Sucheta Dalal www.suchetadalal.com writes
The BPO and IT industries today absorb so much of the smart, technically qualified and eminently employable talent that there is a serious shortage of people for other, not-so-paying, smaller businesses who also need similar skill sets. Contrary to the bleeding-heart view about BPO employees being stuck in stressful and monotonous jobs, those earning high call-centre salaries are unwilling to consider less-paying but more challenging employment that requires aptitude, learning and slower initial growth.
It is necessary to address an important differentiator that has already emerged in the job market today. It is the earning difference between those who are conversant with the English language and those who aren’t.
Salary differences between equally qualified (non-professional/technical) candidates can be as high as 400 to 500 per cent. In fact, the more fancied jobs in airlines, hotels, media, banks and financial services only to those who know English, the rest are forced into less fancied assignments.
Ironically enough, the wide gap in earning starts from jobs where literacy levels are less important; for instance employment as peons, drivers, courier and delivery staff, sales assistants, counter staff and waiters.
The best jobs with the upmarket shopping malls, multiational fast-food chains and tony restaurants go to those who can speak English along with the mandatory fluency in local languages. The job market in the services sector is likely to expand furiously as malls, multiplexes, food courts, and large retail chains expand operations across India, moving from the cities to larger towns. This growth will only accelerate if the government eventually permits Foreign Direct Investment in the Retail Sector, letting in large retail chains such as Wal-Mart.
Unfortunately, there is no concerted effort as yet by the corporate sector, NGOs or even social organisations to help improve their English-speaking skills and confidence levels to prepare for the coming boom. Consequently, there is already a serious shortage of ‘employable; human resources in the service sector.
My own effort to help a young girl, desperate to ‘‘improve her English’’ through a formal programme in Mumbai drew a blank. Her big ambition is to land a sales job in a smart food or retail chain. I found that the few private tutors available are astonishingly expensive. On the other hand, I found it much easier to sponsor her for a basic and inexpensive orientation course in the use of computers that was run by an NGO called Pratham.
The Chinese apparently hired football stadiums to teach the English language and enhance employment opportunities.
In India, language chauvinism bars frank discussion or an acknowledgement that English is now the global language of commerce. In his Independence Day address in August 2004, President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam talked about the need to achieve 100 per cent literacy by increasing our education expenditure. The bigger challenge in the coming years will be to adapt our school and college curricula to meet the demands of changing society, job market and individual aspirations.
This will mean inclusion of language skills, computer literacy and vocational training at the school level. That in turn will require investment in finding and employing better trained and better paid teachers to prepare students for a better India
Wednesday 27 December 2006
Wednesday 20 December 2006
Balancing Business and Government
Mauritius is one example of an African country that successfully balances business and government, according to Elliott Harris, a division chief in the IMF African division and a native of Trinidad. Whenever Mauritius has major legislation on the table, said Harris, "it runs that legislation past the business community first" and gauges their reaction before submitting it to Parliament. The business community is always informed and always sees what the government is trying to achieve and can contribute to that effort beforehand, he said.
Read full text on http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/2849.html
Read full text on http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/2849.html
The Political Economy of Capitalism by Bruce Scott at HBS
Bruce Scott is the Paul W. Cherington Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.
Capitalism is often defined as an economic system where private actors are allowed to own and control the use of property according to their own interests, and where the invisible hand of the pricing mechanism coordinates supply and demand in markets in a way that is automatically in the best interests of society. Government, in this perspective, is often described as responsible for peace, justice, and tolerable taxes. Bruce Scott argues in this chapter that for a capitalist system to evolve in an effective developmental sense through time, it must have two hands, not one: an invisible hand that is implicit in the pricing mechanism, and a visible hand that is explicitly managed by government through a legislature and a bureaucracy. Inevitably the actions of the visible hand imply a strategy, no matter how implicit, shortsighted, or incoherent that strategy may be. Key concepts include:
Government has two quite different roles to play in a capitalist economy, as an administrator of an ongoing system and as an innovator.
Political leaders have prime responsibility for mobilizing the power to promote changes to the system.
Capitalism has two hands, first the familiar if invisible hand of price mechanisms that coordinate economic actors within current frameworks, and second the visible hand of government, where it is both an administrator and an innovator.
The visible hand of the state must be able to intervene in order to modernize market frameworks in a timely way, while at the same time administering and enforcing existing rights and responsibilities as a complement to the invisible hand.
Capitalism is often defined as an economic system where private actors are allowed to own and control the use of property according to their own interests, and where the invisible hand of the pricing mechanism coordinates supply and demand in markets in a way that is automatically in the best interests of society. Government, in this perspective, is often described as responsible for peace, justice, and tolerable taxes. Bruce Scott argues in this chapter that for a capitalist system to evolve in an effective developmental sense through time, it must have two hands, not one: an invisible hand that is implicit in the pricing mechanism, and a visible hand that is explicitly managed by government through a legislature and a bureaucracy. Inevitably the actions of the visible hand imply a strategy, no matter how implicit, shortsighted, or incoherent that strategy may be. Key concepts include:
Government has two quite different roles to play in a capitalist economy, as an administrator of an ongoing system and as an innovator.
Political leaders have prime responsibility for mobilizing the power to promote changes to the system.
Capitalism has two hands, first the familiar if invisible hand of price mechanisms that coordinate economic actors within current frameworks, and second the visible hand of government, where it is both an administrator and an innovator.
The visible hand of the state must be able to intervene in order to modernize market frameworks in a timely way, while at the same time administering and enforcing existing rights and responsibilities as a complement to the invisible hand.
Capitalism is often defined as an economic system where private actors are allowed to own and control the use of property according to their own interests, and where the invisible hand of the pricing mechanism coordinates supply and demand in markets in a way that is automatically in the best interests of society. Government, in this perspective, is often described as responsible for peace, justice, and tolerable taxes. Bruce Scott argues in this chapter that for a capitalist system to evolve in an effective developmental sense through time, it must have two hands, not one: an invisible hand that is implicit in the pricing mechanism, and a visible hand that is explicitly managed by government through a legislature and a bureaucracy. Inevitably the actions of the visible hand imply a strategy, no matter how implicit, shortsighted, or incoherent that strategy may be
This working paper is a draft of Chapter 2 of a manuscript titled Capitalism, Democracy and Development. You can download from http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5593.html
Paper Information
HBS Working Paper Number: 07-037
Working Paper Publication Date: December 2006
Two Indias
"What a country! Part Silicon Valley; part Stone Age" is how Steve Hamm, author of Bangalore Tiger (and a BusinessWeek senior writer), describes India. In a recent visit to India an American friend asked to know my views on India's future, to which I replied "mixed", in terms of progress and poverty. She thought so also.
Another friend on the same trip concluded on her return that after seeing India for the first time she is "not worried about competition from India." These and other increasing numbers of visitors to India may not be the de Tocquevilles of their time, but they are good observers of the present and a reasonably distant future.
Clearly, there are two Indias—the India of the successful nonresident Indians around the globe, the India of the elite in government, top universities, and business. This is the group that has become known to the outside world as the English-speaking, university-educated, software-writing engineer, entrepreneur, and exporter of call center services, pharmaceuticals, leather and silk goods, and movies. This group has demonstrated what a mere 4% of the population with college education can do in a short period of less than 20 years of lower taxes and a more open economic system, when allowed to be entrepreneurs, innovators, and professional competitors inside India and to function around the world as exporters, importers, manufacturers. This is the source of progress and great prospects for India.
Keeping India Poor
And then there's the other India of some 800 million in big cities, medium-size towns, and villages. They are promised everything by some 70 or more political parties in a continuous democratic exercise at the polling booth in numerous and shifting vote-getting political alliances. This is in a country where only 1.5% of women have college education and which has a gross underinvestment in education. The government's focus on socialism and distribution; caste-based politics; religion-based rights; corruption; and broken-down infrastructure (roads, water, housing, electricity, schools, digital divide) in Bombay, Bangalore, or any village across the country— all these factors keep India poor.
Consider recent news items in the global press: Among 119 countries, the rates of child malnourishment in India are near the statistical top of the world, below only Nepal and Bangladesh. India faces a great shortage of drinking water, while the India Corruption index of 2.9 out of a possible score of 10 ranked it at No. 88 among158 countries. Adult literacy, higher-education enrollment, the ease of doing business, foreign direct investment—India lags badly behind in these categories as well.
Yet, India aspires to be counted among world superpowers today, wants to sit on the Security Council with a veto power, fields a candidate to be Secretary General of the U.N.—a good one—considers itself a rising and shining powerhouse economically and strategically, has even coined the term "ChinIndia" to show that the two most populous Asian countries are as large as the European Union and the U.S., as if India and China are one economy.
Like the Soviet System
The most damaging thing India is currently doing to stay poor and divided instead of realizing its great potential of being a superpower is its politics of creating a new caste system and enshrining it in its constitution. The original constitution in 1950 created a secular and equal India for its people, except the Muslim minority. As a result of social reformers who had been speaking against the caste system for some 500 years, a superb achievement of the constitution was to deny it any legal standing.
Unfortunately, the current government in Delhi is trying to enshrine a caste-based quota system in the educational system of India where your categorization based on the caste you were born into in pre-Independent India will give you a certain quota in higher education. This is in addition to existing job quotas based on similar considerations, different standards of your qualifications and performance in tests as well as your current economic status. In other words, an attempt to bring about forced equality of result instantly.
It may be called creation of a new Soviet-type system of equal distribution based on your caste. One cannot imagine a worse selection of historically failed ideas and social and political systems based on them. This is something India should do without if it wants to be a powerhouse economy and a great society in the future. Equal opportunity in building human capital is what is needed, not forced equality of result through discriminatory quota systems for various castes and religions that would inflict much harm to the future of India.
Merit As the Measure
A much better and positive alternative is to create educational opportunities for all regardless of caste and history. An educational system that gives a full range of choices where equality of opportunity in a merit-based system leads to realization of one's potential. That is the vision of the future India deserves and not a divide-and-rule caste-based potential to break up India.
Surendra K. Kaushik is professor of finance at the Lubin School of Business of Pace University in New York and founder of Mrs. Helena Kaushik Women's P.G. College in Malsisar, Rajasthan, India.
Another friend on the same trip concluded on her return that after seeing India for the first time she is "not worried about competition from India." These and other increasing numbers of visitors to India may not be the de Tocquevilles of their time, but they are good observers of the present and a reasonably distant future.
Clearly, there are two Indias—the India of the successful nonresident Indians around the globe, the India of the elite in government, top universities, and business. This is the group that has become known to the outside world as the English-speaking, university-educated, software-writing engineer, entrepreneur, and exporter of call center services, pharmaceuticals, leather and silk goods, and movies. This group has demonstrated what a mere 4% of the population with college education can do in a short period of less than 20 years of lower taxes and a more open economic system, when allowed to be entrepreneurs, innovators, and professional competitors inside India and to function around the world as exporters, importers, manufacturers. This is the source of progress and great prospects for India.
Keeping India Poor
And then there's the other India of some 800 million in big cities, medium-size towns, and villages. They are promised everything by some 70 or more political parties in a continuous democratic exercise at the polling booth in numerous and shifting vote-getting political alliances. This is in a country where only 1.5% of women have college education and which has a gross underinvestment in education. The government's focus on socialism and distribution; caste-based politics; religion-based rights; corruption; and broken-down infrastructure (roads, water, housing, electricity, schools, digital divide) in Bombay, Bangalore, or any village across the country— all these factors keep India poor.
Consider recent news items in the global press: Among 119 countries, the rates of child malnourishment in India are near the statistical top of the world, below only Nepal and Bangladesh. India faces a great shortage of drinking water, while the India Corruption index of 2.9 out of a possible score of 10 ranked it at No. 88 among158 countries. Adult literacy, higher-education enrollment, the ease of doing business, foreign direct investment—India lags badly behind in these categories as well.
Yet, India aspires to be counted among world superpowers today, wants to sit on the Security Council with a veto power, fields a candidate to be Secretary General of the U.N.—a good one—considers itself a rising and shining powerhouse economically and strategically, has even coined the term "ChinIndia" to show that the two most populous Asian countries are as large as the European Union and the U.S., as if India and China are one economy.
Like the Soviet System
The most damaging thing India is currently doing to stay poor and divided instead of realizing its great potential of being a superpower is its politics of creating a new caste system and enshrining it in its constitution. The original constitution in 1950 created a secular and equal India for its people, except the Muslim minority. As a result of social reformers who had been speaking against the caste system for some 500 years, a superb achievement of the constitution was to deny it any legal standing.
Unfortunately, the current government in Delhi is trying to enshrine a caste-based quota system in the educational system of India where your categorization based on the caste you were born into in pre-Independent India will give you a certain quota in higher education. This is in addition to existing job quotas based on similar considerations, different standards of your qualifications and performance in tests as well as your current economic status. In other words, an attempt to bring about forced equality of result instantly.
It may be called creation of a new Soviet-type system of equal distribution based on your caste. One cannot imagine a worse selection of historically failed ideas and social and political systems based on them. This is something India should do without if it wants to be a powerhouse economy and a great society in the future. Equal opportunity in building human capital is what is needed, not forced equality of result through discriminatory quota systems for various castes and religions that would inflict much harm to the future of India.
Merit As the Measure
A much better and positive alternative is to create educational opportunities for all regardless of caste and history. An educational system that gives a full range of choices where equality of opportunity in a merit-based system leads to realization of one's potential. That is the vision of the future India deserves and not a divide-and-rule caste-based potential to break up India.
Surendra K. Kaushik is professor of finance at the Lubin School of Business of Pace University in New York and founder of Mrs. Helena Kaushik Women's P.G. College in Malsisar, Rajasthan, India.
Tuesday 19 December 2006
Joining the Dots
Here is the transcript of the now-famous speech made by Steve Jobs at Standford Graduation ceremony last year.
Thank you. I'm honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college and this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation.Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories. The first story is about connecting the dots.I dropped out of Reed College after the first six months but then stayed around as a drop-in for another eighteen months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife, except that when I popped out, they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking, "We've got an unexpected baby boy. Do you want him?" They said, "Of course." My biological mother found out later that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would go to college.This was the start in my life. And seventeen years later, I did go to college, but I naïvely chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and no idea of how college was going to help me figure it out, and here I was, spending all the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back, it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out, I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me and begin dropping in on the ones that looked far more interesting.It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms. I returned Coke bottles for the five-cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example.Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer was beautifully hand-calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and sans-serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me, and we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts, and since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them.If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class and personals computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later. Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards, so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something--your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever--because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference.My second story is about love and loss. I was lucky. I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents' garage when I was twenty. We worked hard and in ten years, Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees. We'd just released our finest creation, the Macintosh, a year earlier, and I'd just turned thirty, and then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew, we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so, things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge, and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our board of directors sided with him, and so at thirty, I was out, and very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating. I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down, that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure and I even thought about running away from the Valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me. I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I'd been rejected but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods in my life. During the next five years I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world's first computer-animated feature film, "Toy Story," and is now the most successful animation studio in the world.In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT and I returned to Apple and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance, and Lorene and I have a wonderful family together.I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful-tasting medicine but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life's going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love, and that is as true for work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work, and the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking, and don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it, and like any great relationship it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don't settle.My third story is about death. When I was 17 I read a quote that went something like "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "no" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important thing I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life, because almost everything--all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure--these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.About a year ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctors' code for "prepare to die." It means to try and tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next ten years to tell them, in just a few months. It means to make sure that everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope, the doctor started crying, because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and, thankfully, I am fine now.This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept. No one wants to die, even people who want to go to Heaven don't want to die to get there, and yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new. right now, the new is you. But someday, not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it's quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalogue, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stuart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late Sixties, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. it was sort of like Google in paperback form thirty-five years before Google came along. I was idealistic, overflowing with neat tools and great notions. Stuart and his team put out several issues of the The Whole Earth Catalogue, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-Seventies and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath were the words, "Stay hungry, stay foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. "Stay hungry, stay foolish." And I have always wished that for myself, and now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. Stay hungry, stay foolish.Thank you all, very much.
Thank you. I'm honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college and this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation.Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories. The first story is about connecting the dots.I dropped out of Reed College after the first six months but then stayed around as a drop-in for another eighteen months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife, except that when I popped out, they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking, "We've got an unexpected baby boy. Do you want him?" They said, "Of course." My biological mother found out later that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would go to college.This was the start in my life. And seventeen years later, I did go to college, but I naïvely chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and no idea of how college was going to help me figure it out, and here I was, spending all the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back, it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out, I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me and begin dropping in on the ones that looked far more interesting.It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms. I returned Coke bottles for the five-cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example.Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer was beautifully hand-calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and sans-serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me, and we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts, and since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them.If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class and personals computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later. Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards, so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something--your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever--because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference.My second story is about love and loss. I was lucky. I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents' garage when I was twenty. We worked hard and in ten years, Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees. We'd just released our finest creation, the Macintosh, a year earlier, and I'd just turned thirty, and then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew, we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so, things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge, and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our board of directors sided with him, and so at thirty, I was out, and very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating. I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down, that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure and I even thought about running away from the Valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me. I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I'd been rejected but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods in my life. During the next five years I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world's first computer-animated feature film, "Toy Story," and is now the most successful animation studio in the world.In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT and I returned to Apple and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance, and Lorene and I have a wonderful family together.I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful-tasting medicine but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life's going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love, and that is as true for work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work, and the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking, and don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it, and like any great relationship it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don't settle.My third story is about death. When I was 17 I read a quote that went something like "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "no" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important thing I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life, because almost everything--all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure--these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.About a year ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctors' code for "prepare to die." It means to try and tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next ten years to tell them, in just a few months. It means to make sure that everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope, the doctor started crying, because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and, thankfully, I am fine now.This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept. No one wants to die, even people who want to go to Heaven don't want to die to get there, and yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new. right now, the new is you. But someday, not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it's quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalogue, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stuart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late Sixties, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. it was sort of like Google in paperback form thirty-five years before Google came along. I was idealistic, overflowing with neat tools and great notions. Stuart and his team put out several issues of the The Whole Earth Catalogue, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-Seventies and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath were the words, "Stay hungry, stay foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. "Stay hungry, stay foolish." And I have always wished that for myself, and now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. Stay hungry, stay foolish.Thank you all, very much.
Monday 18 December 2006
Education
Somebody says: "Of no school I am part, Never to living master lost my heart, Nor any more can I be saidTo have learned anything from the dead."
That statement - subject to appeal -Means "I'm a self-made imbecile."
(J.W. Goethe, Den Originalen, 1812).
Every school of thought is like a man who has talked to himself for a hundred years and is delighted with his own mind, however stupid it may be.
(J.W. Goethe, 1817, Principles of Natural Science)
That statement - subject to appeal -Means "I'm a self-made imbecile."
(J.W. Goethe, Den Originalen, 1812).
Every school of thought is like a man who has talked to himself for a hundred years and is delighted with his own mind, however stupid it may be.
(J.W. Goethe, 1817, Principles of Natural Science)
Dos and Don'ts for Entrepreneurs, from Those Who Have Actually Done It
Retrieved from
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1623
Published: December 13, 2006 in Knowledge@Wharton
Fortune 500 companies claim to be "entrepreneurial," as do charities and government agencies. Members of many Washington think tanks dub themselves "policy entrepreneurs." Even children who mow lawns and run lemonade stands get the "entrepreneur" label.
But as the term has come into wide use, its meaning has gradually eroded, leaving open the question of who entrepreneurs really are and what distinguishes their ventures from conventional ones. After all, a startup can look a lot like a regular old small business. The recent 2006 Wharton Entrepreneurship Conference, organized by the school's Entrepreneurship Club, took on this issue, inviting a group of, well, entrepreneurs to discuss their backgrounds and business philosophies and offer advice to those interested in taking the plunge.
Raffi Amit, academic director of Wharton's Goergen Entrepreneurial Management Programs, set the tone for the discussion by noting that academic research has debunked much of the conventional wisdom about entrepreneurs.
"There's a myth that entrepreneurs have special traits that distinguish them from other people," he said. "But research shows no unique characteristics. There's a myth that entrepreneurs are risk takers. But research has shown that they try to manage risk. They outsource it where they can. And there's a myth that entrepreneurs have some sort of secret method that they can apply to venture after venture. But many second-time entrepreneurs fail."
What's left? The dozens of speakers and hundreds of attendees at the conference debated the issue as they tried to find an answer. Their discussions resembled a concert by jazz great Duke Ellington's famous orchestra -- improvisational and occasionally circuitous. Ellington named one of his most famous compositions "Money Jungle," an apt moniker, perhaps, for this year's conference and the complicated, often wild world occupied by entrepreneurs.
$25,000 Credit Card Debt
According to Sam Hamadeh, founder and chief executive of Vault.com, a New York publisher of job information, being an outsider increases the likelihood that someone will want to start his own venture. "The more you are part of the establishment, the more you are giving up to start a business," he said. "Minorities, immigrants, gays and lesbians are all more likely to start businesses than other people."
Hamadeh, for his part, sacrificed the securest of establishment jobs -- an offer from a prestigious law firm -- to start Vault. Having just graduated from a dual-degree program at Wharton and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, he figured he had to plunge in then, or risk never making the effort. "When you graduate is as good a time as you'll see to start a business," he said. "The negative is you're broke. But the positive is you're broke, so you've got nothing to lose. I talk with my friends in investment banking who claim they want to try something entrepreneurial, and it's always, 'Just one more bonus season....'"
Hamadeh, a conference keynote speaker, also touched on a topic that would become a theme for the day: The trials of working with venture capitalists. "There's too much emphasis today on venture capital as a funding source," he said. "Historically, most businesses are funded using friends and family, credit cards, Small Business Administration loans and second mortgages. Very few companies are venture backed. I started Vault with $25,000 in credit card debt."
Venture capital, he added, "makes sense for very few companies. When you're in something that requires a lot of money to start or where time-to-market is critical, then maybe it makes sense."
John Tedesco, president and CEO of Santa Monica, Calif.-based Guardian Mobile Monitoring Systems, agreed with Hamadeh's assessment that socially established, financially secure individuals tend to be the least willing to quit their jobs and start companies. "The more wealth and prestige you accumulate, the more risk averse you become," he argued. That makes sense: Failure costs more if you have more to lose; it's the difference between securing a loan with a $1 million house and a $100,000 condo. Yet Tedesco also pointed out that people with money, credentials and connections are, in some ways, best situated to bounce back from business setbacks. If their ventures fail, they can tap jobs that might not be open to others. "The traditional corporate job is like a train," he quipped. "There's always another one coming."
"I Was Just Solving a Problem"
Farhad Mohit's parents immigrated from Iran to the United States, where he grew up. Yet he still retains some of the outsider point of view. After graduating from the University of California at Los Angeles, he worked as a computer programmer at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture). "I hated it," he recalled. "I hated the bureaucracy and the suits." He applied to Wharton in the mid-1990s, mainly to escape. "I figured I would get an MBA and then maybe a PhD. I thought I would be a perpetual student."
Once in school, he avoided the investment banking and consulting jobs that attracted many of his classmates. He had done the corporate route and knew that, for him, it was a suffocating option. "Then I ran into the Internet and saw an opportunity. Nobody knew what an Internet entrepreneur was supposed to look like and dress like," said Mohit, who has long hair and a full beard and jokes about owning exactly one suit, which he calls "the fund-raiser" since he only wears it when he meets with potential investors.
While in school, he and two Wharton friends organized Shopzilla, a website that helps consumers find bargains and also rates online retailers. After graduation, one friend quit. Mohit and his remaining partner moved the company to Los Angeles and, in 2005, sold it to E.W. Scripps for $525 million. "I had no interest in shopping," Mohit said. "I was just solving a problem." Offering up a bit of his personal philosophy, he added, "Opportunities are all around you. Luck is everywhere. Just look around."
One shared quality among the entrepreneurs who came to the conference was their optimism. For them, entrepreneurship doesn't require dreaming up an idea as obscure and knotty as Einstein's theory of relativity. Rather, it entails snatching one of the many opportunities that, if you are paying attention, you will encounter through your job or through your experiences -- and frustrations -- as a consumer.
Rob Poor, founder and president of Cambridge, Mass.-based Adozu, a maker of wireless networking systems, put it this way: "I've come to view the world as a place of intellectual abundance." He studied music at Oberlin College before becoming a computer programmer. Then he worked under Apple founder Steve Jobs and film director George Lucas. About a decade ago, he returned to school for a doctorate and wrote his dissertation on the ways in which a wide variety of independent electronic devices can beam data to each other. That eventually led to his founding of Adozu.
Jeff Citron also sees a world full of business opportunities. When he tries to decide which one to act on, he seeks out "disruptive technologies" -- ones that fundamentally alter the ways of commerce in a sector of the economy. His first efforts came in the securities industry, with Island ECN, an electronic trading network, and Datek Online, a web-based brokerage. Now he's chief executive of Vonage, a New Jersey-based provider of Internet telephony.
Disruptive technologies, Citron said, enable startups to jump into large, lucrative markets where established leaders have become complacent. "When faced with a technological decision, these old guys don't know what to do. Their response to new ideas is often to say, 'It won't work.'" Lazy orthodoxies can allow new entrants to thrive in niches that seem full of capable incumbents, as Dell did in personal computers and Southwest did in airlines.
Yet Citron also pointed out that aspiring entrepreneurs shouldn't assume that a disruptive technology alone will propel a startup to profitability. Execution and even luck matter, too. "Plenty of disruptive technologies never actually disrupt a market," he noted. "For a lot of different reasons, they never get adopted. Look at the Betamax video format. It should have won out, but VHS did a better job of getting to the market." Betamax provided higher quality video reproduction, but Sony, its maker, initially limited the length of tapes to an hour, while VHS recordings ran as long as three hours.
Likewise, a low price alone won't roil a market, although entrants often focus, to the exclusion of all else, on lowering prices, he said. "What disrupts is higher quality at a lower price." Take web-enabled commerce. People often rave about the savings created for consumers, which are huge, but just as important is increased convenience. Online shoppers don't battle crowds at the mall during the holiday season, nor do they have to shop during conventional business hours.
The KISS Rule
According to both Poor and Citron, another pitfall for aspiring entrepreneurs is spending too much time thinking about all the gee-whiz features they might add to their products. Instead, they should bang out prototypes and put them in consumers' hands as quickly as possible. "Remember the KISS rule: 'Keep It Simple, Stupid,'" Citron said. "Give your product to your mom. Can she use it without any problems? Then you're ready to go." Or as Poor put it: "Fail early and learn." Plus, once a company starts attracting customers, many of the other obstacles facing new ventures, like finding investors, will begin to work themselves out, both men said.
That was Punita Pandey's experience when she launched San Jose, Calif.-based netCustomer, which provides software support and services for large companies. Initially, Pandey spent significant time pitching venture capitalists on her idea of outsourcing computer services to India -- and getting nowhere. "I realized that what I should do was go out and look for customers," she said. "I had thought that I didn't pitch well. But once we had customers, we suddenly got the attention of VCs."
The role of venture capitalists sparked nearly as much talk at the conference as the challenges that entrepreneurs face. Indeed, several panelists argued that venture capitalists are the main challenge for entrepreneurs. "Did anyone ever notice how rich VCs are?" quipped Lucinda Duncalfe Holt, chief executive of Commerce360, a Plymouth Meeting, Pa., online marketing firm. "That money comes at your expense if you're an entrepreneur."
The conferees' consensus: Venture capitalists aren't the vultures that some entrepreneurs portray them as, but they're not entrepreneurs' friends, either, and they shouldn't be the first place one turns for money. The best ones bring valuable industry expertise and contacts, but all of them demand a lot in terms of equity and control in exchange for their money.
For that reason, Holt puts venture capital as number seven on her list of funding sources for new companies -- and she has led three startups. Before turning to venture capital, she will try to tap personal savings, debt, angel investments, government loans and grants and even financing from potential vendors and customers. Mousimi Shaw, for her part, increased her student loans to help start Sikara & Co., a jewelry maker.
More so than other types of investors, venture capitalists insist on telling you how to run your business, said Rodger Desai, chief executive of New York-based Rave Wireless. Their recommendations can seem shortsighted, even wrongheaded. "A lot of VCs have never managed anyone or worked in an operating company. So as a founder, you do have to fight for what you believe in. You're the only one who really knows."
Plus, VCs are necessarily impatient. They need to see a return on their investment -- or at least salvage what money they can -- within about five to seven years so they can give a return to their investors. If a company hasn't been acquired or sold stock to the public by then, and most startups never do, then the VCs will push for a sale or merger.
These realities have prevented Thomas Knobel from looking outside for money for his startups. He has opted to bootstrap them, including his current one, Carlsbad, Calif.-based Nobel Co., a seller of prepaid international phone cards. "Not everybody can bootstrap their company, and getting money from the outside can be easier than working it internally," he said. "But it's also more expensive in the long run. It's easy to give equity and very expensive to get it back, and equity is really the only thing you have in your business."
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1623
Published: December 13, 2006 in Knowledge@Wharton
Fortune 500 companies claim to be "entrepreneurial," as do charities and government agencies. Members of many Washington think tanks dub themselves "policy entrepreneurs." Even children who mow lawns and run lemonade stands get the "entrepreneur" label.
But as the term has come into wide use, its meaning has gradually eroded, leaving open the question of who entrepreneurs really are and what distinguishes their ventures from conventional ones. After all, a startup can look a lot like a regular old small business. The recent 2006 Wharton Entrepreneurship Conference, organized by the school's Entrepreneurship Club, took on this issue, inviting a group of, well, entrepreneurs to discuss their backgrounds and business philosophies and offer advice to those interested in taking the plunge.
Raffi Amit, academic director of Wharton's Goergen Entrepreneurial Management Programs, set the tone for the discussion by noting that academic research has debunked much of the conventional wisdom about entrepreneurs.
"There's a myth that entrepreneurs have special traits that distinguish them from other people," he said. "But research shows no unique characteristics. There's a myth that entrepreneurs are risk takers. But research has shown that they try to manage risk. They outsource it where they can. And there's a myth that entrepreneurs have some sort of secret method that they can apply to venture after venture. But many second-time entrepreneurs fail."
What's left? The dozens of speakers and hundreds of attendees at the conference debated the issue as they tried to find an answer. Their discussions resembled a concert by jazz great Duke Ellington's famous orchestra -- improvisational and occasionally circuitous. Ellington named one of his most famous compositions "Money Jungle," an apt moniker, perhaps, for this year's conference and the complicated, often wild world occupied by entrepreneurs.
$25,000 Credit Card Debt
According to Sam Hamadeh, founder and chief executive of Vault.com, a New York publisher of job information, being an outsider increases the likelihood that someone will want to start his own venture. "The more you are part of the establishment, the more you are giving up to start a business," he said. "Minorities, immigrants, gays and lesbians are all more likely to start businesses than other people."
Hamadeh, for his part, sacrificed the securest of establishment jobs -- an offer from a prestigious law firm -- to start Vault. Having just graduated from a dual-degree program at Wharton and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, he figured he had to plunge in then, or risk never making the effort. "When you graduate is as good a time as you'll see to start a business," he said. "The negative is you're broke. But the positive is you're broke, so you've got nothing to lose. I talk with my friends in investment banking who claim they want to try something entrepreneurial, and it's always, 'Just one more bonus season....'"
Hamadeh, a conference keynote speaker, also touched on a topic that would become a theme for the day: The trials of working with venture capitalists. "There's too much emphasis today on venture capital as a funding source," he said. "Historically, most businesses are funded using friends and family, credit cards, Small Business Administration loans and second mortgages. Very few companies are venture backed. I started Vault with $25,000 in credit card debt."
Venture capital, he added, "makes sense for very few companies. When you're in something that requires a lot of money to start or where time-to-market is critical, then maybe it makes sense."
John Tedesco, president and CEO of Santa Monica, Calif.-based Guardian Mobile Monitoring Systems, agreed with Hamadeh's assessment that socially established, financially secure individuals tend to be the least willing to quit their jobs and start companies. "The more wealth and prestige you accumulate, the more risk averse you become," he argued. That makes sense: Failure costs more if you have more to lose; it's the difference between securing a loan with a $1 million house and a $100,000 condo. Yet Tedesco also pointed out that people with money, credentials and connections are, in some ways, best situated to bounce back from business setbacks. If their ventures fail, they can tap jobs that might not be open to others. "The traditional corporate job is like a train," he quipped. "There's always another one coming."
"I Was Just Solving a Problem"
Farhad Mohit's parents immigrated from Iran to the United States, where he grew up. Yet he still retains some of the outsider point of view. After graduating from the University of California at Los Angeles, he worked as a computer programmer at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture). "I hated it," he recalled. "I hated the bureaucracy and the suits." He applied to Wharton in the mid-1990s, mainly to escape. "I figured I would get an MBA and then maybe a PhD. I thought I would be a perpetual student."
Once in school, he avoided the investment banking and consulting jobs that attracted many of his classmates. He had done the corporate route and knew that, for him, it was a suffocating option. "Then I ran into the Internet and saw an opportunity. Nobody knew what an Internet entrepreneur was supposed to look like and dress like," said Mohit, who has long hair and a full beard and jokes about owning exactly one suit, which he calls "the fund-raiser" since he only wears it when he meets with potential investors.
While in school, he and two Wharton friends organized Shopzilla, a website that helps consumers find bargains and also rates online retailers. After graduation, one friend quit. Mohit and his remaining partner moved the company to Los Angeles and, in 2005, sold it to E.W. Scripps for $525 million. "I had no interest in shopping," Mohit said. "I was just solving a problem." Offering up a bit of his personal philosophy, he added, "Opportunities are all around you. Luck is everywhere. Just look around."
One shared quality among the entrepreneurs who came to the conference was their optimism. For them, entrepreneurship doesn't require dreaming up an idea as obscure and knotty as Einstein's theory of relativity. Rather, it entails snatching one of the many opportunities that, if you are paying attention, you will encounter through your job or through your experiences -- and frustrations -- as a consumer.
Rob Poor, founder and president of Cambridge, Mass.-based Adozu, a maker of wireless networking systems, put it this way: "I've come to view the world as a place of intellectual abundance." He studied music at Oberlin College before becoming a computer programmer. Then he worked under Apple founder Steve Jobs and film director George Lucas. About a decade ago, he returned to school for a doctorate and wrote his dissertation on the ways in which a wide variety of independent electronic devices can beam data to each other. That eventually led to his founding of Adozu.
Jeff Citron also sees a world full of business opportunities. When he tries to decide which one to act on, he seeks out "disruptive technologies" -- ones that fundamentally alter the ways of commerce in a sector of the economy. His first efforts came in the securities industry, with Island ECN, an electronic trading network, and Datek Online, a web-based brokerage. Now he's chief executive of Vonage, a New Jersey-based provider of Internet telephony.
Disruptive technologies, Citron said, enable startups to jump into large, lucrative markets where established leaders have become complacent. "When faced with a technological decision, these old guys don't know what to do. Their response to new ideas is often to say, 'It won't work.'" Lazy orthodoxies can allow new entrants to thrive in niches that seem full of capable incumbents, as Dell did in personal computers and Southwest did in airlines.
Yet Citron also pointed out that aspiring entrepreneurs shouldn't assume that a disruptive technology alone will propel a startup to profitability. Execution and even luck matter, too. "Plenty of disruptive technologies never actually disrupt a market," he noted. "For a lot of different reasons, they never get adopted. Look at the Betamax video format. It should have won out, but VHS did a better job of getting to the market." Betamax provided higher quality video reproduction, but Sony, its maker, initially limited the length of tapes to an hour, while VHS recordings ran as long as three hours.
Likewise, a low price alone won't roil a market, although entrants often focus, to the exclusion of all else, on lowering prices, he said. "What disrupts is higher quality at a lower price." Take web-enabled commerce. People often rave about the savings created for consumers, which are huge, but just as important is increased convenience. Online shoppers don't battle crowds at the mall during the holiday season, nor do they have to shop during conventional business hours.
The KISS Rule
According to both Poor and Citron, another pitfall for aspiring entrepreneurs is spending too much time thinking about all the gee-whiz features they might add to their products. Instead, they should bang out prototypes and put them in consumers' hands as quickly as possible. "Remember the KISS rule: 'Keep It Simple, Stupid,'" Citron said. "Give your product to your mom. Can she use it without any problems? Then you're ready to go." Or as Poor put it: "Fail early and learn." Plus, once a company starts attracting customers, many of the other obstacles facing new ventures, like finding investors, will begin to work themselves out, both men said.
That was Punita Pandey's experience when she launched San Jose, Calif.-based netCustomer, which provides software support and services for large companies. Initially, Pandey spent significant time pitching venture capitalists on her idea of outsourcing computer services to India -- and getting nowhere. "I realized that what I should do was go out and look for customers," she said. "I had thought that I didn't pitch well. But once we had customers, we suddenly got the attention of VCs."
The role of venture capitalists sparked nearly as much talk at the conference as the challenges that entrepreneurs face. Indeed, several panelists argued that venture capitalists are the main challenge for entrepreneurs. "Did anyone ever notice how rich VCs are?" quipped Lucinda Duncalfe Holt, chief executive of Commerce360, a Plymouth Meeting, Pa., online marketing firm. "That money comes at your expense if you're an entrepreneur."
The conferees' consensus: Venture capitalists aren't the vultures that some entrepreneurs portray them as, but they're not entrepreneurs' friends, either, and they shouldn't be the first place one turns for money. The best ones bring valuable industry expertise and contacts, but all of them demand a lot in terms of equity and control in exchange for their money.
For that reason, Holt puts venture capital as number seven on her list of funding sources for new companies -- and she has led three startups. Before turning to venture capital, she will try to tap personal savings, debt, angel investments, government loans and grants and even financing from potential vendors and customers. Mousimi Shaw, for her part, increased her student loans to help start Sikara & Co., a jewelry maker.
More so than other types of investors, venture capitalists insist on telling you how to run your business, said Rodger Desai, chief executive of New York-based Rave Wireless. Their recommendations can seem shortsighted, even wrongheaded. "A lot of VCs have never managed anyone or worked in an operating company. So as a founder, you do have to fight for what you believe in. You're the only one who really knows."
Plus, VCs are necessarily impatient. They need to see a return on their investment -- or at least salvage what money they can -- within about five to seven years so they can give a return to their investors. If a company hasn't been acquired or sold stock to the public by then, and most startups never do, then the VCs will push for a sale or merger.
These realities have prevented Thomas Knobel from looking outside for money for his startups. He has opted to bootstrap them, including his current one, Carlsbad, Calif.-based Nobel Co., a seller of prepaid international phone cards. "Not everybody can bootstrap their company, and getting money from the outside can be easier than working it internally," he said. "But it's also more expensive in the long run. It's easy to give equity and very expensive to get it back, and equity is really the only thing you have in your business."
The 2nd tech revolution in village India
The Indian government’s ambitious project of setting up 1,00,000 Common Service Centres takes technology to the doorstep of the common citizen
by Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr Delhi
The next stage of Information Technology (IT), it seems, will now happen in the countryside, if the Manmohan Singh government’s decision to create a network of 1,00,000 e-kiosks, to be known as Common Services Centre (CSCs), in the rural areas in 2007 is to become a reality. E-kiosk is seen as a nodal point to make e-governance meaningful. It is when villagers can transact official business through the network of e-kiosks that it can be claimed digitalisation of governance has been achieved.
E-kiosk is being seen as an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) unit that includes personal computers (PCs), printers, digital cameras, scanners, projection system and tele-medicine equipment. It certainly looks a lot more ambitious than the PCOs or the private cellular operators who increased telecommunication connectivity by leaps and bounds. It was during the first flush of young Rajiv Gandhi’s call for marching into the 21st century, and Sam Pitroda, who undertook the telecomunication mission, delivered it with a quiet panache. In many ways, e-kiosk can be seen as a more sophisticated expansion and upgradation of the PCO of the 1980s.
The kiosk project is being structured as a three-tier system, with the village-level entrepreneur (VLE), who will manage the kiosk, and who is being seen as a franchisee. The next level is that of the Service Level Agency (SLA), with an apex agency facilitating the service at the state level. To work out the modalities, the Department of Information Technology (DIT) has chosen Infrastructure Lending and Financial Services (IL&FS) as the national level agency (NLA). The mission-mode is the favoured means to implement the scheme.
A private document of IL&FS looking at the implementation of the CSC project argues for a bottom-up model that “can allow like-minded public and private enterprises—through a collaborative framework—to integrate their goals of profit as well as social objectives, into a sustainable business model for achieving rapid socio-economic change in rural India.” The basic model on offer is a public-private partnership.
It is clear that government alone will not be able to create the 1,00,000 e-kiosk network because lack of funds will remain an obstacle. Private-sector participation will enable the scheme to be a sustainable one by creating an appropriate business model.
An interesting aspect of the IL&FS report is the argument that private sector can be used effectively in the delivery of public service systems. Until now, policy pundits in the government as well as in the private sector had argued that public services should be left to the government, and that private sector should be allowed to grow and expand and generate wealth, which, then, would trickle down to the others.
There is a change of heart in the private sector as the realisation dawns that public service delivery systems need not necessarily mean an all-expenditure scheme, and that there are returns as well. It will be something on the lines of the private health services system, which generates handsome income as people are willing to pay. Of course, the money to be charged has to remain within reasonable limits. The report also argues that the business model for the CSC scheme facilitates creation of employment and generation of incomes, which will have a positive cascading effect on the rural economy, which has remained at the subsistence level for a majority of people living in villages.
It is argued that this is not the first time that private sector has played a key role in the rural sector, especially in spreading rural connectivity through satellite technology and by offering entertainment through cable network. So, it does make sense to harness the capability and expertise of private sector to spread IT-enabled services in the rural sector.
The promising part of the scheme is its employment potential. It is projected that the scheme would create 2,25,000 direct jobs in the villages, apart from the indirect job opportunities through the expansion of rural markets. The exact figure is certainly modest, but it need not be faulted on that count. The 1,00,000 e-kiosk scheme can only be the first stage, and there is potential for enormous growth in the future.
The scheme also conforms to the long-term plan of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s economic reform agenda that the net should be cast wide to bring in beneficiaries. The focus on rural areas is not out of place.
The main criticism against the present government has been that it is trying to pursue populism, on the one hand, through programmes like the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NRGS), economic packages to relieve farmers in distress et al, and, on the other hand, it wants to push big-ticket reforms through schemes like Special Economic Zones (SEZs). Critics of the government are sure to describe the exercise as one of riding two horses, while the government will defend itself saying that it is adopting a two-pronged approach.
The IL&FS report cites some interesting data with regard to progress of e-governance in some of the states. It notes: “Several State Governments, too, have been at the forefront of e-government innovation, especially in the rural areas. The Bhoomi project has computerised 20,000,000 rural land records covering 67,00,000 farmers in the state of Karnataka. The CARD project in Andhra Pradesh has registered over 10 million
citizens in three years. The Rajiv Project has reportedly recorded transactions worth Rs21 crore in the last five months only on electricity bill payments in rural Andhra Pradesh.”
The CSC scheme is a necessary complement to e-government. The e-kiosk will enable the villager to access the information and services that government offers through its e-government windows. Instead of doing the endless and fruitless rounds of government offices in the village and in the district headquarters, where the hierarchy-based bureaucracy throws its weight around, villagers can access information as well as get work done more efficiently through IT modes.
The CSC scheme is both feasible and attractive. There is much in it for the private sector, especially the business model. It now realises that there are profits to be made in the rural sector as well, which is what drives the private sector. There is nothing wrong with that. But what the private sector will have to ensure is the efficient qualitative delivery of services.
If more than one service provider exists, then competition will keep prices down as well as ensure that people are not taken for a ride. Monopolies, whether in public or private sector, are to be avoided like plague.
More importantly, it is one of the best ways of empowering economically and socially weak villagers. The maxim that knowledge is power could be suitably changed to “Information is power”. Give information to the poor. This could serve as a better catalyst to remove illiteracy. Through the ITinterface, people will see the direct reward for turning literate
by Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr Delhi
The next stage of Information Technology (IT), it seems, will now happen in the countryside, if the Manmohan Singh government’s decision to create a network of 1,00,000 e-kiosks, to be known as Common Services Centre (CSCs), in the rural areas in 2007 is to become a reality. E-kiosk is seen as a nodal point to make e-governance meaningful. It is when villagers can transact official business through the network of e-kiosks that it can be claimed digitalisation of governance has been achieved.
E-kiosk is being seen as an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) unit that includes personal computers (PCs), printers, digital cameras, scanners, projection system and tele-medicine equipment. It certainly looks a lot more ambitious than the PCOs or the private cellular operators who increased telecommunication connectivity by leaps and bounds. It was during the first flush of young Rajiv Gandhi’s call for marching into the 21st century, and Sam Pitroda, who undertook the telecomunication mission, delivered it with a quiet panache. In many ways, e-kiosk can be seen as a more sophisticated expansion and upgradation of the PCO of the 1980s.
The kiosk project is being structured as a three-tier system, with the village-level entrepreneur (VLE), who will manage the kiosk, and who is being seen as a franchisee. The next level is that of the Service Level Agency (SLA), with an apex agency facilitating the service at the state level. To work out the modalities, the Department of Information Technology (DIT) has chosen Infrastructure Lending and Financial Services (IL&FS) as the national level agency (NLA). The mission-mode is the favoured means to implement the scheme.
A private document of IL&FS looking at the implementation of the CSC project argues for a bottom-up model that “can allow like-minded public and private enterprises—through a collaborative framework—to integrate their goals of profit as well as social objectives, into a sustainable business model for achieving rapid socio-economic change in rural India.” The basic model on offer is a public-private partnership.
It is clear that government alone will not be able to create the 1,00,000 e-kiosk network because lack of funds will remain an obstacle. Private-sector participation will enable the scheme to be a sustainable one by creating an appropriate business model.
An interesting aspect of the IL&FS report is the argument that private sector can be used effectively in the delivery of public service systems. Until now, policy pundits in the government as well as in the private sector had argued that public services should be left to the government, and that private sector should be allowed to grow and expand and generate wealth, which, then, would trickle down to the others.
There is a change of heart in the private sector as the realisation dawns that public service delivery systems need not necessarily mean an all-expenditure scheme, and that there are returns as well. It will be something on the lines of the private health services system, which generates handsome income as people are willing to pay. Of course, the money to be charged has to remain within reasonable limits. The report also argues that the business model for the CSC scheme facilitates creation of employment and generation of incomes, which will have a positive cascading effect on the rural economy, which has remained at the subsistence level for a majority of people living in villages.
It is argued that this is not the first time that private sector has played a key role in the rural sector, especially in spreading rural connectivity through satellite technology and by offering entertainment through cable network. So, it does make sense to harness the capability and expertise of private sector to spread IT-enabled services in the rural sector.
The promising part of the scheme is its employment potential. It is projected that the scheme would create 2,25,000 direct jobs in the villages, apart from the indirect job opportunities through the expansion of rural markets. The exact figure is certainly modest, but it need not be faulted on that count. The 1,00,000 e-kiosk scheme can only be the first stage, and there is potential for enormous growth in the future.
The scheme also conforms to the long-term plan of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s economic reform agenda that the net should be cast wide to bring in beneficiaries. The focus on rural areas is not out of place.
The main criticism against the present government has been that it is trying to pursue populism, on the one hand, through programmes like the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NRGS), economic packages to relieve farmers in distress et al, and, on the other hand, it wants to push big-ticket reforms through schemes like Special Economic Zones (SEZs). Critics of the government are sure to describe the exercise as one of riding two horses, while the government will defend itself saying that it is adopting a two-pronged approach.
The IL&FS report cites some interesting data with regard to progress of e-governance in some of the states. It notes: “Several State Governments, too, have been at the forefront of e-government innovation, especially in the rural areas. The Bhoomi project has computerised 20,000,000 rural land records covering 67,00,000 farmers in the state of Karnataka. The CARD project in Andhra Pradesh has registered over 10 million
citizens in three years. The Rajiv Project has reportedly recorded transactions worth Rs21 crore in the last five months only on electricity bill payments in rural Andhra Pradesh.”
The CSC scheme is a necessary complement to e-government. The e-kiosk will enable the villager to access the information and services that government offers through its e-government windows. Instead of doing the endless and fruitless rounds of government offices in the village and in the district headquarters, where the hierarchy-based bureaucracy throws its weight around, villagers can access information as well as get work done more efficiently through IT modes.
The CSC scheme is both feasible and attractive. There is much in it for the private sector, especially the business model. It now realises that there are profits to be made in the rural sector as well, which is what drives the private sector. There is nothing wrong with that. But what the private sector will have to ensure is the efficient qualitative delivery of services.
If more than one service provider exists, then competition will keep prices down as well as ensure that people are not taken for a ride. Monopolies, whether in public or private sector, are to be avoided like plague.
More importantly, it is one of the best ways of empowering economically and socially weak villagers. The maxim that knowledge is power could be suitably changed to “Information is power”. Give information to the poor. This could serve as a better catalyst to remove illiteracy. Through the ITinterface, people will see the direct reward for turning literate
Sunday 17 December 2006
Is There a Gene for Business?
This came from fellow TiE Member, Afsar Abrahim
BusinessWeek.com recently asked a cross-section of experts if entrepreneurs are made or born. When it comes to being an entrepreneur, is it simply a matter of physiological hard wiring? Or is the entrepreneurial spark something that can be lit? Clearly, qualities such as risk taking and determination, common traits in many entrepreneurs, are part of one's DNA. However, transforming inspiration into a business concept is one thing, and transforming a concept into an actual business is another. Can the characteristics often associated with entrepreneurs—drive, confidence, insight—be acquired? Can they be learned? With more and more individuals eschewing the corporate ladder in order to start their own outfits at ever younger ages, BusinessWeek.com recently put the question to a cross-section of entrepreneurs and academics: Are entrepreneurs born or made? Mark Veeder, co-founder and creative director of Event Quest in New York City and co-owner and co-creator of the River Market in Barryville, N.Y.: I think entrepreneurs are definitely born. Even though "the making of an entrepreneur" is a huge business in this country with Tony Robbins and the rest, I think those programs try to systematize the mind of the entrepreneur, which is impossible. My feeling is that entrepreneurs are a rare mix, the perfect storm of creativity, talent, confidence, personality, drive, intuition, and energy. They possess a high EQ [emotional quotient], and their IQ is not as important—it's a lifestyle, it's embedded like an instinct, not something you can turn on and off. At times it is a blessing and a curse. While many people are dreamers, a true entrepreneur's dreams are converted into realities because true entrepreneurs are always creating, always thinking of ideas, mentally evaluating endless possibilities and are excited by the new and the next. Trish Karter, president and founder of Dancing Deer Bakery in Boston: I can't answer the nature/nurture question. But if a person's background and intuition don't make her/him comfortable with risk, resilient in the face of ridiculously challenging circumstances, unreasonably optimistic about the future, and instinctively inclined to put two feet on the ground happilyevery morning, they aren't likely to be counted in the successful entrepreneur column. I don't think an entrepreneur must necessarily be an innovative thinker, but successful ones often have those interesting brains that see the world differently, which is perhaps where the gene pool comes in. Neal Thornberry, faculty director of the Babson Executive Education at Babson College and author of Lead Like an Entrepreneur: The actual answer is yes and no. We know we can teach people elements of the entrepreneurial mindset and skill set, but one thing needs inducement and the other involves self perception. We can clearly teach people to identify new business opportunities, and we can teach them how to differentiate a good idea from a good opportunity. In fact much of what we do at Babson is to teach students how to think and act like entrepreneurs. So we teach students how to finance their ideas, how to assess market demand, how to scale the business, mitigate risk, etc. But the passion that entrepreneurs must have to take their ideas all the way through to creating a viable new business enterprise is not so teachable. And the passion we are talking about is for their idea. They need either to be in love with it or learn to love it if they are going to have the perseverance to see it through. I have had many people who had not shown any entrepreneurial orientation who got switched on by learning about entrepreneurship. The other, less teachable part of entrepreneurship is the belief that the person has the ability to turn their idea into a business. We often find people with a good opportunity, but they don't have enough confidence in themselves. Education can help here as well, but equally important is surrounding the would-be entrepreneur with others who share his/her excitement for the idea. Frank Moss, director of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and former CEO of Tivoli Systems as well as co-founder of Stellar Computer and Infinity Pharmaceuticals: I would suggest that the entrepreneurial gene is in everyone's DNA. Eons before the first big companies emerged about a thousand years ago we were all entrepreneurs: farmers, craftsmen, artisans, storytellers, bloodletters, etc. I believe that we are all born with the ability to be an entrepreneur, but we have to unlearn the risk-averse behavior that became part of our culture in the developed world over the past 500 years. As information and communication technologies tear down these barriers, we will see a full circle as billions of people will be empowered to express their entrepreneurial genes.
BusinessWeek.com recently asked a cross-section of experts if entrepreneurs are made or born. When it comes to being an entrepreneur, is it simply a matter of physiological hard wiring? Or is the entrepreneurial spark something that can be lit? Clearly, qualities such as risk taking and determination, common traits in many entrepreneurs, are part of one's DNA. However, transforming inspiration into a business concept is one thing, and transforming a concept into an actual business is another. Can the characteristics often associated with entrepreneurs—drive, confidence, insight—be acquired? Can they be learned? With more and more individuals eschewing the corporate ladder in order to start their own outfits at ever younger ages, BusinessWeek.com recently put the question to a cross-section of entrepreneurs and academics: Are entrepreneurs born or made? Mark Veeder, co-founder and creative director of Event Quest in New York City and co-owner and co-creator of the River Market in Barryville, N.Y.: I think entrepreneurs are definitely born. Even though "the making of an entrepreneur" is a huge business in this country with Tony Robbins and the rest, I think those programs try to systematize the mind of the entrepreneur, which is impossible. My feeling is that entrepreneurs are a rare mix, the perfect storm of creativity, talent, confidence, personality, drive, intuition, and energy. They possess a high EQ [emotional quotient], and their IQ is not as important—it's a lifestyle, it's embedded like an instinct, not something you can turn on and off. At times it is a blessing and a curse. While many people are dreamers, a true entrepreneur's dreams are converted into realities because true entrepreneurs are always creating, always thinking of ideas, mentally evaluating endless possibilities and are excited by the new and the next. Trish Karter, president and founder of Dancing Deer Bakery in Boston: I can't answer the nature/nurture question. But if a person's background and intuition don't make her/him comfortable with risk, resilient in the face of ridiculously challenging circumstances, unreasonably optimistic about the future, and instinctively inclined to put two feet on the ground happilyevery morning, they aren't likely to be counted in the successful entrepreneur column. I don't think an entrepreneur must necessarily be an innovative thinker, but successful ones often have those interesting brains that see the world differently, which is perhaps where the gene pool comes in. Neal Thornberry, faculty director of the Babson Executive Education at Babson College and author of Lead Like an Entrepreneur: The actual answer is yes and no. We know we can teach people elements of the entrepreneurial mindset and skill set, but one thing needs inducement and the other involves self perception. We can clearly teach people to identify new business opportunities, and we can teach them how to differentiate a good idea from a good opportunity. In fact much of what we do at Babson is to teach students how to think and act like entrepreneurs. So we teach students how to finance their ideas, how to assess market demand, how to scale the business, mitigate risk, etc. But the passion that entrepreneurs must have to take their ideas all the way through to creating a viable new business enterprise is not so teachable. And the passion we are talking about is for their idea. They need either to be in love with it or learn to love it if they are going to have the perseverance to see it through. I have had many people who had not shown any entrepreneurial orientation who got switched on by learning about entrepreneurship. The other, less teachable part of entrepreneurship is the belief that the person has the ability to turn their idea into a business. We often find people with a good opportunity, but they don't have enough confidence in themselves. Education can help here as well, but equally important is surrounding the would-be entrepreneur with others who share his/her excitement for the idea. Frank Moss, director of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and former CEO of Tivoli Systems as well as co-founder of Stellar Computer and Infinity Pharmaceuticals: I would suggest that the entrepreneurial gene is in everyone's DNA. Eons before the first big companies emerged about a thousand years ago we were all entrepreneurs: farmers, craftsmen, artisans, storytellers, bloodletters, etc. I believe that we are all born with the ability to be an entrepreneur, but we have to unlearn the risk-averse behavior that became part of our culture in the developed world over the past 500 years. As information and communication technologies tear down these barriers, we will see a full circle as billions of people will be empowered to express their entrepreneurial genes.
Friday 15 December 2006
Who is a Hindu?
“Who is a Hindu?” Gandhi called himself a Hindu and gave the following rationale. “I call myself a Sanatani Hindu, because: (1) I believe in the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Puran and all that which goes by the name of Hindu scriptures, and therefore in avatars and rebirth; (2) I believe in the Varnasharma Dharma in a sense, in my opinion strictly Vedic, but not in its present popular and crude sense; (3) I believe in the protection of cow in its much larger sense than the popular, and (4) I do not disbelieve in idol worship.[xxviii] He further explained his belief in cow worship. “The central fact of Hinduism , however, is cow-protection. Cow-protection to me is one of the most wonderful phenomena in human evolution. It takes the human being beyond his species. The cow to me means the entire sub-human world. Man, through the cow, is enjoined to realize his identity with all that which lives. Why the cow was selected for apotheosis is obvious to me. The cow was in India the best companion. She was the giver of plenty. Not only did she give milk, but she also made agriculture possible. The cow is a poem on pity. One reads pity in the gentle animal. She is the mother of millions of Indians. Protection of the cow means protection of the whole dumb-creation of God. The ancient seer, whoever he was, began with the cow. The appeal of the lower order of creation is the gift of Hinduism to the world. And Hinduism will live so long as there are Hindus to protect the cow.[xxix]
According to B. G. Tilak, a Hindu is defined by the “acceptance of the Vedas with reverence; recognition of the fact that the means or ways to salvation are diverse, and the realization of the truth that the numbers of the gods to be worshiped is large, that indeed is the distinguishing feature of the Hindu religion.”
Since the RNI are anti-Hindu, their members have gone to the Supreme Court, thrice, to get Hindutva banned. It is educative to learn how the Supreme Court defined it. In fact, the Supreme Court has defined Hindutava in three separate judgments: 1966, 1977 and.1995.[xxx] In all these cases, it accepted Tilak's definition.
The first judgment of the Supreme Court in 1966: [xxxi]It says, “Unlike other religions in the world, the Hindu religion does not claim any one prophet; it does not worship any one god; it does not subscribe to any one dogma, it does not believe in one philosophical concept, it does not satisfy the narrow traditional features of any religion.” It maintained that constitution makers were fully conscious of the broad and comprehensive character of the Hindu religion, which included Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists within the term “Hinduism .” It quoted the opinions of (i) S. Radhakrishnan that Hindu implies residence in a well-defined geographical area, that is India; (ii) Monier Williams that Hindu religion is based on the idea of universal receptivity; and (iii) Arnold Toynbee that Hinduism takes for granted that there is more than one approach to truth.
The second judgment was delivered in 1977 by five judges including Justices M. H. Beg and R. S. Sarkaria -- both non-Hindus . It describes Hindutava as follows: “In principle, Hinduism incorporates all forms of belief and worship without necessitating the selection or elimination of any.” “The Hindu is inclined to revere the divine in every manifestation and is doctrinally tolerant, leaving others, both Hindus and non Hindus -- whatever creed and worship practices suits them the most.” “A Hindu may embrace a non-Hindu religion without ceasing to be a Hindu.” “Hinduism is then both a civilization and conglomerate of religions with neither a beginning, a founder, nor a central authority hierarchy or organization.” This judgment also quoted Encyclopedia Britannica.[xxxii]
The third judgment by the Supreme Court was delivered in 1995 and is recorded in 1996.[xxxiii] It was given in a case under the election law asking the court to disqualify use of Hindutva for elections because asking votes in the name of Hindutva was religious appeal. It describes Hindutva as follows. “Hindutva is indicative more of the way of life of the Indian people.” “It is not Hindu fundamentalism;” “nor is it to be confined only to the strict Hindu religious practices;” “[nor is it] unrelated to the culture and ethos of the people of India, depicting the way of life of the Indian people.” Considering Hindutva as hostile, inimical, or intolerant of other faiths, or as communal “proceeds from an improper appreciation of its true meaning.” It quotes Maulana Wahiuddin Khan [xxxiv]who considers Hindutva synonymous with Indian; to the Maulana, Indian and Hindu are one and the same. Recently, even Vasant Sathe, a Congressman and an RNI, has supported Vir Savarkar's formulation of Hindutva.[xxxv]
Read the full post by Romesh Diwan on
http://romesh-diwan.sulekha.com/blog/post/2003/02/india-ascendant.htm
According to B. G. Tilak, a Hindu is defined by the “acceptance of the Vedas with reverence; recognition of the fact that the means or ways to salvation are diverse, and the realization of the truth that the numbers of the gods to be worshiped is large, that indeed is the distinguishing feature of the Hindu religion.”
Since the RNI are anti-Hindu, their members have gone to the Supreme Court, thrice, to get Hindutva banned. It is educative to learn how the Supreme Court defined it. In fact, the Supreme Court has defined Hindutava in three separate judgments: 1966, 1977 and.1995.[xxx] In all these cases, it accepted Tilak's definition.
The first judgment of the Supreme Court in 1966: [xxxi]It says, “Unlike other religions in the world, the Hindu religion does not claim any one prophet; it does not worship any one god; it does not subscribe to any one dogma, it does not believe in one philosophical concept, it does not satisfy the narrow traditional features of any religion.” It maintained that constitution makers were fully conscious of the broad and comprehensive character of the Hindu religion, which included Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists within the term “Hinduism .” It quoted the opinions of (i) S. Radhakrishnan that Hindu implies residence in a well-defined geographical area, that is India; (ii) Monier Williams that Hindu religion is based on the idea of universal receptivity; and (iii) Arnold Toynbee that Hinduism takes for granted that there is more than one approach to truth.
The second judgment was delivered in 1977 by five judges including Justices M. H. Beg and R. S. Sarkaria -- both non-Hindus . It describes Hindutava as follows: “In principle, Hinduism incorporates all forms of belief and worship without necessitating the selection or elimination of any.” “The Hindu is inclined to revere the divine in every manifestation and is doctrinally tolerant, leaving others, both Hindus and non Hindus -- whatever creed and worship practices suits them the most.” “A Hindu may embrace a non-Hindu religion without ceasing to be a Hindu.” “Hinduism is then both a civilization and conglomerate of religions with neither a beginning, a founder, nor a central authority hierarchy or organization.” This judgment also quoted Encyclopedia Britannica.[xxxii]
The third judgment by the Supreme Court was delivered in 1995 and is recorded in 1996.[xxxiii] It was given in a case under the election law asking the court to disqualify use of Hindutva for elections because asking votes in the name of Hindutva was religious appeal. It describes Hindutva as follows. “Hindutva is indicative more of the way of life of the Indian people.” “It is not Hindu fundamentalism;” “nor is it to be confined only to the strict Hindu religious practices;” “[nor is it] unrelated to the culture and ethos of the people of India, depicting the way of life of the Indian people.” Considering Hindutva as hostile, inimical, or intolerant of other faiths, or as communal “proceeds from an improper appreciation of its true meaning.” It quotes Maulana Wahiuddin Khan [xxxiv]who considers Hindutva synonymous with Indian; to the Maulana, Indian and Hindu are one and the same. Recently, even Vasant Sathe, a Congressman and an RNI, has supported Vir Savarkar's formulation of Hindutva.[xxxv]
Read the full post by Romesh Diwan on
http://romesh-diwan.sulekha.com/blog/post/2003/02/india-ascendant.htm
Tuesday 12 December 2006
Back to the Future by Rajah Ramdaursingh
I loved reading this article when it was first published in 2003. I still like it and wish to keep it here for my records.
For those of you who did not read it in 2003, here it is - posted for you ( I dug it from the Le Express Archive recently)
Back to the Future
by Rajah Ramdaursingh
ALLOW ME to take you for a ride… to the glorious year of 2030. Twenty seven years away but what a change. We land not far from Plaisance airport where the new generation Boeings of Mauritius Airways stand proudly aside the planes of the other national and charter airlines on the two runways. The visitors pour in not only for sun, sand and sea but also for alternative modes of relaxation as well as for the chance encounter with the jet set. The Bel Ombre resorts boast of being the Saint Tropez of the Southern hemisphere with the international paparazzi keeping tabs on the wealthy and famous. Driving around the island, you cannot help noticing that King Sugar is no more. There are still some sugar cane plantations around but their primary focus has moved to the production of various forms of energy. The expertise that was once developed in the sugar industry has been put to good use in the fast evolving biotechnology sector. Mahebourg has been twinned to Barcelona as its busy port plays host to the many Spanish trawlers and other vessels fishing in our seas, since long heralded as our most abundant natural resource and pregnant with jobs for our blue-collar labour. So much so that given the importance of the fisheries sector in the national economy, Mahebourg [bears comparison] to the Port Louis harbour which has in the meantime established itself as a flourishing modern hub. Mauritius does not rule the waves but has in more ways than one become the meeting point between Africa and Asia be it for trade between the two continents or provision of services from the Mauritian springboard. The various cyber towers around the island house some of the most famous names from around the globe. Although their predecessor at Ebene took a number of years to reach cruising speed amidst tough competition and the ever-changing global context, it set the tone for the creation of “the intelligent island”. The well trained indigenous workforce work alongside its African and Asian counterparts in servicing the now well established worldwide fifth generation outsourcing markets. Indeed the island seems to have become an educational and training hub providing onsite and virtual courses to the local and regional populace. The island, once so proud of its basic literacy rate, can now boast of a high training and educational coefficient. All this has no doubt helped the financial sector which has since integrated the business services sector. Long gone are the days when managers spent sleepless nights worrying about the latest regulation to be imposed or indeed the latest Indian High Court judgement. Despite the reduction of tax rates worldwide, the offshore sector continues to prosper as an efficient and well regulated back-office jurisdiction. The banks and insurance companies withstood the various shocks they faced and through strategic alliances with international institutions, have become well established names in the region. Erosion of competitive advantages Although it has dwindled in size, the predicted demise of the traditional manufacturing sector has not materialised. The George Bush House, in honour of its main benefactor, has built a solid reputation as a centre of excellence for the design and styling of garments supporting the few high end textile factories on the island but more importantly those on the mainland and in Madagascar which seems to have finally lived up to its potential. Other factories have been established to support the fisheries freeport, pharmaceutical and technology sectors. Although appearances can be deceptive, it is obvious that the island has come a long way indeed. We are told that its GDP has grown threefold over the last thirty years aided no doubt by the record level of investment in the now well diversified economic base as well as its increased competitiveness underpinned by the constant quest for higher level of productivity not only as far as labour is concerned but also for capital and the other factors of production. It also appears that both blue and white collar jobs are plentiful as unemployment has been curbed to an acceptable level. Apart from the fact that the national finances seem have been redressed eliminating the risks arising from the chronic high levels of indebtedness and deficit of the past, the nicest aspect is the feeling that the benefits of the development have permeated to all its inhabitants. The crave, not to have an equal share of the country’s resources, but to have the opportunity to have a fair share of its wealth seems to receive more than mere lip service by the stakeholders. All this is a very far cry from the less than rosy picture which bedevilled the country at the beginning of the century. Then the regular release of hotly contested sets of economic indicators only served to confirm what people already felt in their everyday lives. The lack of preparedness in tackling the challenges resulting from, amongst others, the erosion of our competitive advantages in the sugar and manufacturing sectors, and the changing world environment had contributed to the poor state of affairs. The challenges facing the country were then summarized very simply at five levels. As far as the country was concerned, firstly it needed to improve its foothold in the world market by offering higher value added products on more competitive terms to markets it understood. As a result there needed to be massive investment and a cultural shift to facilitate a swift transition from its then semi manufacturing economic base to a more diversified one with an adequately trained manpower to service a modern production and management system. Secondly the level of debt whether at national or household level needed to be brought under control and the books balanced in order to avoid the dire consequences of a persistent mismatch between revenue and expenditure. Thirdly, as far as the people were concerned, their main concern remained the improvement if not the safeguard of their standard of living and being able to secure a decent job for themselves and their children. Next, we needed to reinforce the safety net provided to the really needy to enable them to have access to the services to ensure their well being and advancement. Lastly, most craved for the opportunity to have a fair share of the fruits of development based on the resources they contributed and their ability to develop them. Recognizing our strengths and failures So how did the country manage to make such a leap forward to what we now see in 2030? It was probably simpler than most of us would have dared imagine once we recognized that there was no instant miracle or indeed possible alchemy. Success depended on facing up to the issues facing the country and explaining them truthfully to one and all, recognizing our strengths and weaknesses, instilling predictability and transparency so as to win the confidence of investors and other stakeholders, all round better governance, fighting corruption, working relentlessly towards a more diversified and fairer economy even if it meant getting rid of sacred cows, being bold and innovative by opening up more to the outside world and capitalizing on regional opportunities, and by being more efficient in all walks of the economy. Most of all it required having a clear vision rather than a piecemeal approach and working unflinchingly towards converting this into action. Whilst the country’s size is possibly one of its biggest weaknesses in terms of economies of scale and resources, it nonetheless provides the opportunity to be more dexterous and to benefit from a greater and quicker impact from the optimal use of limited resources. The country continued to invest massively in targeted education, training and infrastructure which were essential to create the backbone of a modern economy. The overspending in these areas was compensated by better pricing of Government services and resources as well as more rigorous spending in less essential areas of the private and public sectors. Coupled with the massive drive against corruption in all walks of life, the never-ending fight for greater efficiency not only helped to improve collection of revenues, avoid distortions and save millions but also to instill the ethos of transparency, discipline, fairness and just reward. The country recognized its dependence on the outside world not only as a market for the goods and services it produced but also as a means to improve its own economic structures and performance. Strategic partnerships were encouraged in all sectors as a means to promote investment, benefit from know-how and systems advances elsewhere, ensure efficiency and meritocracy, and access markets. Whilst all parties, realizing the challenges posed by the survival of the fittest, contributed by implementing better governance in he economy, Government helped by adding transparency and predictability to the already stable environment, thus helping to reduce the risk perception of investors whether local or international. It jumpstarted the process by concessioning out the utilities to international firms in alliance with local firms. Furthermore, attractive incentives were offered to those players who could add value to specific sectors and unlock the country’s wealth. At the same time paradoxically the country started to expect less from Government as it realized that all stakeholders meant business and that their destiny lay in their own hands. I did ask you to allow me to take you for a ride. But is all this as far fetched, as it seems? I somehow feel that we may be in for a bumpy ride but as long as we have a safe landing. Rajah Ramdaursingh
The country recognized its dependence on the outside world not only as a market for the goods and services it produced but also as a means to improve its own economic structures and performance.
For those of you who did not read it in 2003, here it is - posted for you ( I dug it from the Le Express Archive recently)
Back to the Future
by Rajah Ramdaursingh
ALLOW ME to take you for a ride… to the glorious year of 2030. Twenty seven years away but what a change. We land not far from Plaisance airport where the new generation Boeings of Mauritius Airways stand proudly aside the planes of the other national and charter airlines on the two runways. The visitors pour in not only for sun, sand and sea but also for alternative modes of relaxation as well as for the chance encounter with the jet set. The Bel Ombre resorts boast of being the Saint Tropez of the Southern hemisphere with the international paparazzi keeping tabs on the wealthy and famous. Driving around the island, you cannot help noticing that King Sugar is no more. There are still some sugar cane plantations around but their primary focus has moved to the production of various forms of energy. The expertise that was once developed in the sugar industry has been put to good use in the fast evolving biotechnology sector. Mahebourg has been twinned to Barcelona as its busy port plays host to the many Spanish trawlers and other vessels fishing in our seas, since long heralded as our most abundant natural resource and pregnant with jobs for our blue-collar labour. So much so that given the importance of the fisheries sector in the national economy, Mahebourg [bears comparison] to the Port Louis harbour which has in the meantime established itself as a flourishing modern hub. Mauritius does not rule the waves but has in more ways than one become the meeting point between Africa and Asia be it for trade between the two continents or provision of services from the Mauritian springboard. The various cyber towers around the island house some of the most famous names from around the globe. Although their predecessor at Ebene took a number of years to reach cruising speed amidst tough competition and the ever-changing global context, it set the tone for the creation of “the intelligent island”. The well trained indigenous workforce work alongside its African and Asian counterparts in servicing the now well established worldwide fifth generation outsourcing markets. Indeed the island seems to have become an educational and training hub providing onsite and virtual courses to the local and regional populace. The island, once so proud of its basic literacy rate, can now boast of a high training and educational coefficient. All this has no doubt helped the financial sector which has since integrated the business services sector. Long gone are the days when managers spent sleepless nights worrying about the latest regulation to be imposed or indeed the latest Indian High Court judgement. Despite the reduction of tax rates worldwide, the offshore sector continues to prosper as an efficient and well regulated back-office jurisdiction. The banks and insurance companies withstood the various shocks they faced and through strategic alliances with international institutions, have become well established names in the region. Erosion of competitive advantages Although it has dwindled in size, the predicted demise of the traditional manufacturing sector has not materialised. The George Bush House, in honour of its main benefactor, has built a solid reputation as a centre of excellence for the design and styling of garments supporting the few high end textile factories on the island but more importantly those on the mainland and in Madagascar which seems to have finally lived up to its potential. Other factories have been established to support the fisheries freeport, pharmaceutical and technology sectors. Although appearances can be deceptive, it is obvious that the island has come a long way indeed. We are told that its GDP has grown threefold over the last thirty years aided no doubt by the record level of investment in the now well diversified economic base as well as its increased competitiveness underpinned by the constant quest for higher level of productivity not only as far as labour is concerned but also for capital and the other factors of production. It also appears that both blue and white collar jobs are plentiful as unemployment has been curbed to an acceptable level. Apart from the fact that the national finances seem have been redressed eliminating the risks arising from the chronic high levels of indebtedness and deficit of the past, the nicest aspect is the feeling that the benefits of the development have permeated to all its inhabitants. The crave, not to have an equal share of the country’s resources, but to have the opportunity to have a fair share of its wealth seems to receive more than mere lip service by the stakeholders. All this is a very far cry from the less than rosy picture which bedevilled the country at the beginning of the century. Then the regular release of hotly contested sets of economic indicators only served to confirm what people already felt in their everyday lives. The lack of preparedness in tackling the challenges resulting from, amongst others, the erosion of our competitive advantages in the sugar and manufacturing sectors, and the changing world environment had contributed to the poor state of affairs. The challenges facing the country were then summarized very simply at five levels. As far as the country was concerned, firstly it needed to improve its foothold in the world market by offering higher value added products on more competitive terms to markets it understood. As a result there needed to be massive investment and a cultural shift to facilitate a swift transition from its then semi manufacturing economic base to a more diversified one with an adequately trained manpower to service a modern production and management system. Secondly the level of debt whether at national or household level needed to be brought under control and the books balanced in order to avoid the dire consequences of a persistent mismatch between revenue and expenditure. Thirdly, as far as the people were concerned, their main concern remained the improvement if not the safeguard of their standard of living and being able to secure a decent job for themselves and their children. Next, we needed to reinforce the safety net provided to the really needy to enable them to have access to the services to ensure their well being and advancement. Lastly, most craved for the opportunity to have a fair share of the fruits of development based on the resources they contributed and their ability to develop them. Recognizing our strengths and failures So how did the country manage to make such a leap forward to what we now see in 2030? It was probably simpler than most of us would have dared imagine once we recognized that there was no instant miracle or indeed possible alchemy. Success depended on facing up to the issues facing the country and explaining them truthfully to one and all, recognizing our strengths and weaknesses, instilling predictability and transparency so as to win the confidence of investors and other stakeholders, all round better governance, fighting corruption, working relentlessly towards a more diversified and fairer economy even if it meant getting rid of sacred cows, being bold and innovative by opening up more to the outside world and capitalizing on regional opportunities, and by being more efficient in all walks of the economy. Most of all it required having a clear vision rather than a piecemeal approach and working unflinchingly towards converting this into action. Whilst the country’s size is possibly one of its biggest weaknesses in terms of economies of scale and resources, it nonetheless provides the opportunity to be more dexterous and to benefit from a greater and quicker impact from the optimal use of limited resources. The country continued to invest massively in targeted education, training and infrastructure which were essential to create the backbone of a modern economy. The overspending in these areas was compensated by better pricing of Government services and resources as well as more rigorous spending in less essential areas of the private and public sectors. Coupled with the massive drive against corruption in all walks of life, the never-ending fight for greater efficiency not only helped to improve collection of revenues, avoid distortions and save millions but also to instill the ethos of transparency, discipline, fairness and just reward. The country recognized its dependence on the outside world not only as a market for the goods and services it produced but also as a means to improve its own economic structures and performance. Strategic partnerships were encouraged in all sectors as a means to promote investment, benefit from know-how and systems advances elsewhere, ensure efficiency and meritocracy, and access markets. Whilst all parties, realizing the challenges posed by the survival of the fittest, contributed by implementing better governance in he economy, Government helped by adding transparency and predictability to the already stable environment, thus helping to reduce the risk perception of investors whether local or international. It jumpstarted the process by concessioning out the utilities to international firms in alliance with local firms. Furthermore, attractive incentives were offered to those players who could add value to specific sectors and unlock the country’s wealth. At the same time paradoxically the country started to expect less from Government as it realized that all stakeholders meant business and that their destiny lay in their own hands. I did ask you to allow me to take you for a ride. But is all this as far fetched, as it seems? I somehow feel that we may be in for a bumpy ride but as long as we have a safe landing. Rajah Ramdaursingh
The country recognized its dependence on the outside world not only as a market for the goods and services it produced but also as a means to improve its own economic structures and performance.
Friday 8 December 2006
The Learning Foundation India
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Adam is my dear friend who inspired me ( and co-launched ) The Learning Foundation India. He is currently at Stanford as a Reuters Fellow.
Saturday 2 December 2006
Lawyers...
A Dublin lawyer died in poverty, and many people donated to a fund for his funeral. The Lord Chief Justice of Orbury was asked to donate a shilling. "Only a shilling?" said the Justice, "Only a shilling to bury an attorney? Here's a guinea; go and bury twenty more of them."
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