Congress Govt. Self Destroying Life Cycle Stages

Having worked with Customer life cycle & product areas, I wish to put my thoughts across on the political area considering the parties as brand. It's commonly know in Marketing area that  Products and brands have a life-cycle. Commonly this cycle progresses as development, introduction, growth, maturity and decline. The pioneer of mosquito repellents in India, the Tortoise brand (popularly called ‘Kachchua Chaap’) is still famous but dead. Ambassador car is a dead brand that is being artificially sustained. Across the world brands have been killed by businesses either because they have outlived their purpose and value proposition or they couldn’t survive innovations and competition.

India became independent in 1947 but there is still no reason to believe we don't have freedom. The British left and the Congress party replaced them. Ever since, it has been downhill. After 65 years we must finally accept that the Congress in India needs to die. I believe that congress as not able to outlive it original purpose neither it was able to bring any good value proposition but it's can be considered one of the best political outfit which was able to manage the billion + population with Corruption, violence, destroying democratic institutions, electoral malpractices and a huge black economy all came from the fountainhead called Congress. 

In a history of the Congress party full of bad governance, unfulfilled promises and intolerable corruption the latest attempt to cover up the Coalgate scam is as bad as any crime ever experienced in a democracy. Not since the Mughals or the British has the nation been plundered so badly. When the Emergency was declared in 1975 some newspapers carried black borders in protest and some crawled. Since then, much of the media not only became slaves of the Congress party and the government they have even become traitors of the people they were supposed to serve. What else explains the frequent clean-chits and “honest” title defence of Manmohan Singh? A PM who has watched lakhs of crores worth of scams happening right under his nose was being defended by our media. Shameful! 

It’s more than the massive corruption. Every institution of India’s democracy has been corrupted and misused to serve the security and comfort of the party and one family – The Gandhis. Everyone in the Congress should be wondering how they became such slaves. It even provides for special security for Robert Vadra, Priyanka Vadra and exemptions for them from screening during air travel or travel anywhere in the country.

In the name of fake secularism the Congress party and its supporters have divided the nation through religious reservations and privileges. Every policy of the party smacks of vote-bank politics and nothing more. Instead of moving towards an equitable society and more towards a uniform law for all the Congress has now even set up Sharia courts. Rahul Gandhi campaigns in Karnataka and talks about corruption. With what face does this non-performer talk about corruption? His own personal integrity or commitment to public work is suspect going by his poor attendance and participation in parliament. The same goes for the PM who promises a corruption-free state in his insipid campaigns. All of this, while they represent the most corrupt party in the entire democratic world! What does it say about the slavery of Congress and its supporters who still live a life of slavery to one family which is protected like a royal household? Sonia Gandhi enjoys all the trappings of a queen without the slightest responsibility or accountability for any deeds of the govt or her party.

Wha exactly is Sonia Gandhi’s greatest contribution to India? It has to be that coterie called NAC, an extra-constitutional body that is a private club which drafts laws for the country. Each member of this coterie is from some NGO or the other which has become extraordinarily wealthy through funding and donations from mysterious sources. Most members of this coterie were rewarded for their malicious political campaign against opponents. This is the level to which the Congress has brought politics in this country to. The scams, of course, are too long to list and each time the party members have only acted to cover up the truth and protect the culprits. Naturally! It was rightly pointed out by someone that the first purpose that the Congress party sees while being in power is to accumulate enough money to fight the next election. Everything else is secondary. And then the queen talks about ‘zero tolerance’ of corruption while the ‘Prince of fails’ mocks the nation by stating “power is poison”.

In the attempt to keep its stranglehold on power at any cost the party has destroyed almost every democratic institution in this country. Judges and investigators have landed themselves top postings immediately on retirement for being slaves to the party. Scheme after scheme has been named after some member of the Nehru-Gandhi family as if everyone else in India was just an also-ran in her history. 

NDTV, CNN-IBN, Headlines Today, Times Now and all other media outlets have become spineless puppies that do not have the guts to address a single question to the Gandhis. They hurl the choicest abuses at all other political parties and leaders. It seems the only truthful media that is still left standing is the Supreme Court.

A company kills a brand at an appropriate time in its life-cycle. India too needs to kill the Congress party which has long outlived its purpose. It doesn’t mean killing the party’s members. There are many good members in the Congress who must free themselves from slavery and reaffirm their true independence and freedom. They must join other parties or create a new formation completely different from this Congress. Not suggesting that other parties are clean but the Congress has been and will remain the Fountainhead of Corruption or the “Congotri” of corruption. Corruption in the air, land, water, fire and earth as someone put it (2G, irrigation, coal, land). Every reform or policy that the Congress makes has a backdoor or a window that provides for massive loot. There is hardly a single policy or action that the party and the UPA have taken in the last 9 years that has not been associated by a scam and loot. That’s not all. Caning citizens, failure in foreign relations, poor handling and religious politicisation of terrorism, tolerating separatists, discriminating between states, demonising opponents, demoralising the police and the army, farmer suicides, stagnant economy, inflation, unemployment, fake cases against political opponents, constantly appeasing enemies of the state and even poor vigil of our borders. Never has this nation felt so sunk. 

Unfortunately, Congress has played so much vote-bank politics that a party planning to oppose it has to fight elections using the same dirty tactics to even have a hope of winning comfortably. The fact is after all these years, caste and religion is a major decisive factor in voting a candidate. There are no debates, no scrutiny or analysis of the candidate's plans if elected etc. by the media or the people in general.

My analysis of this problem by meeting a lot of people and asking my friends is this:

1. A majority of the people in our country are sentimental and vote by heart. They don't think long term - Period. Congress knows this very well and use the media very well to play into this. I hate to say this, but many people in this country are sentimental idiots. A proof of this is the time when many of my friends jumped the Anna Hazare bandwagon purely based on sentiment and hype rather than scrutinizing what the Lokpal is and what it means for the country.

2. Coalition politics is here to stay. Each coalition represents some caste, some religion, some ideology and as a result the opposition to Congress is never united. In the eyes of the common man, Congress is the one party that covers everyone and this myth is further strengthened by the negative connotation of Hindutva for the BJP that is propogated by the media despite the SC ruling that it is a way of life.

3. Free thinking is not being promoted in India. This was the cornerstone of our ancient civilization. The attention spans of our youth are dwindling. Reading articles, thinking and scrutinizing thoughts are all a thing of the past. Rarely do I meet a person nowadays who is keeping abreast of everything by just reading a normal newspaper. Headlines, gossip, TV media circus is where they get the news from. As a result good journalists and good newspapers are dying. Ask a person what is the role of a speaker in our Lok Sabha? No response. What is the current financial condition of our country? Bad but no idea how bad.

4. The majority of people are too busy safeguarding what they have for now by being a good employee, a good student (regurgitating what they read) and put self before country (a filtered down quality of our politicians).

5. Certain sections of society want this current state of India to last. For eg. Government employees under C.Naidu (TDP) and Jayalalithaa (ADMK) lament that they have to "work" for a living compared to the days when Congress and DMK ruled giving them secured jobs, with bonus and no incentive to work or service the public

Having said that it important to note that No country in history has ever progressed with bad governance and excessive corruption as partners. None! The Congress suffers from this twin ailment since decades. Its survival is detrimental to the progress of India. Death is the only cure. The corrupt media protects this corrupt party and its bigwigs. Someone has coined the slogan “Congress-mukt Bharat” like the slogan for “Gutka-mukt rajya”. I wholeheartedly agree with it. For India to progress, Congress must die. And when the Congress dies so will the corrupt media and democratic institutions can limp back to normalcy! There can at least be a new start.

PS: Data is taken from various sources most of it from Ravinar article!!

       

Saradha Chit Fund One More Financial Scam

I wish to write the post on saradha chit fund considering my real life experience being cheated (mind you I hae see what kind of effect it as on family as a whole when my father was cheated & I myself got involved in small extent but it did change my perspective towards life & financial matter and people as whole). But the root cause i think is due to all the finance channels like CNBC18, CNBCAwaaz, NDTVProfit, ETNow and print media like Economic Times or Financial Express. What do these media outlets do? Especially the TV channels! The TV channels run 24X7 doing nothing but stock market scores and interviews with top guns of companies. Not once have these financial channels ever been able to expose one single fraud in any of the companies they cover. Wonder why? All the glorious reports they do on cars and bikes and financial companies are based on scripts handed out to them. (Having worked in top MNC & myself on data I do know how much we can rely on if not done in dept study).  During the crash of 2008 CNBC in the US was exposed as even betting on companies that were definitely looking to sink. Some anchors also worked with inside information. Fortunately, the justice system in the US is a bit faster and scamster will be cooling his heels in prison compared it to India which will never happen even though it might have destroyed life of so many people & family's.

History is proof that scams and corruption don’t begin from the bottom. They begin at the top. Be it  Ramalinga Raju, Sudipto Sen (MD of Saradha Chit Fund), Bear Sterns or any other company. Take any scam in the last few years; 2G, Coalgate, Adarsh Housing to name a few. All of them involved people in the highest offices of the country. Invariably, it’s the small guy who pays the price. Prior to his arrest Sen had written a long letter to the CBI describing events that led to the crash of his chit fund company.(can have look of same on rediff). While the media has been quick to call the Saradha scam a ‘ponzi’ scheme it is actually a lot more than that. Their fall has been driven by the ambitions of Sen and the greed of many a politician and media persons and outlets.

The opening tagline to “The Godfather” rightly says “Behind every great fortune there is a crime”. It would be an apt line for politicians, businessmen and media persons who have acquired a fortune in a relatively short period. Robert Vadra has been given a clean chit in all the land scams he was accused of. Why would anyone pay a price for the Saradha scam except the ordinary poor people of Bengal/India? The letter by Sen to CBI even quotes Nalini Chidambaram (wife of P. Chidambaram) being paid 1Crore and mentions deals worth 42Crores. Really, is NC such a famous lawyer to command such extraordinary legal fees or deals? Not one single channel dared to mention the name “Chidambaram”. So on what grounds did they name the others mentioned in Sen’s later?

I feel often that the media is the “first line of defence for the corrupt”. I guarantee that if the IT officials go through the bank accounts and incomes of many a media celeb with a fine tooth comb, the chances are that a lot more financial crimes will be exposed. But they won’t. And nor will the media ever expose any financial scams. After all, they are partly beneficiaries of these crimes.

The audacity of the whole episode is that not only have the poor in Bengal/India (and investors of other places) who invested in the Saradha Chit Fund lost all their money and some their lives too, the Bengal CM is now promising to compensate them from the state funds (We are going the same way of American Capitalism who did it with the Wall Street Bankers. Wonderful! Scamsters loot people and then the state conveniently will again use your money to compensate. So you lose both ways. Even if some compensation is paid from the state funds the first condition has to be that all the scamsters should be arrested and charge-sheeted. It is highly unlikely something like that will ever happen. The image from IndiaToday is a good example of how scams are negotiated: 1) Screaming in the media 2) Political wrangling 3) Handover case to CBI 4) DEAD END! 

People who argue that politicians are a reflection of society might want to think again. If that were indeed true then apply the ratio of corrupt politicians to the whole population. That would make for a frightening figure. There is corruption everywhere but the fountainhead is always at the top not at the bottom. The “bottle-neck” in a bottle is always at the top, that’s why impediments are known as “bottle-necks”. The message being repeatedly sent to the ordinary people is that crime pays. My bet is that nothing will happen to Sudipto Sen or anyone involved in the Saradha scam. After all, most of the money went to politicians and media.

I wish to bring attention to all the reader of this blog that time as come when we cannot trust these politician, Media guys nor the financial guys blindly. Always remember if it's true to believe do have double check. 

Secret of Success by Richard St. John

One of my close know source (I hold him in high regards) shared this TED video of Richard St. John on research of Secret of Success. I thought of putting it down here what I saw after relating it to my personal journey on many success & failure i have come across professionally & personally as I could really relate to each point shown by him.

Passion : Most of the successful will be passionate of what they are doing, But most difficult part is to find you what you are really passionate about, I myself tried to figure it out for past around 2years really hard but believe me it very difficult to find out(But know people who due to God grace found out easily what they really like or some events of situation happen in their life that brought them to there passion and what I saw was once this people come to know what their passion is they are ready to go for it even though if they know the journey is difficult (beauty is in it)

Work : Found your passion now be ready to work, work and work (though you will never feel like you really worked) I could connect to this point very well because in one of my past assignment I got it so much worked out that I literally forget to live life as I was really disconnected from the world to make it happen even after lots of odds..

Focus: I pretty sure now day with so much of distraction it very important that one focus continuously on one thing which he is passionate or likes and keep on hitting it again and again till the end results are seen. (Do always try to innovate & know where to stop it. Here i mean to do differently or have cut off.
Persist: Don't give up easily
Ideas for doing Good: Always remember your idea should add value & do good to others, It as more chances of success
Push & Have mentor: I really missed not having some one really to push or mentor during one of my failure, I came to know it bit later but i guess it was meant to be like that. So always have mentor or person who will keen you pushing for achieving big things in life.

Leads to Success by Richard St. John (Above are based on his research of 7 years and I can really relate and vouch for most of them personally I have being using most of it for my professional success

My View of Budget 2013 highlights – Not much for investors (Average Budget)

Budget 2013 was much awaited, however it did not excite investors as there was nothing much for them. It was a flop show for investors considering they had high expectations from finance minister(But you cannot expect much from Chindu (this time considering he is slideline by top guys in Congress and I hope it will be his last budget also) but I consider him to be above average FM delivered by Congress till now this according to me was one of his not so best budget. Here is a quick summary for things which you should know
A) No Change in Tax Slabs (It's good news to middle class but could have done better to include around 80% of people who don't pay taxes with some innovative approach)

B) Inflation Linked Bonds to be introduced

C) Claim upto Rs 2.5 lacs as tax exemption if home loan less than Rs 25 lacs in 2013-14 this is for 
only first year only and new loans only..:( (something is better than nothing)

D) Service tax to be levied on AC restaurants of all kinds (My hotel bill will be increase atleast few times in year, if you eat lot out special in AC rest. bad news for you

E)1% TDS on Real Estate Sale of Rs 50 lacs-This clause is on not much use i guess as most of the Black money in India is only i real estate sector one more reason for common people to under value property and pay less.


F)RGESS first time investors income limit increased to 12 lacs

G). Reduction of STT on Derivatives , ETF’s and Mutual Funds-Though good news for traders but if you are commodity trade than CTT is introduced.

H) Mobiles, High end SUV car’s are expensive--Bad news to people who wish to buy SUV sometimes soon.

What do you think about this budget? Apart from these there are lot of other updates as well, but I think these 10 points are enough to know for investors.

 

Start Up-Project Plan Pointers

Most of the corporate employee wish to start up something of their own most of the time but very few take the plunge, But having worked with big companies specially sometimes most are out of ground realities and don't know how to start even after having very good exposure to particular domain. Some points given below can be of some help:
Validation: Have you validated your business with customers?Probably this should be done on small scale in the being if possible working part time (Min period should be at least 6 Months to give better idea, more the duration better it's but depends on person and industry also. Follow systematic validation method (more on this in next post)
Positioning: This is probably most important thing the do, more perfectly you do at earlier stage better it's. (though you should keep fine tuning your product/service position regularly on basis of customer feed back..:) Customer can be your Business Analyst. You should clearly have value proposition along with other imp. things like competitive advantage etc
Monetization: Free is NOT a business model. How do you monetize? There are various model you can start with like trail period mostly followed in SAAS models than charging the customer if he is happy with your services
Financing: Over 90% of the entrepreneurs who go out to raise money get rejected. Are you planning to raise money? Do you understand what it takes to raise money, what investors are looking for? Is your company fundable? Do you know how to assess what is fundable and what is not? Are you getting rejected by investors? What are your different types of financing options and what are the mechanics of those?
Financing should be very well thought decision as it can make or break your start up. Be clear on the term and have back of plan also otherwise you will be in fix...(I some how fail on this part as everything should be in written)
Customer Acquisition: Most imp. part is customer acquisition, basically sales is what going bring the money but always have balance on the acquisition cost they can be pretty high as the conversation ratio should be very also follow lean acquisition methods like social media, WOM, etc be innovative in your approach
Team: Be clear on who will be the team and specially the partners (as this is long term game) you fail for have this foundation proper it will create big time issues financially, mentally etc. So clearly have good team and passionate partners who are loyal and believe you instead of people who just do marketing. Start up is hands on approach so all partner should be equally hands on approach guys along with loyal bonding.
GoNoGo Strategy: Even after putting good amt of afford you don't see visibilty you should have your GoNoGo strategy in place, If things don't work after all efforts let it go, don't be emotionally attached to your start up remember one thing you perfect yourself only when you fail sometimes.
If you still persist than it can have long financial, mental, social effect. So always know when to let it go. (In terms of Stock Market have your stop loss in place..:)

Hope this will give some idea to people who plan to have start up.