child, and we give out money, but whether they deserve ?
I
n one of the articles in the print media and an episode in electronic media , they had reported about the child begging mafia ! but so far no action on it. this menes is growing stronger and stronger !

The TV media has got higher TRP rating and public has poor memory so it is wiped out.
Now a day’s every Sunday, if you surf TV you would at least see one or the other award or reward programs recognizing efforts of the common people who have succeeded in changing social life. I happened to watch an program, where in an NGO -Essas for runaway street kids was recognized. They are really doing an good job in educating street kids.
My point is why not such an NGO come forward and try this for small kids carried for begging. What is the life expectancy of the baby, when it is exposed to high pollution at the traffic junctions !

Bottom-line
God is great, he cares everyone and does not baise on poor or middle class or rich!
"The most important thing in this is not to see whether the baby is happy or laughing but according to me, it is necessary that the baby doesn’t have to suffer or die due to hunger. At least the alms collected by the lady will give the baby the much required food that’s required for his survival, isn’t it?(hope So) After all to survive in this big mean world, is more important than anything else"

So what ??

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Helplessness

When we walk around the heritage site or pilgrim places across, we always come across people requesting for help for going back to their own village or native. The common reason they say is that they have lost their money or someone had pick pocketed their valet. Very often we distrust just because we do not know him, a stranger and doubt on his intensions. Many of the times even our heart try to influence our mind to help them out, but the mind which always looks deep at the pockets and put a stopper there by resisting providing any help to a stranger. We always judge the intention of that person, based on our own assumptions and past experience, Often we make a comment that he is a dunked and needs money for buying alcohol. We try to examine him based on his dressing sense, the way he appears and so forth. We fail to understand the helplessness that the person is undergoing, the mental agony of lost document and stress of arranging alternatives to reach the loved ones. We doubt and mistrust them and their story. In most of the cases we just abuse and ignore. I remember one of such cases, It was an evening I along with my friends were standing near a tea shop, a man appeared and started begging in front of a group of people who were chit chatting for help for buying an train ticket to join his family. He narrated the story of how his lost his valet. He had come for some work in Mumbai and the train reached during early morning and he saw people sleeping in the platform and so he rested there. When he got up in the morning, he found that his valet containing his document and money was missing. A new place, no one to help and nothing to eat. He made-up his mind to ask the strangers in the city to help me out to buy a ticket so that he can reach his home, we were watching him begging and plead for help him. When he came to us, out of curiosity and making fun, we enquired how this had happened and why was he not attentive ?, why couldn’t he sought the help from police or seek help from his employer who had sent him. After hearing his part of the story, we realized and thought that we spend lot of money smoking, why not gift that amount and think we have spent on cigarette. I handed over some money; We were surprised when he refused to take the money and informing us, that he is not begging for money but actually looking for a day’s work to earn and buy a train ticket. We were taken aback on his thought ! We come across in daily news, people just cheating to make money, earn prestige, and showoff the pride. This came as an revelation that thoughts of the needy may be different, however it is care and sympathy needed to come over. We arranged food for him as he said he had nothing from the morning. But this incident has given enough thoughts to realize the pain when someone lose money and become helpless in new city when everywhere and everything is new and strange.


I remembered the whole incident, when I lost my valet when I was an stranger in an new place. Although I was fortunate to make alternative arrangements, but this left me a thought what about helpless people !

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Reverse Migration.

The people living in the rural area migrate to urban area for improving their living standard or in search of work or for better prospectus. Today the population in urban area is growing faster, people who came for job gets some work and try to help their friends and family by inviting them to urban life style. People in rural area dream about the urban lifestyle and utilities. Movies show that urban life style is more glumes, affordable, enjoyable. People who migrate then adapt to the urban life style they do not want to look back. When they go to their native village or town they share their life and lifestyle inviting more people to settle in urban area. People who migrate from rural to urban are educated, have their own agricultural land, house in their own village, but they are always tempted about the life style and urban culture.

The political parties during the time of election always raise the question of Insider and Outsider, even though they come from the same state and we all live in our own country. This is done to just get a political millage and advertisement. The media keep the flame burning and sensitizing to grab the ratings. Flash backs with breaking news are flashed on the net, making the situation look scary and requirement of high attention from the concerned.

Although all the migrated people do not land up in good paying jobs, only a few percentages of people do land up and become successful. Others live a marginal life in a shabby locality trying to meet their requirements. The question always arise in mind is when you have enough agricultural land at your native, why need to take up a job and work under some one when you can be the owner.

As per the planning commission of India, Government has come out with statistical figures defining the BPL level for urban and rural area. It is to be noted that this is a revised criteria, the earlier borderline was drawn at a daily expense of Rs 20 in the urban areas and Rs 14 in the rural areas as per 2004-05 prices. Out of this, Rs 12 and Rs 17 were supposed to take care of just food needs.

Will this raising cost of inflation, price rise and pathetic living conditions in Urban area, makeup the minds of the migrated people who owns agricultural land, cattle farming etc decide to migrate to village?. Will this cause reverse migration of hard working people of rural areas? The struggle remains the same, be it working in urban or rural, only they will be happy to see their own fertile land giving higher yield of product. Now a day there is scarcity of labor even for agricultural farming, will these people take up this as an opportunity to live? The media has access to rural areas, the benefits and luxury that urban people were enjoying is now available in rural areas. So will be there any change in mind set?

Time will test! And let’s be hopeful.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Wonder the price of Milk

"Doodh, Doodh, Doodh wonderful doodh, Pio glass full doodh” this was the tag line in television advertisement for popularizing and capturing the market in India. The mothers of young Indian children’s took this as advertisement to explain and encourage the kids to drink a glass of milk both in the morning and before going to bed. Creative skills such as the story of old man, policeman, neighbors children and cricketers were some other examples where told to ensure kids drink the milk.

India is the second largest producer of milk in the world. There are reports which suggest the consumption of milk will increase in the years to come. We have some heart touching stories of entrepreneurs who had given up the lavish and high profile job, to start their own milk federation. Few in the villages just think milk production and cattle rising are just to ensure that second income is in line. Dr. Varghese kurain started the milk revolution in India in a small village in Gujrat, the story of the legend is inspirational. In India there are more than 1000 milk federations operating and producing milk and milk products.

For the last few years the price of milk is just hitting high at every quarter. Come festival season, there is a shock of milk price hike. If the current inflation rate and growing food inflation rates are considered, the cost of milk for one liter will touch Rs 100.

The Rich and Niche class would not mind spending the money as it is essential. The middle class will have to put checks and balances to ensure that their kids become stronger by drinking milk. I wonder what the low and poor people do. Then drinking a glass of milk would be like getting something which makes them strongest. One day one visitor, who visited a very rural village in Karnataka, described his experience of distributing milk to the school children. He distributed a Glass of milk to all the school children on the children’s day, the children were very happy to have a glass full of milk and some were skeptical that they would get every day.

As per statically data available on nets, the supply exceeds demand, the cooperatives collect milk from the villagers who raise the cattle’s in the fields. Most of the houses which has cattle’s have agricultural land and graze them there, so the input cost is very less as they don’t have to feed them using fodder which needs to purchased. The Question still remains unanswered is at what cost.

Now a day’s it’s next to impossible to identify which is original and adulterated milk. What if just to make profits due to greed, adulterated milk is sold? Government thinks price rise by the milk federation is justified, by deregularising the Government has lost its control.

One day will come when MILK is just chemical.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Leadership -

Alan Keith of Genentech states that, "Leadership is ultimately about creating a way for people to contribute to making something extraordinary happen".

"Leadership seems to be the marsheling of skills possed by a majority but used by the mintority, and its smothing that can be learned by anyone, thought to everyone, denied to no one".

People working in any organization look on the leader and his attributes. Strong leadership has a positive impact on the culture and has positive impact on bottom line results. Looking at the leadership style one can make out how the organisation is moving without looking at the financial part. Great leaders have followers whos words were inspirational to climb up the ladder. Effective leadershop development is achieved through a systems approach, by incorporating on and off the job experience with mentoring, coaching or training all closely alligned to the business requirment.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Outline of thought

Obviously with many and many fans just getting mad on the play, parents dream about encouraging the kids to take the game of cricket. Before the kid starts crawling, A plastic material which is called Bat suddenly appears in the household and it gets upgraded every year from the soft toy to a great bat. When there are several indoor and outdoor games and games sets available, still all go over the great cricket bat. And once the kid holds the bat the grandparents smile get more enthusiastic, Even forget their name and start recalling the masters of cricket and sow a dream of making big in cricket.
Remember when the kid gets failed an examination. the same people who encourged him to hold and swing the bat, starts criticizing the game . If we keep introspecting and go into a shell when people most of whom don’t matter a dime in your life criticize, back bite you, make fun of you. You are left sad and shattered and you cry
You say I am feeling low today. It takes a lot from us to come out of these everyday situations and move on. A lot??? really?

Friday, March 18, 2011

thought on wednesday !

Many a times we think about our past and grumble, because of some or the other excuses that we narrate, we could not achieve what we wished. Life becomes a trebling wheel between the past and future. The past reminds us the failures and the future m scares about the past and reminds the failures, just because we have not seen.
Many a times, at many places we read  and some say, everything in life is destiny and its the will of God the Almighty.  Intellect people argue that everything could be achieved in life, by dedication and will power. Now a days high profile trainers advertise with testimony of achieving the results of our destiny. One of the consultant where i was accompanying while traveling  had other view. He said we may be to intellect, have a will power and dedicated, planned etc we can just try our luck, but its the destiny that what makes what we are. We cannot raise our both legs in air and stand, Even if we try to stand on air by lifting both legs ........ off course we can try and realize 
I listened to a preacher, last week in an gathering. It was the end of the sermon and the preacher said, You might have lot of money and enjoying a good life with all luxury and some simple pain in the body and consultancy with the family doctor makes you feel that days are counted. Some times we even witness our self the people walking on the footpath are just smashed by the drunken driver. Some times life is just crazy and we have no control on it. 
 Many a times we put our self into so called performance measures for our own activities and try to do better and better ! Thats really a sarcastic. In work places we display the performance measures and advise  our subordinates saying "If you cant measure, then you cannot improve", when you can do it in a industry, off course you can practice in our own life and start measuring. Then  to achieve this targets we just keep working and working and forget to take rest and even smile. One of the biggest advice we take is to take some loan from banks to achieve our dream and they pay in installments. This installment becomes burden having its effect on the health...........
I sometimes think how the families have spent their time and work as a Joint family ? Was this an good culture ? an booster for relationship and  emotions ?. I share and remember when schools were used to close for summer holidays the joy of visiting relatives........... now vacation has no meaning unless its a paid trip to a unknow place to see unknow face to taste unheard food and just to put an artificial smile saying Wow taste was good, coz  at home nobody cooks !

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Brand and Brand followers

Life style and living cost creates brand. This Brand is followed by the people who are crazy on it. Whenever we interact with young people, they speak about brands and its brand ambassadors, So Is this craze on the brand is justified ? is it really required.
May be industrial products and house holds may add some advantage but in and everything that come across in our day to day activity is really needs branding? Brands create an identify of it self, value for Money ? is what is depends upon the perception.
Branded clothes comes in sizes that for some one it requires alteration and some it is over sized.
But is these actually have the durability, comfort and really Value for Money !
The thought is higher the price and greater the brand, lesser its utilization and waste of money. Some of the branded can be only worn on some auspicious occasions so why Spend much on this one day !

Friday, October 1, 2010

Life is useless - Ecclesiastes.

The book of Ecclesiastes contains the thoughts of the "the Philosopher" a man who reflected deeply on how short and contradictory human life is whith its mysterious injustices and frustrations and concluded that "LIFE IS USELESS".

1. life is useless
You spend ur life working, labouring, and wht do u have to show for it ? Generation come and generations go but the world stays just the same.

2. No one remember wise man and no one remembers fools. We must all die - wise and foolish alike.

3. A time for everything

4. I have also learnt why people work so hard to suceed; it is because they envy their neighbours.


5. if you love money, you will never be satisfied; if you long to be rich you will never get all you want . It is useless.

6. A man may have hundred childrens and live a long time, but no matter how long he lives, if he does not get his share of happiness and does not recieve an decent burial, then I say a baby born dead is better off.

7. A good reputation is better than expensive perfume; and the day you die is better than the day you are born.

8. God made us plain and simple, but we have made ourselves very complicated

9. Righteous men get the punishment of the wicked and wicked men get the reward of the righteous.

10. Go ahead - eat your food and be happy; drink your wine and be cheerful its all right with God.

11. Feasting makes you happy and wine cheers you up, but you can't have either without Money

12. Invest your money  in foreign trade, and one of these days you will make profit. Put your investments in several places - many places in fact - because you never know what kind of bad luck you are going to have in this world.


Whats you thought !

Monday, September 20, 2010

Calculating Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI)

The Customer Satisfaction Index represents the overall satisfaction level of that customer as one number, usually as a percentage. Plotting this Satisfaction Index of the customer against a time scale shows exactly how well the supplier is accomplishing the task of customer satisfaction over a period of time.
Since the survey feedback comes from many respondents in one organization, the bias due to individual perception needs to be accounted for.
This can be achieved by calculating the Satisfaction Index using an importance weighting based on an average of 1.
Calculate the average of all the weightings given by the customer. Divide the individual weightings by this average to arrive at the weighting on the basis of average of 1. Customer's higher priorities are weighted more than 1 and lower priorities less than 1. The average of the Customers Importance Scores are calculated and each individual score is expressed as a factor of that average. To understand the calculations consider following example:
The following table shows the Weightings & Scores assigned on a scale of 1 - 10 by the Customer.

 
Parameter(P)      Weighting (A )                Score( B)Weighting (avg. of 1)    C Weighting (avg. of 1) * Score D = B *C

P1                         7                                                8                                               1.17                              9.24

P2                        5                                                4                                                 0.83                             3.33

P3                        9                                                8                                                 1.50                             12.00

P4                       3                                                 3                                                 0.50                               1.50

P5                      6                                                  4                                                  1.00                              4.00

        Average = 6.00                              Average = 5.40                                                                           CSI = 6.01




A = Average Weighting assigned by all respondents for each parameter

B = Average Score assigned by all respondents for each parameter
Avg. Weighting = (7 + 5 + 9 + 3 + 6) / 5 = 6

C = Weighting based on avg. of 1 = Individual Weighting / avg. Weighting

D = Weighted Score = Score * Average Weighting = B * C
Satisfaction Index CSI = Average of (Weighted Scores)

CSI = (9.24 + 3.33 + 12 + 1.5 + 4.0) / 5 = 6.01

Since the scale used was 1 - 10, CSI = 60.10%

Thus Customer Satisfaction can be expressed as a single number that tells the supplier where he stands today and an Improvement plan can be chalked out to further improve his performance so as to get a loyal customer.

Top Management

In bringing any change, management of the organizational undertakes or any new initiative the the company plans to implement down the line the grudge is that top management is not giving its right attention or poor involvement.

Many initiative during the startup the Management is fully involved and it hands over to the experienced and competent people in the team. This infact is the right way in doing the things.

I once met the CEO of one of the leading real estate players of India. There was an discussion about the systems failure and we say the top management involvement was low and hence the system failed. Be it Quality, Environment or any other Management systems, the fact being the failure is the benefits of the systems that the company should or ROI of the systems are not measured. However never does anyone thinks why these are not realized ? Its because everyone in the organization failed.
What is top Management means?Highest ranking executives (with titles such as chairman/chairwoman, chief executive officer, managing director, president, executive directors, executive vice-presidents, etc.) responsible for the entire enterprise. Top management translates the policy (formulated by the board-of-directors) into goals, objectives, and strategies, and projects a shared-vision of the future. It makes decisions that affect everyone in the organization, and is held entirely responsible for the success or failure of the enterprise.
This means everyone in the organization is responsible for the success or failure, because the top management delegates its responsibilities.

I was discussing an issue with Sr. Manager of one of the organization, and i informed that the system should be reviewed with help of top management. I was surprised to get an response saying yes the top management should review !
so then what is the use of Sr. Manager ? or its just an designation without any responsibility and authority. !

Friday, September 17, 2010

Does CB audits add value to organisation ?

I had opportunity to be an auditor for one of the leading certification bodies, I did not enjoy the job of conducting the audits at the clients place when I found the inputs which I gave were sidelined. I came to know that the Certification bodies could not raise any Non Conformity due to varied reason and main reason is that certification bodies wanted the clients in good books.
In one of the surveillance audit, the CB auditor was just dragging to find the fault. He just wanted to know the change that was due to clients and he wanted to know the exactly how we find then? He wanted to know the change in the position of cutouts. At the end of three hours of drill down they were able to exactly match.

During closing meeting, the auditor said all things are systematic and good. ?

What was the value added in this whole cycle.

Expert should accompany the auditors and external audit should give some time of value addition to the company. Internal audits at least come out with observations or non conformity that the process is deviated. When will the external audits come with findings ??

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Good definition of Quality

Came across good definition of Quality....very relevant to our way of working also.....

A gentleman was once visiting a temple under construction.
In the temple premises, he saw a sculptor making an idol of God.
Suddenly he saw, just a few meters away, another identical idol was lying.
Surprised he asked the sculptor, do you need two statutes of the same idol. No said the sculptor. We need only one, but the first one got damaged at the last stage. The gentleman examined the statue. No apparent damage was visible. Where the damage is? Asked the gentleman. There is a scratch on the nose of the idol.
Where are you going to keep the idol? The sculptor replied that it will be installed on a pillar 20 feet high.


When the idol will be 20 feet away from the eyes of the beholder, who is going to know that there is scratch on the nose? The gentleman asked. The sculptor looked at the gentleman, smiled and said, ' The God knows it and I know it '.

The desire to excel should be exclusive of the fact whether someone appreciates it or not. Quality is a drive from Inside not Outside.