Girish's Blog

Can you imagine a green house gas guzzler proposing to tax “carbon-rich” Indian goods – just proves that recession has not only hit the US economy but also the brains of the US House of Representatives! The US ranks 10th in the per capita carbon dioxide emission stakes with 22.2 metric tons per person per year whereas India ranks low down at 133 with just 1.2 metric tons per person per year. By putting in provisions to tax goods from countries that do not impose curbs on green house gas emissions, the intent of the US legislation is to target India and China whose economies do not seem to have been so badly hit by the recession. India is saying that there can be no linkage between trade and environment and that the US move smacks of protectionism which is true – as the US is trying to extract a dollar from developing countries for having over the years degraded the environment willfully. It is the classic US strategy to first take advantage and then cry foul once they realize that suc...

I have been consciously avoiding this topic as it has been milked dry by both the visual and written media due to the perpetrator being an upcoming movie star. With the DNA forensic results out in the open, it will be very difficult to get bail as the results have conclusively proved that Shiney Ahuja’s stars and a lot else are not shining any more. Kudos to his wife for standing up for him unflinchingly, showing faith in her “Man” – but a lot of introspection would probably be required on her part to realize for herself why her “Man” has done what he did. The bail petition which has been put up by Shiney’s lawyer talks of four grounds on which he should be granted bail – a) he has no criminal antecedents, b) hails from a good family, c) his career is at stake and he has two upcoming film shoots next month, d) consensual act cannot be termed rape. After the DNA test reports are out, there is no reason why he should be granted bail as the law should be equally applicable to all (I know ...

It is that time of the year when children are deciding and fretting over which college to join, which course to take up, which profession should they opt for and such career deciding choices. We have probably the worlds’ largest educated population which is the envy of the world as the population is young and considered to be productive, thus supposedly giving an edge to the country. One needs to go slightly deeper into the system to find out the quality of education which is being dumped on the masses. It is a fact that the country has undergone a change from agrarian economy to a State supported manufacturing economy to the current services economy – and we have reached that stage in a very short span of 62 years post independence. Our leaders have tinkered around with education without understanding the concept of good, productive education – rules are made and overturned time and again ad infinitum ad nauseum without having any regard to the effect of those decisions on the vast ma...

The Government in Maharashtra has done what was expected due to the forthcoming State Assembly Elections – it has extended the cut off date for slums from 1995 to 2000 and to hell with the Court Orders! Political expediency always prevails – long term solutions are way beyond the mental capacity of our leaders/dealers. By extending the cut off, we are now going to give free housing to an estimated 250000 people – at what and whose cost? Does the city have the infrastructure to support its existing population? Today we are facing a 20% water cut due to the delay in the monsoons, roads are no longer roads but a series of potholes, garbage disposal is more a headache, construction debris is dumped on the only green cover left in the city, the marshlands – with the builder-police-politician nexus turning a blind eye. So where are we heading? Why do our politicians not look for solutions which are obvious? The only reason is lucre – filthy lucre with which our so called leaders have been bl...

We have over the past few months seen some of the biggest names in corporate history biting the dust – lack of government oversight is given as one of the major reasons for the crumbling of the giants in US corporate history. Well that could be one of the reasons for sure – but was that not the beauty of it all – US democracy at its best – which meant that the businesses should run themselves and the business of government was governance! The problem with this was that the government adopted a blinkered approach to the financial sector which created more and more complex financial instruments with absolutely zero underlying to create a bubble which burst and whose aftermath is being felt by the real economy. During the growth phase of the bubble everything was hunky dory, but now the manufacturing sector is feeling the pressure. With the rupture of the financial sector there is no credit on offer to the manufacturing sector, thus the manufacturing sector is feeling the heat – who would...

The Income Tax department has in a phased manner made it mandatory for different categories of tax payers to file online tax returns over the past four years. Now it is mandatory for every individual also to file returns online. One would think that this saves paper, is eco-friendly and tax payer friendly as he now does not have to stand in an unending queue or be asked to go from one department office to another to file his tax return. It’s as simple as logging into http://incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/portal, logging in and uploading your tax return – well that’s what you thought. Till last year that is what was required of a tax payer, and the printed signed copy needed to be filed with the Income Tax Department in the ward of the assessee in his city of residence. The tax payer could get a copy of the acknowledgement stamped for hi/her record, which everyone concerned was now comfortable with. Guess what? New rules have been framed – which makes filing of your tax returns a tad more...

Yesterday, I was witness to a very interesting incident at Delhi domestic terminal while checking in for my Jet Airways flight to Mumbai. I was waiting in queue along with my colleague for checking in, when I noticed a Sardarji (age 60+ along with his wife) in animated conversation with the executive at the counter. All counters were getting cleared fast, but the Sardarji refused to budge. The lady at the counter was agitated as the Sardarji had already taken a boarding pass for himself and his wife by saying that they only had hand baggage. Apparently the argument was over whether the bag the Sardarji was carrying was hand baggage or not – bag size 24”x48”x12” - this was obviously not hand baggage! The executive had noticed the bag size after issuing the boarding pass and very politely told him that he cannot take that size bag into the seating area as it would not be allowed. The Sardarji was insisting that he would take it as he had done so before (personal jet maybe!). The lady was...

I have traveled by road in the north of India earlier – but probably did not closely observe the movement of traffic and people or you could say people and traffic – whichever way does not matter. This road takes your from Delhi to Roorkee and beyond. I had an opportunity to go there on office related work – I was told the journey takes about four and a half hours but it took almost seven. We had an elderly driver who told us six and a half to seven hours and ensured we reached within HIS estimated time of arrival. The traffic in Delhi is quite crazy with the amount of construction activity which is going on – traffic jams were common – it took us almost two hours to get out of Delhi from the airport. It was extremely hot – upwards of 45 degrees centigrade and the car AC was barely effective. Once we reached the outskirts of Delhi and the road to Ghaziabad, we started encountering traffic which moved in the wrong direction – meaning if it is a four lane road with a road divider, one wo...

Money has no memory. Experience has. You will never know what the total cost of your education was, but for a lifetime you will recall and relive the memories of schools and colleges. Few years from now, you will forget the amount you paid to settle the hospitalization bill, but will ever cherish having saved your mother's life or the life you get to live with the just born. You won't remember the cost of your honeymoon, but to the last breath remember the experiences of the bliss of togetherness. Money has no memory. Experience has. Good times and bad times, times of prosperity and times of poverty, times when the future looked so secure and times when you didn't know from where the tomorrow will come... life has been in one way or the other a roller-coaster ride for everyone. Beyond all that abundance and beyond all that deprivation, what remains is the memory of experiences. Sometimes the wallet was full... sometimes even the pocket was empty. There was enough and you st...

It is extremely sickening to see the behavior of our police force when it comes to taking cognizance / not taking cognizance of complaints based on who the complainant is. It is a fact that an ordinary citizen is made to wait inordinately for a complaint to be registered in genuine cases of theft, assault, battery, rape et al whereas if the accused or suspect is someone with either money power or well connected, then you need to see it to believe it, the way in which the cops will find excuses to not book the culprits. Two recent cases come straight away to mind, the first one relates to the a young 7 year old girl dying of suffocation in Nitin Gadkari, a BJP MP’s motor vehicle in his residential compound in Nagpur. She apparently got locked inside the car and could not get herself out by opening the door (a bit difficult to believe in this day and age!). The incident took place when Yogita Ashok Thakre, daughter of a domestic help entered Gadkari's car while playing outside his ho...

The curry bashing of Indian immigrants has consumed thousands of column inches in various newspapers already with no end in sight to the travails of our citizen-students in Australia. I have already written in an earlier post what I think of the Aussies – I have painted them with one brush – which may not be fair to do so, but in the heat of the moment that is what I thought. Since then I have had time to ponder over a whole spectrum of issues which these episodes have thrown up. Let us start with why do Indians have to go to Australia to study and the profile of those going to study there. It is a known fact that Australia has waived the necessity of foreign students undergoing the mandatory English language proficiency test (TOEFL, etc) required to be taken for students going to say UK or USA. The Australians have done this so that they can compete unequally in the education market to woo students from the US & UK markets to Australia – one less exam to clear you see! The Aussies...