Invest In The Right Earnest

Right Investment

Currency as a medium of exchange may go well beyond its popular definition of notes and coins. The bullion and real estate are best investment avenues as per conventional perception besides casino banking products. But so far as the the literal meaning is concerned all possible mediums of exchanges are currencies. As per economics, the intrinsic value of any currency always depreciates if not invested properly.

Nevertheless, right investment always protects the future. The technology itself, a high denomination currency if not invested timely, could secure legends to fall. The pioneers of the respective product segments Nokia and Kodak are already case studies in business schools. Mere reluctance to adopt right technology on time could engineer dramatic change in market dynamics. Besides, investment in research (not limited to technology) is key to sustained growth and a secured future.

Time is most important form of abstract currency because “Time is money” 🙂 . Available in abundance with both rich and poor, in the most equitable manner. If utilised properly, could flip the demographic equations altogether. History is witness of many legendary falls and dramatic rises, in all the cases the reason responsible for the said rise and fall is simply efficient investment of currencies in hand.

Your children are most important human currencies, right nourishing with good education would always be a good investment for future. The definition can be extended to technical as well as soft skills, investment in skill development never goes in vein. Public contact in general is a high net worth asset, in this age of recommendation your contact could buy things that conventional currency would fail to do.

Nonetheless, Invest in the right earnest is key for survival and a brighter future. So act before it’s too late and it’s better late than never. 🙂

How much inheritance is enough?

Give What Matters Most

“You give your children enough money to do something but not enough to do nothing.” A famous line from Oscar winner 2011 Hollywood flick, “The Descendants”. Based on a well-known quote from billionaire investor Warren Buffett in a 1986 Fortune magazine interview that 99% of his wealth will be donated to charity either within his life or by his death.

I don’t want them to grow up spoiled. I’m not rich enough for my children to afford services for the super-rich or swanky lifestyles in Meadow Lane, the so-called “Billionaires Lane” in the Hamptons. But I also know that if I left them my fortune, they would not appreciate the value of money.

The most important legacy that we can ultimately leave them is not money but the life lessons that we have imparted to them that will enable them to live their lives well.

In other words as the local idiom goes, a capable heir could earn everything on his own and an incompetent spoiled one looses everything he inherits. And in either case its completely useless to leave your fortune for your children.

 

Joseph Patrick Kennedy, had enough money to spoil his children, however his austere style of upbringing, gifted the world the most loved president of the United States, John F Kennedy. “You will either profit by or pay for what your children become. raise them properly.” will always remain an important parenting lesson.

 

Invariably, the most valuable inheritance could be the values that’s too when come by a live example. Unless we lead by example and set a very high standard for ourselves, all teachings to our children would be completely futile. Imagine, how would it feel to see your unruly children wasting your hard earned money and squabbling to claim their share. Money is never enough, if you want, give them good education.One last point, irrespective of your personal and professional successes, the right measure of your success lies in the fact that how much values you passed on to your children. Then you are as successful or failure as your own off-springs are, on the important parameters of human values.

AAP Trilogy: First Blood – Mission Delhi, 2013

Who Really Cares

A red carpet welcome to a new player in the game, to change the very rules of the  game, the Politics. The game has already witnessed many legendary rise and dramatic falls with hardly any space for a new player. The grand old party is sitting cosy in the assembly for the 3rd successive term. The nationalist party could only hold its forte in the Local body (Municipal Corporation) though very convincingly. Several attempts to grab power turned to be futile with some small players particularly a casteist one spoiling the party. The national mood echos in the city walls reverberating anti incumbency ripple. The grand old lady still stands her ground, defying the popular view to unsettle her regime.

Coming back to the game, the match calendar is already published, a year ahead from now. This is claimed to be a typically interesting match consisting of the veteran/popular teams, few dark horses, an underdog and of course few spoilers. The team composition and match ground has thrown a very interesting proposition for a more detailed study of the players and their game plan. More interestingly, the very context too changing rapidly with the diminishing charm of the crown prince and the increasing clout of the gladiator. The muscle flexing Baba does not hesitate throwing weights behind the gladiator in order to gravitate the balance further. The sudden wildcard entry changed all popular perceptions. “Sab Sala Chor hai” rhetoric is the new buzz  in capital making new inroads across the fault line of corruption.

Nobody really knows, if the new party launching was decided after sustained deliberation or merely impulsive. The way the retd. IRS officer decided to go political after the dull show at Jantar Mantar even the experts suggested camouflaged anti-corruption movement has secret political ambition. Nobody is spared, the language of discourse got entangled with semantics and syntaxes without the grammar of decency.

Baba was able to deflect all goals but his aggressive posture at the opponent team’s box did not go down well with their management. The undignified red card annoyed him further to have a more concrete resolve this time to throw the entire Italian team into Mediterranean sea. Essentially Baba is a non-player but enjoys a huge fan club across the country. With an unblemished image both his pro-poor and anti-corruption agenda has a pan India appeal.

The obituary is already written for the grand old party, just waiting for the last breath for the final rights. This never happened in the history of the game, a reigning champion veteran is already written off as an irrelevant non-player. In spite of the grand posturing the vacuum-ness got exposed more and more in the run up to the national semi final. The crown prince’s misplaced anger and clueless behavior confused even its own loyal fans. The queen bee little disturbed now as the status-quo change would unleash a plethora of bad deeds, indicting her entire clan.

Sangha after almost a decade of disillusion has finally found a hero who could in real sense prove a game changer. Who better than the the undefeated gladiator with resounding fan following, could fit the bill. Well, the veterans keen on smashing the popular team to throw them into history book, so the challenge is for survival now. With a roller coaster track record, the gladiator is all set for the semifinals. The mission though not very simple for him as he has to win straight 4-0 in the semis in order to comfortably stake claim in the finals. Sangha extended all logistics support to ensure full galleries, the gladiator too is a master player with extraordinary skills.

Throughout the one sided match the gladiator convincingly dominated over the crown prince scoring straight 3 goals. The last round of the match was played on a sticky ground making both main players little insecure about a clear win. Though defeat of the veteran was clearly visible the margin was always blur. Interestingly, the new player, an underdog camouflaged under the same blurriness, carried on its campaign. The match ground was very fertile one since the old man last cultivated that, waiting for a political monsoon to yield the right result. Moreover, their marriage to the bride called populism bought all the fortune they had wished. They have a brand new fan base now cheering their win in the amphitheatre, of course this got ample media notice now. Media was successful in positioning the underdog in the same league as the old players.

The results are out, the veterans along with the crown prince conceded a convincing defeat to the gladiator. But the last goal was indeed a joint goal a well timed pass to the underdog for the final shot. In spite of the effort from the gladiator in getting the ball clear and driving that to the opponent post, there was vested interest attributing all kudos to the joker. The failure to understand a basic rule reminds us a hard realty  “every (under)dog has its day”. Nobody, expected a draw match in a high scoring tournament, in a multi-corner fight the joker came out a winner.

The problem starts now, when different people start interpreting the result their own way undermining the fact that the very purpose of defeating the demon veteran has already been achieved. This hardly matters to stake claim while the popular mood still favors the gladiator. Nevertheless, there are still few take-aways for the key players,  though the jokers have tested the first blood, the accidental marriage to populism would hardly deliver anything in the finals. The gladiator would swear by “Never underestimate the opponent” and try to push the goal himself by scaling up its campaign to the finals. However, The misreading of the fractured mandate by either side would have serious repercussions with national ramification.

Coming soon

The Paradox of Political opportunism – General Election, 2014,  the last part of AAP Trilogy.

Feminism the greatest disservice to mankind

Made For Each Other

Feminism, a modern day syndrome in educated middle class women as one of their favorite pass time. In this competitive society fairer sex still enjoys the luxury of a lot of fairness. In an attempt to position themselves in the top of the race they in fact make some hoax cry in the name of woman rights. The issues they claim to be their own, in a way faced by all cutting across gender lines. The actual plights of socio-economic backward women goes completely unheard in the noise of all these fabricated issues.

We may debate, the nature is predominantly patriarchal, however there are few good matriarchal examples as in the honey-bees, based on the fact who calls the shots. The power centre theorem or male/female supremacy logic has its footing in the law of nature “survival of the fittest”. The powerful ones have the lion’s share, here power encompasses both physical and intellectual strength. Nevertheless, the very factors deciding power, had never a gender bias towards male species. These factors are rather strongly inclined towards non-discriminatory notions like hard work, commitment and dedication, with no exclusive rights to anybody.

With similar upbringing both male and female could still fare similarly though the natural ability of a particular gender would uphold when it comes to comparative performance in different departments. The natural, gender specific abilities are better remain unchallenged, that’s how the mother nature has molded us. After all we strongly complement each other with our mutual ability to survive against all odds and make a brighter future for the next generations to come. Does this mean the nature itself never permitted anybody to intervene in between and advocate for any particular gender? Quite rightly, any partiality to further unsettle the the gender equilibrium is equally condemnable. For instance adopting birth control measures for any particular gender child is against the tenets of the nature.

Every atrocity on female today creates a rather vicious environment with loaded comments from self proclaimed women rightists. The media all of sudden turns so hostile as if the campaign is against an alien. Once again a competition starts to catch the limelight and the much sought after media attention. All these efforts were never taken in the positive direction to curb recurrence of these crimes. Just criminal bashing does not help at all. In order to improve the situation on ground, we need to do a detailed root cause analysis and prescribe a medication that cures the disease rather than suppressing the symptoms. Every barbaric act should be deplored in strongest possible way not just a crime against women. I still empathise with a top western feminist’s view that a death is far more traumatic than a sexual aggression.

The very word of feminism stands shattered when we see majority of crime against women are either designed or passively supported by the women themselves. In the context of Indian society most of the domestic crimes are result of female jealousy for each other. A more exhaustive analysis could even substantiate that a male perpetrator is merely a pawn. In a nutshell, all these incidents are not just crime against a gender but the whole mankind. As long as the responsible representatives shy away from their bigger duty to the mankind and continue to do some kind of lip service, we won’t be able stop any crime. We are all subject to humanly vices and sometime we violate the boundaries of decency and even commit a grave crime. This has no gender bias, the crime itself is completely unprejudiced but the criminals are not.

On the other hand a woman crusader would always find a male supporter as a caring brother, an affectionate father, or a supportive male colleague, patronising her cause. Feminism as the cause stands for should be taken in the same light as male chauvinism and non of them render any great service to the mankind. As long as we are a family complementing each other, we need to nourish the bond and work collectively to eliminate possible anomalies. You never know when you can get blamed for an anti-women remark for an unimpeachable statement out of good intention. The pitiable state of feminism has reduced to this level. The scholarly female sympathisers should constructively direct their resources towards a more purposeful cause than some tokenism.

You still find only male specimen in action whenever there is a uncommon adverse situation or an act of god. if you look closer you will find your own male brotherhood working relentlessly for their own family members, the human race as a whole. No gender bias please 🙂

Philosophy of Public Service & Misplaced Value System

A Faceless Name That Renounced Its Fame

Chris Nolan’s Batman Trilogy, would always remain a huge source of inspiration for the whole generation, particularly for people in public service. A brilliant story of benevolence, sacrifice and renunciation, that still resonates with me. This may be regarded as little exaggeration of a fiction, but such a story of rejuvenation, intrigues us to delve deep into the underlying philosophy. Right from my childhood I always take pride of our (Indian) rich culture and value system. But a lot of time the same belief takes a beating whenever I encounter a better illustration, and compelled to think who they draw their inspiration from.

In the chaos of “Survival of the Fittest”, “Cut Throat Competition” is the naked truth. The value system is completely irrelevant and a misplaced theory in contemporary time. Plenty of doctrines suggest relinquishing the result of your good Karma ‘deed’, though very difficult in practice. Why would somebody give up his/her hard earned something, if so we should revere such a saintly person in high esteem. The possible impetus for any such generous act could be name or fame. Well, I have a better example, think of a person who could even happily sacrifice his name let alone forgoing all his good deeds and embracing somebody else’s bad deeds, just for public good. This is as good as somebody who saves a dying man, takes all the blame on himself and disappears into oblivion, accrediting the actual killer with all the glory.

The simple factor of anonymity, stands “Bruce Wayne, the man behind the mask” out in the crowd of superlative philanthropists. The uncanny attitude towards the commitment, presents altogether a difficult proposition, while the very beneficiaries do swear word for him. The essence of the story is, nameless philanthropy is absolutely a rare phenomenon to find. Nevertheless, this is a very high standard to replicate by our leaders in public service, otherwise a self centric lot. The current class of leaders crossing across party lines are very busy in competitive populism and rhetorics. Whole political dispensation is so miserable that even the most optimist ones too very disappointed. Why just leaders, high standards in life is rare in every walk of life, a generous doctor, an honest accountant, a non-partisan judge are rather bookish terms. The subjects like honesty, national character, sacrifice are less celebrated and rather ridiculous syndromes.

However there is much more rotting problem beneath this despicable attitude, the very value system in our foundation. Centuries of Tom Macculay’s well intended educational system professed little about morality. Education as they defined is limited to wider spectrum of knowledge sans of values. We learned to become a master mathematician but not necessarily an honest one. You can’t blame anybody, the ill paid teachers can hardly afford time for any moral lessons, nor the parents, busy making ends meet. And the usual casualty here is generations of mankind, passing absolutely zero values to their successors. The system as a whole never displayed any sensibilities around this responsibility.

“What we sow is what we reap” and obviously we have a fairly knowledgeable but morally weak generation, the value is almost lost in our genetic order. We see everything from the prism of monetary benefits and opportunism as a fashionable trend. I strongly recommend, revisiting our value system and strengthening the very foundation structure of our social infrastructure. The ad-hoc approach of gold plating is rather counter productive with dismal long term result. This is absolutely meaningless, if we destroy the very institution of family in one hand and feel very unsecured for lack of family support on the other. The rise of nuclear family has witnessed equal rise in old-age homes and both the distanced families long each other for support causing spiraling after effects.

The first school of value system lies at the bottom of social pyramid, the family. Any attempts to plant a substitute or weaken the institution is simply disastrous. The same school once inculcated values of philanthropic anonymity within us.

A Religion, that is not: Hinduism

Approximately, 60% of population across the globe pursue more than 4 thousand religious beliefs. Most of them fall under 2 main streams of religions i.e. Abrahamic and Dharmic (Indian) with nearly 95% followings. In almost all cases the religions are named either after the founder or the philosophy. Interestingly both the factors are brushed aside in case of the oldest religion with a third of world’s population, the Hinduism. However, etymology considers Hinduism as a geographical term and refers to nationality of the people who lives across the river Sindhu a.k.a Indus. Though coined initially by the Persians, with difficulty to pronounce the river name correctly, assumed the cult status afterwards.

The parody is, the most civilized people living at the bank Sindhu are referred as Hindus by Persians and Indus by Europeans, defying a canon of language “Proper names are never translated”. Moreover, the ill-conceived notion of the nationality is now imposed on the people across the Indian sub-continent as their religion. The hypothesis is based on the narrow perception of idol worshiping as a distinguishing feature. While Buddhism and Jainism were already pre-existing established as rebellious beliefs against the principle of idol worshiping and complex customs. Two important points require clarification here, 1) name of the religion and 2) principles of idol worshiping. 1) Hinduism as a religion never existed, Sanatan Dharma meaning “Eternal” was always the belief in the main land India. 2) Sanatan Dharma, is never limited to idol worshiping, as the word “Eternal” suggests it encompasses both believers and non-believers, monotheists and polytheists, atheists and pantheists, and above all, believers of both forms and formless. This professes the religion of humanity across all artificial discrimination that embraces the entire population of the universe.

The same religion puts the gurus (the spiritual guides) in the same league of gods, 330 millions in number, is liberal enough to welcome the entire Abrahamic creed into its fold. As long as the religious principles adhere to humanity, all of them essentially lead you to thy almighty. After all, “Heaven”,”Jannat” or “Swarg” are all the same that a person with good deeds “karma” deserves and bad “Karma” paves the way for hell. There was never plurality in the definition of good or bad across all faiths. The problem arises when one school of faith starts inflicting its superiority on others. Like love, the spiritual belief too can’t be imposed forcibly or through any inducements. Neither the umbrella religion “Sanatana Dharma” nor the basic tenets of social life “harmonious co-existence” approves any such activity.

Most of the Abrahamic religions founded as a sign of disapproval against Pagan customs. Pagans are essentially idol worshipers with complex customs, in striking similarities with Indian religion. Buddhism/Jainism too were against idol worshiping and set up to protest against prevailing customs but the travesty is Buddha idol is worshiped most now. Nonetheless, all religious faiths suffer from some sort of snags, more when we confuse religion with customs. While religion remains unblemished after millions of years of progression the customs are subject to impairment. At least in the context of India, few customs are very outdated and unscientific in practice. Practice makes things perfect, however in this case mindless practices turned customs into blind faith.

Interestingly, a lot of old customs are backed by scientific reasoning after thorough analysis and experiments. For instance prohibition on same “Gotra” (clan) marriage: loads of studies have already proved that marriages within close blood relations have a risk of producing unhealthy/deformed off-springs. When the custom was initially established the Gotra/Clan lineage was numbered so it was very predictable for few generations to have babies with homogeneous genetic order, if married in the same Gotra. Now after innumerable years, the need is to collect sample data on the genealogy and conduct an experiment to check the validity of the thesis else the said customs should be out-rightly rejected.

The Worshiped Thyself Worships

So the bottom line is, though the established customs were quite scientific then, with changed context , we need to re-apply our mind to check if those practices are still relevant. Few of the customs are a result of prevailing social condition with no science behind it. They should never be mixed with religion and shunned as soon as possible. Practice of “Sati-Daha”, voluntary immolation of widows came into force against oppressing attitude during Afghan invasions. So time to time reformers take up this responsibility to unshackle people from those rusted customs. Lastly, Sanatana Dharma is so enriched with knowledge that if we connect the customs with science and explore Purana Shastras further. That could open up new dimensions in, health care/medical science, astronomy, architecture and a gamut of other streams. Remember, the current Vedic mathematics is synthesize of just few stanzas from Veda.

Article 377 and a perspective of Law

Living In Together

From time immemorial, a lot of theories have been planted how the human race came into existence. However, none of them is really convincing to us including stories told by wise scientists, after centuries of research. Myths from both Abrahamic and Indian religions are rather funny, unscientific or inconclusive. To be precise the mystery of “Egg or Chicken First” is still unresolved. Well the fact is that mankind is a product of the same nature as rest of the creatures. And if we study, we could substantiate that there is a set of rule “the properties” that each of us should demonstrate. These properties are extended to even vegetation, water bodies, mountains etc with a little margin for error. In a way, the nature itself conducts how different entities should behave. For instance, animals never connive together to violate the food chain. These properties are in built into us as hard coded instincts. The aberrations in fact results in disastrous outcome a kind of catastrophe caused by the same nature to destroy the unlawful beings. Not sure if this is the cause of extinction for dinosaurs.

Living In Together

However criticised, “The Jungle Raj” too follows a set of rules or the law of nature. Apologies, for dropping the word “law” so unceremoniously but I couldn’t find a good substitute. Little obsessed with animals now I won’t hesitate calling ourselves a big joint family. This would be a utter foolishness to proclaim that only human beings possess attributes like conscience, emotions that otherwise establish human superiority. At the same time this would be completely unfair to underplay human race, subject to millions of years of evolution. Said to be the most civil society well credited to the alien artifacts, they use to manage their lives. So at the outset, its worth mentioning that we too laid down our own set of rules subject to various amendments from time to time. In fact the mythologies dating from far back suggests very astutely inscribed law, finds its trace in our law books across the globe today. The very premise of those rules is in fact ‘harmonious coexistence’ with some optional moral plug-ins.

The common vices wealth and women, the cause of all unlawful activities fall under a single idiom territory. This is the perfect word that could be extended to even animal world to discuss this hypothesis. Territory offers both wealth and women (female), being politically correct, food and sex (to avoid strong remarks from feminists). In fact the whole planet professes patriarchy not alone human race. So a set of rule laid down by our wise forefathers to ensure peaceful life while still enjoying the lawful territory assigned. Well aberrations are still there but these are called law of land in our time. Law of different jurisdictions might change slightly but keeping the very proposition intact and not violating the law of nature, in any case.

While science supports law of nature, commonsense drives our own modern law, interpolated from the above said thesis. Incest, is banned even in animal kingdom as the off-springs produced out of any such relationship, are genetically homogeneous, vulnerable to diseases, psycho-physical deformity and eventual extinction. Incest, encompasses both paternal and maternal cousins that the subject has identical genetic order. Nevertheless, the controversial hybrid off-springs offer higher quality breeds. With half of the planet filled with female species this incest ban (rather a law of nature) alone won’t serve any purpose. So we have a series of moral plug ins suggesting sex ban among related people who still do not share common gene. However, law won’t involve, as long as these relationships are consensual except the society giving an immoral tag.

In contrast, for adults in any forceful sexual act, law provides all protection to the victim. So severe punishments suggested to deter any such act as this would cause chaos in society, completely undermining harmonious coexistence factor. Same logic is applicable to murder, theft, robbery or land grabbing. There are still deviations to the logic where the law takes sou motto cognizance of the crime. For instance an under-aged involved in a consensual sexual act or a person is dead, as these entities can’t judge for themselves. The framework is very robust and the objective is concisely clear to deliver justice.

There are still plenty of examples of absurd law, a person surviving a suicidal attempt is punishable, he should rather be sent for counselling and rehabilitation. Now I am compelled to refer you back to article 377, and seek to understand that whether this law draws inspiration from law of nature or harmonious coexistence theory. Even though, the society can still judge upon the morality factor, for a consensual act among adults, its reluctance is conspicuous fearing a bad precedence by allowing small anomalies (read as LGBTs) into mainstream.

NB: Article 377 deals with all unnatural sexual activities not about LGBT rights.