Tamil Nadu - What do the numbers say?

With the state election set to take place on May 16, 2016 - election speeches in Tamil Nadu (India) are spiked with rhetoric, lies, and hatred. So, out of curiosity, I collected data to get an objective view of Tamil Nadu's economy.

How well has Tamil Nadu fared in the past 5 years (2011-16)?

TN ranks 8th in Human Development Index (HDI), an index measured on 3 factors - income, education, and health - a reflection of the standard of living. The top 3 are Kerala, Delhi, and HP (Source: Institute of Applied Manpower Research).

In Agriculture, TN was the largest food grain producer in India in 2012, producing 102 lakh metric tonnes. When DMK left, it was 82 LMT. Food grain production reached 128 LMT in 2015 and the government has set an even higher target of 147 LMT for 2016. As per India Today's Best of States report, TN comes next only to Maharashtra in food grain production at 1,626,000 tonnes per sq km.

When it comes to Industrial growth, TN was the 2nd most industrialized state in early 2015 (Source: Business Standard); Maharashtra and Gujarat were at 1st and 3rd positions respectively. In 2014, its growth rate of 3.53% in Manufacturing sector surpassed the national average of 0.71%.

What about debt? With a debt of roughly 211 crores, TN is the 6th largest debtor, next to Maharashtra, UP, WB, AP, and Gujarat. However, debt alone doesn't give the full picture of an economy. If the borrowed debt is put into good investment, it is beneficial. So, a true picture is given by the (Debt / State GDP) ratio; the lower the ratio the better. TN's Debt / GSDP is 20%; lower than national average of 21.2%, indicating that there is economic growth in parallel with rising liability.

So, where did TN under-perform?

Power sector? While the CM announced in mid 2015 that the state had then met its power demand of 13,000 MW per day, it is yet to be widely acknowledged. The Adani group's investment on solar power generation is another ongoing project of interest.

Although the government had the Global Investors meet in 2015 with a lot of fanfare, TN has been slipping down in converting proposed investments to actual investments (Source: TOI, March'16). In 2015, out of 19.5 Crores proposed, only 5.01 Crores materialized (Source: Dep of Industrial Policy & Promotion). There are also complaints of less transparency.

And bad news to manufacturing sector: some companies are moving out of TN and expanding elsewhere, like Ford, ISuzu, and Saint-Gobain.

When Jayalalitha was not the CM (Sep'14 - Apr'15), the state's progress almost stalled. This sort of risk is bad for any investment.

So, the question is: who can perform better than this? 

No matter who you vote for, make sure that your candidate can beat these numbers! At the end of the day, it is numbers that speak the truth.

The Syrian Refugee

In the early 1950s, during the civil war in Syria, a man by name Abdulfattah Jandali fled Syria, and arrived in USA as a refugee. He later studied in the University of Wisconsin, where he fell in love with Joanne Schieble, a German Catholic. Before they could marry, they had their first child, who they gave up for adoption, and the little boy was adopted by a couple in Wisconsin - Paul and Clara.

Years later, in 2007, the little boy, who by then was a successful businessman, stood on the stage in a high-profile event in San Francisco, with a huge screen behind him, holding up a small device in his hand in a room full of crazy fans - and announced to the world: "Today, we reinvent the phone. We are calling it the iPhone".

BRIDGE OF SPIES

BRIDGE OF SPIES

This movie is yet another jewel in Spielberg's crown; perhaps, even the best. Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg entertain us with a masterpiece that is perfect in all aspects, and keeps you glued to the screen. Every scene is chiseled to perfection.

The movie is based on a true story that happened in the late fifties when the Cold War was at its peak. While USA and USSR are aggressively spying each other for intelligence about nuclear weapons and military secrets - Tom Hanks, an insurance attorney, gets caught in the middle and ends up as a master negotiator in a two-for-one prisoner swap. The character played by Hanks is that of James Donovan, an attorney who played a vital role in prisoner swap negotiations with USSR and in the Bay of Pigs invasion.

This is not a war film like "Saving Private Ryan", but rather an emotional one touching on the human side of things. The movie has some wonderful dialogues, and Spielberg spins humor into every scene from start to end.

In a scene, a CIA agent tells Hanks to ignore the law and asks him to just follow what the agency says. "There is no rule book here", the CIA agent says. Hanks replies, "You are agent Hoffman, a German descendant. And I am Donovan, an Irish descendant. Do you know what makes us both Americans? It is our constitution".

The backdrop of the movie is so rich with details that it takes us to the mood of the Cold War era.

Spielberg makes his point - how everyone, even a Soviet spy, deserves a fair hearing. 

Amazing movie, don't miss it!

5 Facebook Resolutions for 2015

1. Be kind to people who send you Candy Crush invite.

2. Don't check Facebook when you're in the dentist's chair. Some things can wait. So, tell him to wait.

3. Make political comments in such a way that none understands which side you are. You never know who gets out of jail and who goes in and when. Yeah!

4. Don't post a status update when you're angry. Relax. Take deep breaths. And then post the same.

5. Be generous in giving Likes. Remember - a smile takes 8 muscles, but a Like just a finger tip. Moreover, research shows people who give more Likes are less likely to get heart diseases*.

*research pending

P.S: I have no idea how many muscles it takes to smile. But remember the golden rule of journalism: "It is perfectly okay to lie to elevate a fact into a sensation".

Gravity - a movie review

Occasionally, there comes a movie that explores a particular field in a very unique way unlike any of its predecessors. "Jurassic Park" changed the way we saw dinosaurs and triggered our imagination in a whole different direction. "Gravity" does the same thing with respect to space. It unfolds space before us in intriguing and intimidating ways. 

How does it feel to walk in space - engulfed in darkness and silence - where direction and time have no meaning - with the Earth rotating below you as the only reference? The silence is deafening. You are disoriented. Everything up there orbits around the earth - right from the huge International Space Station (ISS) to accidentally dropped nuts and bolts.

The movie's plot is based on Space Debris, a subject that I first read in Michael Crichton's "Andromeda Strain". I was so fascinated by it that I even did a small research and wrote a one-page article for our company's magazine in 2004. Avoiding collision with space debris has been a challenge for space agencies worldwide. This movie leverages on the many dangers of space debris.

What happens when debris traveling at high speeds collide on your space station? What happens when you are thrown out in space and you yourself become one of those objects orbiting earth - with nothing to hold on to? Literally, you become a satellite. And eventually you run out of oxygen and die - and your corpse keeps orbiting. Worse if your space suit is damaged - the high difference in pressure sucks everything out of your body - and the extremely cold temperature freezes you instantly like a rock.

The movie shows how astronauts Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) and Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) go through one of the worst nightmarish space debris collisions and struggle hard to survive! Is it even technically possible to survive? I don't want to reveal more!

"Gravity" is a technical marvel in movie-making. Watch it in 3D; it makes you feel as one of the astronauts up there. 

The director, Alfonso Cuaron, has craft-fully overstepped on some scientific facts to spin a fictional story. But, for the common eye they are sure to go unnoticed; everything looks genuinely real. The only thing that made me feel "Oh please!" is that - they put the blame on Russians for the whole incident :-)

The Last Name

One of the greatest gifts parents can give their kids is to give them a simple, short, readable, and easily-pronounceable First name and Last name. Keeping a name as long as the Yellow Stripped Anaconda in the Amazon jungles - will only help in crashing some computer somewhere someday. So, unless it is your mission to crash computers, PLEASE give a short name, preferably less than 15 characters. 

And no, it is NOT okay to concatenate the favorite names suggested by all the 28 Uncles and Aunties who come to visit the baby in the hospital. 

And, your kid's name is definitely not the place to showcase your vast family tree structure, that includes the great Grandfather who once killed a tiger with one hand and sat on its head for 2 hours till it died.

Just spare the little kid. Give him/her a short name. 

And please don't embark on the noble mission of finding a unique name, never ever heard in the history of mankind. And believe me, there are better ways for your child to become famous than by this unique identifier.

One out of every 5 Tamilian has a problem with his Last Name - either in passport or US Visa or ration card or whatever. Tamilians, in particular, have still not figured out what exactly is a Last Name. A vast majority (like me) have their father's full name (oh yes, the whole full name of father) printed as Last Name. So, when people ask me my Last Name, I have to start reading an essay, instead of saying one word. And if this happens in the US, the other guy looks at you as if you are one crazy nut, and asks again, "Sorry, what was that?" - and you go gasping for breath again.

Show me a Tamilian who can prove that his Last Name matches in all records, and I will agree to make Manmohan Singh speak (difficult challenge... but still.. hmmm). Even if the Last Name matches, just ask, "Is this your Last Name?" - and boom - here he goes scratching his head, "Ahh... no... actually... my grandpa's last name was my father's middle name and my..."! (It is in your best interest not to hear the rest).

Now, don't get me started on "Middle Name". Enough.

[P.S: For those of you who already Googled for Yellow Stripped Anaconda, ok... you are right, there is none]

The Art of Appraisal

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All events and characters are fictional. It does not represent anyone living or dead. It does not represent any company or corporation or any other entity. It is written with a sense of humour, and is not intended to criticize or insult or defame anyone or any entity.

Appraisals are a time when all emotions are on the loose and a frenzy atomosphere builds up in cubicles. There is excitement, happiness, sadness, disappointment, envy, hatred, revenge - and everything that can make up a typical Bollywood movie. The whole process goes to show how subjective human perspectives are, and how difficult it is to bring objectivity into the whole thing. Maybe a day will come when appraisals are fully automated with no human intervention - and *bang* - the computer pops your appraisal score exactly at midnight on Dec 31st (and probably spoils your mood on New Year's eve).

The style and narration of the below post is largely inspired by the style used by Scott Adams in "Dilbert". He is one of the best in "business satire". He has written some wonderful humorous books like "The Joy of Work", "The Dilbert Principle", etc. Please read them if you get a chance. They are a good way to relax your mind and laugh at the irony of things.

("Big Boss" and "Kumar" are imaginary characters in an imaginary organization in an imaginary world. If you think they resemble anyone living or dead, it is purely coincidental)

Big Boss: This year your performance was good, excellent and outstanding. So, your rating is "average".

Kumar: What? How come 'average'?

Big Boss: Because...err...uhh...you lack domain knowledge.

Kumar: But last year you said I am a domain expert and you put me in this project as a domain consultant.

Big Boss: Oh is it? Well, in that case, I think your domain knowledge has eroded this year.

Kumar: What???

Big Boss: Yes, I didn't see you sharing knowledge on Purchasing domain.

Kumar: Why would I? Because I am not in Purchasing, I am in Manufacturing. 

Big Boss: This is what I don't like about you. You give excuse for everything.

Kumar: Huh? *Confused*

Big Boss: Next, you need to improve your communication skills.

Kumar: Like what? I am the one who trained the team on "Business Communication", you sat in the audience and took notes, you remember?

Big Boss: Oh is it? Errr...well..I mean, you need to improve your Social Pragmatic Affirmative Communication.

Kumar: Huh? What the hell is that? *Confused*

Big Boss: See! That's why you need to learn about it.

Kumar: *head spinning*

Big Boss: Next, you need to sharpen your recruiting skills. All the guys you recruited left within 2 months.

Kumar: Well, not my mistake. You told them you will sit beside them and review their code, and most resigned the next day itself. Couple of them even attempted suicide.

Big Boss:*stunned* (recovers from shock) Err...anyway, I tried to give you a better rating, but our Normalization process gave you only 'average'.

Kumar: Last year that process gave me 'excellent'. This year just 'average'? Why is this process pushing me up and down every year?

Big Boss: That's a complicated process. You don't want to hear.

Kumar: I'll try to understand. Go ahead.

Big Boss: Well, we gather in a large room, write down the names of sub-ordinates in bits of paper, and throw them up in the air. Whichever lands on the floor gets 'average', whichever lands on table gets 'good', whichever we manage to catch gets 'excellent' and whichever gets stuck to ceiling gets 'outstanding'.

Kumar: (eyes popping out) What? Ridiculous! So who gets 'poor' rating?

Big Boss: Those are the ones we forget to write down.

Kumar: What the hell! And how can paper bits stick to ceiling for 'outstanding'?

Big Boss: Oh no, now you have started questioning our 20 year old organizational process!

Kumar: *faints*