Enigma Solution

45 years young, Arvind Kejriwal became the 7th chief minister of Delhi State in India as the head of the 13 month old Aam Admi party (The common man's party).  People are full of hope for at last they see a glimmer of change for the better. Many people call him a maverick and a significant majority of Indians are in awe of Kejriwal. Sadly his former mentor Anna Hazare does not appear to be one of the awestruck.  It is true that two years ago not many Indians knew of Arvind Kejriwal, when he became a member of the core team of Anna Hazare during the nation wide agitation and fight against rampant corruption.  Kejriwal's principled and courageous yet dignified approach propelled him into the limelight earning him nationwide admiration and support.  It also exposed him to the world of seedy politics as practiced by many Indian political parties and leaders.  Anna Hazare, amazing in his own way seeks to influence change through the existing political pl...

I advise and assist various individuals and organisations on improving their performance and luckily I frequently achieve good results. I wonder what my students and clients would say if they learnt that some of my theories came from observing animals? We may claim that man is intellectually a more evolved creature, yet deep down we still possess many animalistic tendencies and therefore act as programmed by our survival instincts and social conditioning. Here is an example from my own life. Exceptional circumstances demand exceptional responses. Desperate people drowning in problems will reach out at anything and everything they can grasp to stop them from sinking. Not long ago I experienced a painful separation from my brothers, the loss of my business and all my savings. Getting a job was not for me. I am too independent spirited to be dictated to. Desperately I sought new opportunities and avenues for survival and revival. I pursued almost every opportunity that ca...

I am a happily married man. Does this mean that I and my wife do not disagree? We disagree on most things yet we are not uncomfortable with our differences, save one. The way I drive a car is the subject of most of our disagreements. I have often offered to let her drive or use our chauffeur. However she insists that I drive in a manner that suits her expectations. The only problem is that in 30 years I still have not figured out what exactly it is that I must do.  Backseat driving is common all over the world. No one is happy and the results are often disappointing and sometimes dangerous. The situation is not restricted to couples alone but also to organisations and even nations. We Indians face the same situation in our nation's decade old leadership. Though not husband and wife, they make a political couple. Dr. Manmohan Singh and Mrs. Sonia Gandhi*. Sonia is a person completely lacking in personal merit, therefore not surprisingly the puppet o...

I find little use in most of the advice I receive, so I merely pass it on. People mistakenly believe, that I am an expert. As the Indian economic growth slows rapidly, the falling value of the rupee, the dangerous erosion of social institutions, we have political and economic pundits crawling out of every nook and cranny. They hog all the prime time on television, and prime space in the newspapers and magazines. I read and listen to their analysis of the situation and the advise these people dole out. I would have been amused had the situation not been so bleak. The politicians are the most entertaining, focusing more on theatrics rather than facts they blame everyone else except themselves. The economists offer many deep theories, several of them even make sense. However it is a known fact that, economists can fully explain a situation only many years after the incident occurs, and they have understood somewhat what really happened. It is not difficult to be critical in h...

Indian Steel Industry produces about 75 Million MT of steel per year and looking to double that output within this decade. This article has been written for Steel Tech and focuses on management challenges facing Indian Steel Industry in the area of developing and enhancing its 'Human Capital'. Part 1: Human Capital not just employees The challenges facing the steel sector for achieving its targets are many. Rainy’s law of management says that, ‘A situation or trend is likely to remain the same unless acted upon by some innovation or management initiative’.   Thus if we want different results we need to do things differently. The question then arises, what needs to be done differently? All Organisational systems function based on three elements fused together as one. They are Hardware, Software and 'Humanware'. The hardware includes the land, buildings, machinery and equipment etc. The software comprises the design of technical and managem...

Overstocked with a large supply of men’s spring and winter coats,  a clothier in Copenhagen, Denmark, adopted a unique sales  scheme.  He erected a scaffolding around his store building and  completely covered it from roof to sidewalk with more than a  thousand overcoats.  The novel display attracted prospective  customers in such droves that police were summoned.  Although  the police ordered the proprietor to remove the display, he  succeeded in selling all the overcoats, 1936

“The real enemy is the man who tries to mold the human spirit so that it will not dare to spread its wings.” In an age obsessed with practicality, productivity, and efficiency, I frequently worry that we are leaving little room for abstract knowledge and for the kind of curiosity that invites just enough serendipity to allow for the discovery of ideas we didn’t know we were interested in until we are, ideas that we may later transform into new combinations with applications both practical and metaphysical. This concern, it turns out, is hardly new. In ' The usefulness of Useless Knowledge' , originally published in the October 1939 issue of  Harper’s , American educator  Abraham Flexner  explores this dangerous tendency to forgo  pure curiosity in favor of pragmatism  — in science, in education, and in human thought at large — to deliver a poignant critique of the motives encouraged in young minds, contrasting those with the drivers that motivated so...