Good example to prove Socialism fails...!!!

Very nice way to put it...

The late Adrian Rogers said, "you cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."
This man is truly a genius!

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had once failed an entire class.
That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.
The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan".
All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.
After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B.
The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.
As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.
The second test average was a D! No one was happy.
When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.
The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.
All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

(Could not be any simpler than that. :) )

Lehman's Crisis-Learning for all

Hi; This is really a good article to read...It's interesting article by Yogesh Chhabria.

LATELY, I have been thinking a lot about the Lehman crisis . Spending money that they didn't have and going beyond their means is one of the main reasons for their situation today. In fact that is the cause for the current economic crisis in the US. When I see all this happening, I can only remember the good old days. Then, karz was bad. People looked down upon those who took loans. Parents would not give their daughter's hand in marriage to a man with loans. But of course, the times have changed now. Everyone I know has a loan. The buzz word is EMI (equated monthly installment). Today, you can buy everything on EMI - a house, a television, an i-Pod. In fact I know of someone who just bought a fancy BMW 3 series on EMI, instead of buying a cheaper car outright with cash. I mostly prefer to take public transport, but then I am an old man with old thoughts! Anyway, coming back to what caused the crisis. Imagine having Rs 2 lakh in your bank account, no regular income, yet buying a house worth Rs 65 lakh, in the hope of selling it for a higher price. Even if the price of the house fell by just 5 per cent (that is Rs 3 lakh), you will go bankrupt. This is what Lehman Brothers did; with around USD 20 billion they went and bought assets worth over USD 600 billion. Isn't it suicidal and simply foolish? I am sure things would have been different, had I been the head of Lehman brothers. But who wants an old conservative man like me to head a complex financial institution. But there are a few lessons that we can learn:

1.Live a balanced life and avoid overspending.

2.Don't buy things we don't need.

3.Don't buy Branded good’s.

4.Don't buy excess Food, Cloths, Cosmetics, Footwear, electronics and Fashion accuracies just think before you buy. Tip: World still has a lot of growth ahead and the future holds immense opportunities for us. Let us make the most of it and save and invest it wisely instead of wasting our precious little on things we don't need.

5.Try to balance life with work (No one is happy to work in there profession's).

6. Don't stress out your self, after work try to do some extra activities like swimming, yoga, walking, running where you can divert your mind from stress. A thumb rule: Health is more important than money.

7.Try to understand each other (Wife and Husband) in financial matters and help each other. Tip: As soon as you get your monthly salary, set aside a fixed amount, usually 35 per cent, for insurance, savings and investments. You can then spend the rest.

8. Not all loans are bad. Loans that are 'need based' (home loans, education loans) can always find a place in your finances against those that are largely 'want based' (Credit cards, personal loans, car loans).

9. Borrow only if repayment is financially comfortable. A thumb rule: Keep EMIs within 35 to 45 per cent of your monthly income In that respect, there is one American who I really respect - Warren Buffet. He has lived in the same ordinary house for over three decades, drives his own medium sized car and leads an extremely regular 'middle class' life.

If that's all it takes for the richest person on earth to be happy, why do all of us need to take extra stress just so that we can get things which aren't even essential? " A strong PASSION for any object will ensure success, for the desire of the end will point out the means. "

The Next CEO -- The CEO & The Seed

A successful businessman was growing old and knew it was time to choose a successor to take over the business. Instead of choosing one of his directors or his children, he decided to do something different. He called all the young executives in his company together. "It is time for me to step down and choose the next CEO," he said. "I have decided to choose one of you." The young executives were shocked, but the boss continued. "I am going to give each one of you a seed today - a very special seed. I want you to plant the seed, water it, and come back here one year from today with what you have grown from the seed I have given you. I will then judge the plants that you bring, and the one I choose will be the next CEO."
One man, named Jim, was there that day and he, like the others, received a seed. He went home and excitedly, told his wife the story. She helped him get a pot, soil and compost and he planted the seed. Every day, he would water it and watch to see if it had grown. After about three weeks, some of the other executives began to talk about their seeds and the plants that were beginning to grow. Jim kept checking his seed, but nothing ever grew. Three weeks, four weeks, five weeks went by, still nothing. By now, others were talking about their plants, but Jim didn't have a plant and he felt like a failure. Six months went by - still nothing in Jim's pot. He just knew he had killed his seed. Everyone else had trees and tall plants, but he had nothing. Jim didn't say
anything to his colleagues, however. He just kept watering and fertilizing the soil - he so wanted the seed to grow. A year finally went by and all the young executives of the company brought their plants to the CEO for inspection. Jim told his wife that e wasn't going to take an empty pot. But she asked him to be honest about what happened. Jim felt sick at his stomach. It was going to be the most embarrassing moment of his life, but he knew his wife was right. He took his empty pot to the boardroom. When Jim arrived, he was amazed at the variety of plants grown by the other executives. They were beautiful --in all shapes and sizes. Jim put his empty pot
on the floor and many of his colleagues laughed. A few felt sorry for him!
When the CEO arrived, he surveyed the room and greeted his young executives. Jim just tried to hide in the back. "My, what great plants, trees, and flowers you have grown," said the CEO. "Today one of you will be appointed the next CEO!"
All of a sudden, the CEO spotted Jim at the back of the room with his empty pot. He ordered the financial director to bring him to the front. Jim was terrified. He thought, "The CEO knows I'm a failure! Maybe he will have me fired!" When Jim got to the front, the CEO asked him what had happened to him. Jim told him the story. The CEO asked everyone to sit down except Jim. He looked at Jim, and then announced to the young executives, "Here is your next Chief Executive!
His name is Jim!"
Jim couldn't believe it. Jim couldn't even grow his seed. How could he be the new CEO the others said? Then the CEO said, "One year ago today, I gave everyone in this room a seed. I told you to take the seed, plant it, water it, and bring it back to Me today. But I gave you all boiled seeds; they were dead - it was not possible for them to grow. All of you, except Jim, have brought me trees and plants and flowers.” When you found that the seed would not grow, you substituted another seed for the one I gave you. Jim was the only one with the courage and honesty to bring me a pot with my seed in it. Therefore, he is the one who will be the new Chief Executive!"
___________________________________________________________________
If you plant honesty, you will reap trust
If you plant goodness, you will reap friends.
If you plant humility, you will reap greatness.
If you plant perseverance, you will reap contentment
If you plant consideration, you will reap perspective.
If you plant hard work, you will reap success.
If you plant forgiveness, you will reap reconciliation.
So, be careful what you plant now; it will determine what you will reap later.

Mr. Azim Premji's comment on reservation

[An Old one but still worth reading it again]
Have a look at this! How convincingly an intelligent
man speaks out his heart at the no-sense move made by
Indian politicians. I hope that strikes them
somewhere!! PASS IT ON

Wipro chairman Mr. Azim Premji's comment on
reservation:

I think we should have job reservations in all the
fields. I completely support the PM and all the
politicians for promoting this. Let's start the
reservation with our cricket team. We should have 10
percent reservation for Muslims. 30 percent for OBC,
SC/ST like that. Cricket rules should be modified
accordingly.

The boundary circle should be reduced for an SC/ST
player. The four hit by an OBC player should be
considered as a six and a six hit by an OBC player
should be counted as 8 runs. An OBC player scoring 60
runs should be declared as a century.

We should influence ICC and make rules so that the
pace bowlers like Shoaib Akhtar should not bowl fast
balls to our OBC player.

Bowlers should bowl maximum speed of 80 km/ hour to an
OBC player.

Any delivery above this speed should be made illegal.

Also we should have reservation in Olympics. In the
100 meters race, an OBC player should be given a gold
medal if he runs 80 meters.


[These 2 comments are really AWESOME
This should be implemented first]
There can be reservation in Government jobs also.
Let's recruit SC/ST and OBC pilots for aircrafts
which are carrying the ministers and politicians
(that can really help the country...)

Ensure that only SC/ST and OBC doctors do the
operations for the ministers and other politicians.
(Another way of saving the country...)


Let's be creative and think of ways and means to guide
INDIAforward. ..
Let's show the world that INDIAis a GREAT country.
Let's be proud of being an INDIAN...

May the good breed of politicians like ARJUN SINGH
long live...

"Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with
an open one."

Getting lucky .. Nice Article

Hint: Getting lucky is also a process

Why do some people get all the luck while others never get the breaks they deserve? A psychologist says he has discovered the answer.
Ten years ago, I set out to examine luck. I wanted to know why some people are always in the right place at the right time, while others consistently experience ill fortune. I placed advertisements in national newspapers for people who felt consistently lucky or unlucky to contact me. Hundreds of extraordinary men and women volunteered for my research and, over the years, I have interviewed them, monitored their lives and had them take part in experiments.
The results reveal that although these people have almost no insight into the causes of their luck, their thoughts and behaviour are responsible for much of their good and bad fortune.
Take the case of seemingly chance opportunities. Lucky people consistently encounter such opportunities, whereas unlucky people do not. I carried out a simple experiment to discover whether this was due to differences in their ability to spot such opportunities. I gave both lucky and unlucky people a newspaper, and asked them to look through it and tell me how many photographs were inside. I had secretly placed a large message halfway through the newspaper saying: "Tell the experimenter you have seen this and win $250." This message took up half of the page and was written in type that was more than two inches high. It was staring everyone straight in the face, but the unlucky people tended to miss it and the lucky people tended to spot it.
Unlucky people are generally more tense than lucky people, and this anxiety disrupts their ability to notice the unexpected. As a result, they miss opportunities because they are too focused on looking for something else. They go to parties intent on finding their perfect partner and so miss opportunities to make good friends. They look through newspapers determined to find certain types of job advertisements and miss other types of jobs.
Lucky people are more relaxed and open, and therefore see what is there rather than just what they are looking for. My research eventually revealed that lucky people generate good fortune via four principles.
They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities; make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition; create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations; and adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good.
Towards the end of the work, I wondered whether these principles could be used to create good luck. I asked a group of volunteers to spend a month carrying out exercises designed to help them think and behave like a lucky person.
Dramatic results: These exercises helped them spot chance opportunities, listen to their intuition, expect to be lucky, and be more resilient to bad luck.
One month later, the volunteers returned and described what had happened. The results were dramatic: 80% of people were now happier, more satisfied with their lives and, perhaps most important of all, luckier.
The lucky people had become even luckier and the unlucky had become lucky.
Finally, I had found the elusive "luck factor". Here are my four top tips for becoming lucky:
• Listen to your gut instincts - they are normally right
• Be open to new experiences and breaking your normal routine
• Spend a few moments each day remembering things that went well
• Visualise yourself being lucky before an important meeting or telephone call.
Luck is very often a self-fulfilling prophecy..

General Motors reply to BILL GATES.. Must Read

At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated,

"If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has,
we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon."

In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release Stating :
"If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics
(and I just love this part, especially 7th point and 10'th point):

1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.
2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.
3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull to the side of the road,
close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue.
For some reason you would simply accept this.
4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart,
in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.
5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy
to drive - but would ! run on only five percent of the roads.
6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single
"This Car Has Performed an Illegal Operation" warning light.
7. The airbag system would ask "Are you sure?" before deploying.
8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously
lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.
9. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because
none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

10. You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.

Never undervalue the manufacturing & automobile industries-- - GM

Why is the media here so negative? -- A P J Abdul Kalam

The Ex. President of India DR. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam 's Speech in Hyderabad ......

Why is the media here so negative?
Why are we in India so embarrassed to recognize our own strengths, our achievements?

We are such a great nation. We have so many amazing success stories but we refuse to acknowledge them. Why?
We are the first in milk production.
We are number one in Remote sensing satellites.
We are the second largest producer of wheat.
We are the second largest producer of rice.

Look at Dr. Sudarshan , he has transferred the tribal village into a self-sustaining, self-driving unit.. There are millions of such achievements but our media is only obsessed in the bad news and failures and disasters. I was in Tel Aviv once and I was reading the Israeli newspaper. It was the day after a lot of attacks and bombardments and deaths had taken place. The Hamas had struck. But the front page of the newspaper had the picture of a Jewish gentleman who in five years had transformed his desert into an orchid and a granary. It was this inspiring picture that everyone woke up to. The gory details of killings, bombardments, deaths, were inside in the newspaper, buried among other news.
[ So stop putting all that garbage in your mind ]


In India we only read about death, sickness, terrorism, crime. Why are we so NEGATIVE? Another question: Why are we, as a nation so obsessed with foreign things? We want foreign T. Vs, we want foreign shirts. We want foreign technology.

Why this obsession with everything imported. Do we not realize that self-respect comes with self-reliance? I was in Hyderabad giving this lecture, when a 14 year old girl asked me for my autograph. I asked her what her goal in life is. She replied: I want to live in a developed India ......
For her, you and I will have to build this developed India ..
You must proclaim. India is not an under-developed nation; it is a highly developed nation.

Do you have 10 minutes? Allow me to come back with a vengeance.
Got 10 minutes for your country? If yes, then read; otherwise, choice is yours.
YOU say that our government is inefficient.
YOU say that our laws are too old.
YOU say that the municipality does not pick up the garbage.
YOU say that the phones don't work, the railways are a joke,
The airline is the worst in the world, mails never reach their destination.
YOU say that our country has been fed to the dogs and is the absolute pits.
YOU say, say and say. What do YOU do about it?

Take a person on his way to Singapore ....... Give him a name - YOURS.
Give him a face - YOURS. YOU walk out of the airport and you are at your International best. In Singapore you don't throw cigarette butts on the roads or eat in the stores. YOU are as proud of their Underground links as they are. You pay $5 (approx. Rs. 60) to drive through Orchard Road (equivalent of Mahim Causeway or Pedder Road) between 5 PM and 8 PM. YOU come back to the parking lot to punch your parking ticket if you have over stayed in a restaurant or a shopping mall irrespective of your status identity... In Singapore you don't say anything, DO YOU? YOU wouldn't dare to eat in public during Ramadan, in Dubai . YOU would not dare to go out without your head covered in Jeddah. YOU would not dare to buy an employee of the telephone exchange in London at 10 pounds ( Rs.650) a month to, 'see to it that my STD and ISD calls are billed to someone else.'YOU would not dare to speed
beyond 55 mph (88 km/h) in Washington and then tell the traffic cop, 'Jaanta hai main kaun hoon (Do you know who I am?).
I am so and so's son.

Take your two bucks and get lost.' YOU wouldn't chuck an empty coconut shell anywhere other than the garbage pail on the beaches in Australia and New Zealand .....
Why don't YOU spit Paan on the streets of Tokyo ?
Why don't YOU use examination jockeys or buy fake certificates in Boston ???
We are still talking of the same YOU.
YOU who can respect and conform to a foreign system in other countries but cannot in your own. You who will throw papers and cigarettes on the road the moment you touch Indian ground. If you can be an involved and appreciative citizen in an alien country, why cannot you be the same here in India ?

Once in an interview, the famous Ex-municipal commissioner of Bombay , Mr.Tinaikar , had a point to make. 'Rich people's dogs are walked on the streets to leave their affluent droppings all over the place,' he said. 'And then the same people turn around to criticize and blame the authorities for inefficiency and dirty pavements. What do they expect the officers to do? Go down with a broom every time their dog feels the pressure in his bowels?
In America every dog owner has to clean up after his pet has done the job.
Same in Japan ..... Will the Indian citizen do that here?' He's right.
We go to the polls to choose a government and after that forfeit all responsibility. We sit back wanting to be pampered and expect the government to do everything for us whilst our contribution is totally negative. We expect the government to clean up but we are not going to stop chucking garbage all over the place nor are we going to stop to pick a up a stray piece of paper and throw it in the bin. We expect the railways to provide clean bathrooms but we are not going to learn the proper use of bathrooms.
We want Indian Airlines and Air India to provide the best of food and toiletries but we are not going to stop pilfering at the least
opportunity.
This applies even to the staff who is known not to pass on the service to the public. When it comes to burning social issues like those
related to women, dowry, girl child! and others, we make loud drawing room protestations and continue to do the reverse at home. Our excuse?
It's the whole system which has to change, how will it matter if I alone forego my sons' rights to a dowry.' So who's going to change the system?
What does a system consist of ? Very conveniently for us it consists of our neighbours, other households, other cities, other communities and the government. But definitely not me and YOU. When it comes to us actually making a positive contribution to the system we lock ourselves along with our families into a safe cocoon and look into the distance at countries far away and wait for a Mr. Clean to come along & work miracles for us with a majestic sweep of his hand or we leave the country and run away. Like lazy cowards hounded by our fears we run to America to bask in their glory and praise their system. When New York becomes insecure we run to England ...... When England experiences unemployment, we take the next flight out to the Gulf. When the Gulf is war struck, we demand to be rescued and brought home by the Indian government. Everybody is out to abuse the country. Nobody thinks of feeding the system. Our conscience is mortgaged to money.

Dear Indians, The article is highly thought inductive, calls for a great deal of introspection and pricks one's conscience too.... I am
echoing J. F. Kennedy 's words to his fellow Americans to relate to Indians.....

'ASK, WHAT WE CAN DO FOR INDIA AND DO WHAT HAS TO BE DONE TO MAKE INDIA WHAT AMERICA AND OTHER WESTERN COUNTRIES ARE TODAY'

Lets do what India needs from us.

Forward this mail to each Indian for a change instead of sending Jokes or junk mails.

Thank you,

Dr. Abdul Kalaam
Ex-president of India

Life lessons from -- Narayana Murthy

N R Narayana Murthy, chief mentor and chairman of the board, Infosys Technologies, delivered a pre-commencement lecture at the New York University (Stern School of Business) on May 9. It is a scintillating speech, Murthy speaks about the lessons he learnt from his life and career. We present it for our readers:
Dean Cooley, faculty, staff, distinguished guests, and, most importantly, the graduating class of 2007, it is a great privilege to speak at your commencement ceremonies.
I thank Dean Cooley and Prof Marti Subrahmanyam for their kind invitation. I am exhilarated to be part of such a joyous occasion. Congratulations to you, the class of 2007, on completing an important milestone in your life journey.

After some thought, I have decided to share with you some of my life lessons. I learned these lessons in the context of my early career struggles, a life lived under the influence of sometimes unplanned events which were the crucibles that tempered my character and reshaped my future.
I would like first to share some of these key life events with you, in the hope that these may help you understand my struggles and how chance events and unplanned encounters with influential persons shaped my life and career.
Later, I will share the deeper life lessons that I have learned. My sincere hope is that this sharing will help you see your own trials and tribulations for the hidden blessings they can be.
The first event occurred when I was a graduate student in Control Theory at IIT, Kanpur, in India. At breakfast on a bright Sunday morning in 1968, I had a chance encounter with a famous computer scientist on sabbatical from a well-known US university.
He was discussing exciting new developments in the field of computer science with a large group of students and how such developments would alter our future. He was articulate, passionate and quite convincing. I was hooked. I went straight from breakfast to the library, read four or five papers he had suggested, and left the library determined to study computer science.
Friends, when I look back today at that pivotal meeting, I marvel at how one role model can alter for the better the future of a young student. This experience taught me that valuable advice can sometimes come from an unexpected source, and chance events can sometimes open new doors.
The next event that left an indelible mark on me occurred in 1974. The location: Nis, a border town between former Yugoslavia, now Serbia, and Bulgaria. I was hitchhiking from Paris back to Mysore, India, my home town.
By the time a kind driver dropped me at Nis railway station at 9 p.m. on a Saturday night, the restaurant was closed. So was the bank the next morning, and I could not eat because I had no local money. I slept on the railway platform until 8.30 pm in the night when the Sofia Express pulled in.
The only passengers in my compartment were a girl and a boy. I struck a conversation in French with the young girl. She talked about the travails of living in an iron curtain country, until we were roughly interrupted by some policemen who, I later gathered, were summoned by the young man who thought we were criticising the communist government of Bulgaria.
The girl was led away; my backpack and sleeping bag were confiscated. I was dragged along the platform into a small 8x8 foot room with a cold stone floor and a hole in one corner by way of toilet facilities. I was held in that bitterly cold room without food or water for over 72 hours.
I had lost all hope of ever seeing the outside world again, when the door opened. I was again dragged out unceremoniously, locked up in the guard's compartment on a departing freight train and told that I would be released 20 hours later upon reaching Istanbul. The guard's final words still ring in my ears -- "You are from a friendly country called India and that is why we are letting you go!"
The journey to Istanbul was lonely, and I was starving. This long, lonely, cold journey forced me to deeply rethink my convictions about Communism. Early on a dark Thursday morning, after being hungry for 108 hours, I was purged of any last vestiges of affinity for the Left.
I concluded that entrepreneurship, resulting in large-scale job creation, was the only viable mechanism for eradicating poverty in societies.
Deep in my heart, I always thank the Bulgarian guards for transforming me from a confused Leftist into a determined, compassionate capitalist! Inevitably, this sequence of events led to the eventual founding of Infosys in 1981.
While these first two events were rather fortuitous, the next two, both concerning the Infosys journey, were more planned and profoundly influenced my career trajectory.
On a chilly Saturday morning in winter 1990, five of the seven founders of Infosys met in our small office in a leafy Bangalore suburb. The decision at hand was the possible sale of Infosys for the enticing sum of $1 million. After nine years of toil in the then business-unfriendly India, we were quite happy at the prospect of seeing at least some money.
I let my younger colleagues talk about their future plans. Discussions about the travails of our journey thus far and our future challenges went on for about four hours. I had not yet spoken a word.
Finally, it was my turn. I spoke about our journey from a small Mumbai apartment in 1981 that had been beset with many challenges, but also of how I believed we were at the darkest hour before the dawn. I then took an audacious step. If they were all bent upon selling the company, I said, I would buy out all my colleagues, though I did not have a cent in my pocket.
There was a stunned silence in the room. My colleagues wondered aloud about my foolhardiness. But I remained silent. However, after an hour of my arguments, my colleagues changed their minds to my way of thinking. I urged them that if we wanted to create a great company, we should be optimistic and confident. They have more than lived up to their promise of that day.
In the seventeen years since that day, Infosys has grown to revenues in excess of $3.0 billion, a net income of more than $800 million and a market capitalisation of more than $28 billion, 28,000 times richer than the offer of $1 million on that day.
In the process, Infosys has created more than 70,000 well-paying jobs, 2,000-plus dollar-millionaires and 20,000-plus rupee millionaires.

A final story: On a hot summer morning in 1995, a Fortune-10 corporation had sequestered all their Indian software vendors, including Infosys, in different rooms at the Taj Residency hotel in Bangalore so that the vendors could not communicate with one another. This customer's propensity for tough negotiations was well-known. Our team was very nervous.
First of all, with revenues of only around $5 million, we were minnows compared to the customer.
Second, this customer contributed fully 25% of our revenues. The loss of this business would potentially devastate our recently-listed company.
Third, the customer's negotiation style was very aggressive. The customer team would go from room to room, get the best terms out of each vendor and then pit one vendor against the other. This went on for several rounds. Our various arguments why a fair price -- one that allowed us to invest in good people, R&D, infrastructure, technology and training -- was actually in their interest failed to cut any ice with the customer.
By 5 p.m. on the last day, we had to make a decision right on the spot whether to accept the customer's terms or to walk out.
All eyes were on me as I mulled over the decision. I closed my eyes, and reflected upon our journey until then. Through many a tough call, we had always thought about the long-term interests of Infosys. I communicated clearly to the customer team that we could not accept their terms, since it could well lead us to letting them down later. But I promised a smooth, professional transition to a vendor of customer's choice.
This was a turning point for Infosys.
Subsequently, we created a Risk Mitigation Council which ensured that we would never again depend too much on any one client, technology, country, application area or key employee. The crisis was a blessing in disguise. Today, Infosys has a sound de-risking strategy that has stabilised its revenues and profits.
I want to share with you, next, the life lessons these events have taught me.
1. I will begin with the importance of learning from experience. It is less important, I believe, where you start. It is more important how and what you learn. If the quality of the learning is high, the development gradient is steep, and, given time, you can find yourself in a previously unattainable place. I believe the Infosys story is living proof of this.
Learning from experience, however, can be complicated. It can be much more difficult to learn from success than from failure. If we fail, we think carefully about the precise cause. Success can indiscriminately reinforce all our prior actions.
2. A second theme concerns the power of chance events. As I think across a wide variety of settings in my life, I am struck by the incredible role played by the interplay of chance events with intentional choices. While the turning points themselves are indeed often fortuitous, how we respond to them is anything but so. It is this very quality of how we respond systematically to chance events that is crucial.
3. Of course, the mindset one works with is also quite critical. As recent work by the psychologist, Carol Dweck, has shown, it matters greatly whether one believes in ability as inherent or that it can be developed. Put simply, the former view, a fixed mindset, creates a tendency to avoid challenges, to ignore useful negative feedback and leads such people to plateau early and not achieve their full potential.
The latter view, a growth mindset, leads to a tendency to embrace challenges, to learn from criticism and such people reach ever higher levels of achievement (Krakovsky, 2007: page 48).
4. The fourth theme is a cornerstone of the Indian spiritual tradition: self-knowledge. Indeed, the highest form of knowledge, it is said, is self-knowledge. I believe this greater awareness and knowledge of oneself is what ultimately helps develop a more grounded belief in oneself, courage, determination, and, above all, humility, all qualities which enable one to wear one's success with dignity and grace.
Based on my life experiences, I can assert that it is this belief in learning from experience, a growth mindset, the power of chance events, and self-reflection that have helped me grow to the present.
Back in the 1960s, the odds of my being in front of you today would have been zero. Yet here I stand before you! With every successive step, the odds kept changing in my favour, and it is these life lessons that made all the difference.
My young friends, I would like to end with some words of advice. Do you believe that your future is pre-ordained, and is already set? Or, do you believe that your future is yet to be written and that it will depend upon the sometimes fortuitous events?
Do you believe that these events can provide turning points to which you will respond with your energy and enthusiasm? Do you believe that you will learn from these events and that you will reflect on your setbacks? Do you believe that you will examine your successes with even greater care?
I hope you believe that the future will be shaped by several turning points with great learning opportunities. In fact, this is the path I have walked to much advantage.
A final word: When, one day, you have made your mark on the world, remember that, in the ultimate analysis, we are all mere temporary custodians of the wealth we generate, whether it be financial, intellectual, or emotional. The best use of all your wealth is to share it with those less fortunate.
I believe that we have all at some time eaten the fruit from trees that we did not plant. In the fullness of time, when it is our turn to give, it behooves us in turn to plant gardens that we may never eat the fruit of, which will largely benefit generations to come. I believe this is our sacred responsibility, one that I hope you will shoulder in time.
Thank you for your patience. Go forth and embrace your future with open arms, and pursue enthusiastically your own life journey of discovery!

You gotta break the LAW if you want to get RICH

I'm talking about breaking a law that keeps poor people poor. There is a specific "law" you must break or you will stay on your financial knees forever!
This "law" is a guarded secret that the wealthy know about but the poor do not. This SECRET is not known by the average person. The only people who know about it were told by other rich people. That's how I found out!

It’s secrets like this that make the wealthy, wealthy right? The rich know things that the average person doesn’t know. The incredible system you are about to discover comes from a very rich man. He is a multi-millionaire who was kind enough to share it with me when he saw how hard I was struggling.

Just like some of you, I have made and lost a lot of money. As hard as I tried, no matter what I tried, the money vanished before my eyes! Has that ever happened to YOU? Is it still happening? Today, I am proud to say that I am back on track. I now break the law with a huge smile on my face!

Before we get into this amazing wealth plan, let's talk about a few things and go over a few questions to get you thinking about why you are where you are today.
Ever heard the saying that “money is the root of all evil?” If you really think about it, just the opposite is true. "The LACK of money is the true root of all evil". Lack of money comes from poor financial habits.

Let's take a closer look. What’s the real reason people don’t live the kind of life they want to live? Lack of money. Why do people rob and steal from each other? Lack of money. Otherwise, they would simply go out and buy what they wanted rather than steal it from someone else. That’s the wrong law to break!

What’s the answer? Would it make things better if we took all the money in the world and divided it equally among everyone? That would level the playing field and we would all live happily ever after, right?

Wrong! It's been said that if you took all the money in the world and divided it up equally, it wouldn’t be long before all the money ended up right back where it started in the first place, in the hands of the RICH!

Why is that statement true? It’s true because most people don’t know what to do with their money. Most people blow their paycheck while keeping their fingers crossed hoping for the best.

Rather than take responsibility for themselves and their future, most people would rather blame anything but themselves for their problems. “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” Ever heard that one before?

Someone once asked Henry Ford what he would do if he lost everything. His reply was that he would have it all back within 5 years. He understood that his wealth was not his possessions, but himself and his ability to break the law effectively.

John Jacob Astor once said, “the second million is easier to get than the first thousand.” It's hard to understand why until you understand that until you break the law, it’s IMPOSSIBLE make your fortune!

Of course, attaining monetary wealth aren’t the only goals you should set for your life, but they are important. Zig Ziglar says “Money isn’t everything, but it’s reasonably close to oxygen.”

WHY do you want a lot of money? Are you excited about collecting strips of paper with dead presidents on them? No! You don't want a lot of MONEY; you want what a lot of money can give you.................FREEDOM!
Having lots of money gives you freedom. If you have more than enough money to pay your expenses, you can go where you want to go and do what you want to do.

An important distinction to make here is that having a lot of money is not a cure-all! Don't let yourself fall prey to that line of thinking. If you think money will make you happy, you're in for a major disappointment.

It's important to point out here that the way you think and believe (your philosophy) is the guiding force that determines how your life works out. Correcting these errors in judgment is paramount to your success in life.

The naked truth is you are where you are today financially because of the plan you have been following. Even if you think you don't have a plan, you're still following a "no-plan" plan.

If you’re POOR it’s because you work for your money.

If you’re RICH, you know how to make money work for you...!!

MUST READ:
"Think and Grow Rich" - by Napolean Hill
"Rich Dad - Poor Dad" - by Robeart Kiyosaki

[ I had gone through both the books, we cant afford-not reading them ]

So let's make it ..... :-)
~# See You At The TOP # ~

Wonderful Speech - Ganex Steve Jobs [CEO - Apple]

I found this article while surfing internet, please read it ! You will never regret you wasted time !!! I loved the simplicity of Steve !!!
It’s Awesome

The following is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer, Inc., delivered on June 2005.
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, 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 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 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 college 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 have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out 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 someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively 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 how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of 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 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 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 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 san 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, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal 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 ten 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. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
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 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. 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. So at 30 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 had 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 of 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 worlds 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, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene 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 hits 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 your 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. 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 until you find it. 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 tool 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 doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure 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 and 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 doctors 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 I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its 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 is 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 is 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. And most important, have the courage to follow your 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 Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, 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, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, 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 it 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.

Professionals who regularly changed their jobs are more confident

This is interesting… & you must read it....


In a recent survey it was found that professionals who regularly changed their jobs are more confident and financially secured than their counterparts. To find out the truth we decided to have a conversation with some of our friends who are working in engineering and construction companies. We began with some professionals who had changed their jobs an year ago.

We talked to Mr S.V.Anil. This is what he had to say:
"I started my career in a company and worked in the same company for 10 years. During this period I developed very good relations with my seniors, HOD and also with admin dept. This created a sense of security in my mind and I started loving my company. During this period I came across many job opportunities from other companies and also from foreign lands. But the sense of security was so deep rooted in my mind that I never bothered to even attend a walk-in-interview. Forget about thinking of going abroad. I watched many of my colleagues resign and join other companies on a higher salary and a higher position. Some even went abroad and are settled there. Meanwhile I also saw some young engineers almost 5 years junior to me joined my company with same pay as what I was earning. It was then I was disturbed and started looking for alternatives. I had good relations with my HOD and also with administration dept so I decided to put up my case against this "injustice". Everybody showed sympathy to me but nobody took any action. All what they would say was "we will revise your scale in the next appraisal". I had faith in my company so I waited for the appraisal and to my shock I was given only an average increment the same was given to the new chaps too. The same story repeated the following year. It was then I decided to quite. But leaving was not so easy. I had a lot of sleepless nights before I actually resigned. I had built a shell of "sense of security" around me and it was very difficult to break. Worse I had lost confidence that I would be able to adjust and perform in a different environment. But later I found out it is not so difficult to get adjusted to the new environment. I am happy now that I earn better and have a good position."


This is just an example. Almost all the professionals we talked to had a similar experience.
We conclude that working in any company for more than 7 years have following disadvantages:

1. You are taken for granted by the company.
2. You get used to working in an environment which is unique to that company this makes you less confident for taking up new opportunities.
3. Personal growth is hampered as there is very little new to learn after 5-7 years.
4. You become complacent reducing your own market value.

The only benefit it offers is so called "security" (And that too is imaginary)

Here are some benefits of changing the job regularly:

1. You join the company satisfied with your needs ( pay and position ) and on your own terms.
2. Work in a different environment and learn to negotiate different problems and situations.
3. Often you get a chance to attend a new course/seminar thereby increasing your professional knowledge.
4. You are always conscious about your performance keeping your market value intact.


The professional companies do not operate on emotions. They are least bothered about your loyalty all they want is performance. You won't be awarded anything extraordinary for your loyalty. It is always performance that counts. If you are in a company serving for too long then the chances are you not one of the best performers because of the inevitable complacency.

Also such people presented with an opportunity of lifetime are incapable to grab it. It is impossible for these people to break their shell of "security" and grab the new opportunity. The situation is worse for the people who have worked for more than 15 years in only one company. They can't even dream of quitting their job, it is like fish out of water.

"I have three visions for India" -- A P J Abdul Kalam

As desired by the President of India, this paper is for circulation.

"I have three visions for India"
-by A P J Abdul Kalam
President's Office, November 19, 2006

In 3,000 years of our history, people from all over the world have come and invaded us, captured our lands, conquered our minds. From Alexander onwards. The Greeks, the Turks', the-Moguls, the Portuguese, the British, the French, the Dutch, all of them came and looted us, took over what was ours. Yet we have not done this to any other nation. We have not conquered anyone.

We have not grabbed their land, their culture, their history and tried to enforce our way of life on them. Why? Because we respect the freedom of others. That is why my first vision is that of FREEDOM. I believe that India got its first vision of this in 1857, when we started the war of independence. It is this freedom that we must protect and nurture and build on. If we are not free, no one will respect us.

My second vision for India is DEVELOPMENT. For fifty years we have been a developing nation. It is time we see ourselves as a developed nation. We are among the top five nations of the world in terms of GDP. We have 10 percent growth rate in most areas. Our poverty levels are falling. Our achievements are being globally recognized today. Yet we lack the self-confidence to see ourselves as a developed nation, self-reliant and self-assured. Isn't this incorrect?

I HAVE A THIRD VISION. India must stand up to the world. Because I believe that, unless India stands up to the world, no one will respect us. Only STRENGTH respects strength. We must be strong not only as a military power but also as an economics power. Both must go hand-in-hand.

My good fortune was to have worked with three great minds. Dr. Vikram Sarabhai of the Dept of Space, Professor Sathish Dhawan, who succeded him and Dr. Brahm Prakash, father of nuclear material. I was lucky to have worked with all three of them closely and consider this the great opportunity of my life.

I SEE FOUR MILESTONES IN MY CAREER: Twenty years I spent in ISRO. I was given the opportunity to be the Project Director for India's first satellite launch vehicle, SLV-3. The one that launched Rohini. These years played a very important role in my life as a scientist.

After my ISRO years, I joined DRDO and got a chance to be the part of India's guided missile program. It was my second bliss when Agni met its mission requirements in 1994. The Dept. of Atomic Energy and DRDO had this tremendous partnership in the recent nuclear tests, on May 11 and 13. This was the third bliss. The joy of participating with my team in these nuclear tests and proving to the world that India can make it, that we are no longer a developing nation but one of them, It makes me feel very proud as an Indian. The fact that we have now developed for Agni a re-entry structure, for which we have developed this new material. A very light material called carbon-carbon.

One day an orthopedic surgeon from Nizam institute of Medical Science visited my laboratory. He lifted the material and found it so light that he took me to his hospital and showed me his patients.

There were these little girls and boys with heavy metallic calipers weighing over three kg. each, dragging their feet around. He said to me : Please remove the pain of my patients. In three weeks, we made these Floor reaction Orthosis 300 gram calipers and took them to the orthopedic center. The children didn't believe their eyes. From dragging around a three kg. load on their legs, they could now move around! Their parents had tears in the eyes. That was my fourth bliss!

Why is the media here so negative? Why are we in India so embarrassed to recognize our own strengths, our achievements? We are such a great nation. We have so many amazing success stories but we refuse to acknowledge them. Why? We are the first in milk production. We are number one in remote sensing satellites. We are the second largest producer of wheat We are the second largest producer of rice. Look at Dr. Sudarshan, he has transferred the tribal village into a self sustaining, self-driving unit. There are millions of such achievements but our media is only obsessed in the bad news and failures and disasters.

I was in Tel Aviv once and I was reading the Israeli newspaper. It was the day after a lot of attacks and bombardments and deaths had taken place. The Hamas had struck. But the frontpage of the newspaper had the picture of a Jewish gentleman who in five years had transformed his desert land into an orchid and a granary. It was this inspiring picture that everyone woke up to. The gory details of killings, bombardments, deaths, were inside in the newspaper, buried among other news.

In India we only read about death, sickness terrorism, crime. Why are we so NEGATIVE? Another question: Why are we, as a nation so obsessed with foreign things? We want foreign T.Vs, we want foreign shirts. We want foreign technology. Why this obsession with everything imported. Do we not realize that self-respect comes with self-reliance?

I was in Hyderabad giving this lecture, when a 14 year old girl asked me for my autograph. I asked her what her goal in life is. She replied: I want to live in a developed India. For her, you and I will have to build this developed India. You must proclaim. India is not ah under-developed nation; it is highly developed nation.

Do you have 10 minutes? Allow me to come back with a vengeance.

Got 10 minutes for your country? If yes, then read; otherwise, the choice is yours.

YOU say that our government is inefficient. YOU say that our laws are too old. YOU say that the municipality does not pick up the garbage.

YOU say that the phones don't work, the railways are a joke, The airlines is the worst in the world, mails never reach their destination.

YOU say that our country has been fed to the dogs and is in the pits.

YOU say, say and say. What do YOU do about it?

Take a person on his way to Singapore. Give him a name - YOURS. Give him a face - YOURS. YOU walk out of the airport and you are at your international best. In Singapore you don't throw cigarette butts on the

roads or eat in the stores. YOU are as proud of their underground links as they are. You pay $5 (approx. Rs. 60) to drive through Orchard Road (equivalent of Mahim Causeway or Pedder Road) between 5 PM and 8 PM.

YOU come back to the parking lot to punch your parking ticket if you have over stayed in a restaurant or a shopping mall irrespective of your status identity. In Singapore you don't say anything, DO YOU?

YOU wouldn't dare to eat in public during Ramadan, in Dubai

YOU would not dare to go out without your head covered in Jeddah.

YOU would not dare to buy an employee of the telephone exchange in London at 10 pounds ( Rs.650 ) a month to, "see to it that my STD and ISD calls are billed to someone else"".

YOU would not dare to speed beyond 55 mph (88 km/h) in Washington and then tell the traffic cop, "Jaanta hai main kaun hoon?" (Do you know who I am?). I am so and so's son. Take your two bucks and get lost".

YOU wouldn't chuck an empty coconut shell anywhere other than the garbage pail on the beaches in Australia and New Zealand. Why dont' YOU spit paan on the streets of Tokyo? Why don't YOU use examination jockeys or buy fake certificates in Boston???

We are still talking of the same YOU

YOU who can respect and conform to a foreign system in other countries but cannot in your own. You who will throw papers and cigarettes on the road the moment you touch Indian ground. If you can be an Involved and appreciative citizen in an alien country, why cannot you be the same here in India?

Once in an interview, the famous ex-municipal commissioner of Bombay, Mr. Tinaikar, had a point to make. Rich people's dogs are walked on the streets to leave their affluent droppings all over the place", he said.

"And then the same people turn around to criticize and blame the authorities for inefficiency and dirty pavements. What do they expect the officers to do? Go down with a broom every time their dogs feels the pressure in his bowels? In America every dog owner has to clean up after his pet has done the job. Same in Japan. Will the Indian citizen do that here?" He's right. We go to the polls to choose a government and after that forfeit all responsibility. We sit back wanting to be pampered and expect the government to do everything for us whilst our contribution is totally negative.

We expect the government to do everything for us. We expect the government to clean up but we are not going to stop chucking garbage all over the place nor are we going to stop to pick up a stray piece of paper and throw it in the bin. We expect the railways to provide clean bathrooms but we are not going to learn the proper use of bathrooms.

We want Indian Airlines and Air India to provide the best of food and toiletries but we are not going to stop pilfering at the least opportunity. This applies even to the staff who is known not pass on the service to the public. When it comes to burning social issues like those related to women, dowry, girl child and others, we make loud drawing room protestations and continue to do the reverse at home.

Our excuse? "It is the whole system which has to change, how will it matter if I alone forego my son's rights to a dowry". So who's going to change the system? What does a system consist of? Very conveniently for us it consists of our neighbours, other households, other cities, other communities and the government. But definitely no me and YOU.

When it comes to us actually making a positive contribution to the system we lock ourselves along with our families into a safe cocoon and look into the distance at countries far away and wait for a Mr. Clean to come along & work miracles for us with a majestic sweep of his hand or we leave the country and run away. Like lazy cowards hounded by our fears we run to America to bask in their glory and praise their system. When New York becomes insecure we run to England. When England experiences unemployment, we take the next flight out to the Gulf.

When the Gulf is war struck, we demand to be rescued and brought home by the Indian Government. Everybody is out to abuse and rape the country. Nobody thinks of feeding the system. Our conscience is mortgaged to money.

Dear Indians, The article is highly thought-inductive, calls for a great deal of introspection and pricks one's conscience too... I am echoing J.F. Kennedy's words to his fellow Americans to relate to Indians..., "Ask what we can do for India and do what had to be done to make India what America and other western countries are today".

Dr Abdul Kalam

An interesting reflection : Slow Down Culture

An interesting reflection : Slow Down Culture

It's been 18 years since I joined Volvo, a Swedish company. Working for them has proven to be an interesting experience. Any project here takes 2 years to be finalized, even if the idea is simple and brilliant. It's a rule.

Globalize processes have caused in us (all over the world) a general sense of searching for immediate results. Therefore, we have come to posses a need to see immediate results. This contrasts greatly with the slow movements of the Swedish. They, on the other hand, debate, debate, debate, hold x quantity of meetings and work with a slowdown scheme. At the end, this always yields better results.

Said in another words:
1. Sweden is about the size of San Pablo, a state in Brazil.
2. Sweden has 2 million inhabitants.
3. Stockholm, has 500,000 people.
4. Volvo, Escania, Ericsson, Electrolux, Nokia are some of its renowned companies. Volvo supplies the NASA.

The first time I was in Sweden, one of my colleagues picked me up at the hotel every morning. It was September, bit cold and snowy. We would arrive early at the company and he would park far away from the entrance (2000 employees drive their car to work). The first day, I didn't say anything, either the second or third. One morning I asked, "Do you have a fixed parking space? I've noticed we park far from the entrance even when there are no other cars in the lot." To which he replied, "Since we're here early we'll have time to walk, and whoever gets in late will be late and need a place closer to the door. Don't you think? Imagine my face.

Nowadays, there's a movement in Europe name Slow Food. This movement establishes that people should eat and drink slowly, with enough time to taste their food, spend time with the family, friends, without rushing. Slow Food is against its counterpart: the spirit of Fast Food and what it stands for as a lifestyle. Slow Food is the basis for a bigger movement called Slow Europe, as mentioned by Business Week.

Basically, the movement questions the sense of "hurry" and "craziness" generated by globalization, fueled by the desire of "having in quantity" (life status) versus "having with quality", "life quality" or the "quality of being". French people, even though they work 35 hours per week, are more productive than Americans or British. Germans have established 28.8 hour workweeks and have seen their productivity been driven up by 20%. This slow attitude has brought forth the US's attention, pupils of the fast and the "do it now!".

This no-rush attitude doesn't represent doing less or having a lower productivity. It means working and doing things with greater quality, productivity, perfection, with attention to detail and less stress. It means reestablishing family values, friends, free and leisure time. Taking the "now", present and concrete, versus the "global", undefined and anonymous. It means taking humans' essential values, the simplicity of living.

It stands for a less coercive work environment, more happy, lighter and more productive where humans enjoy doing what they know best how to do. It's time to stop and think on how companies need to develop serious quality with no-rush that will increase productivity and the quality of products and services, without losing the essence of spirit.

In the movie, Scent of a Woman, there's a scene where Al Pacino asks a girl to dance and she replies, "I can't, my boyfriend will be here any minute now". To which Al responds, "A life is lived in an instant". Then they dance to a tango.

Many of us live our lives running behind time, but we only reach it when we die of a heart attack or in a car accident rushing to be on time. Others are so anxious of living the future that they forget to live the present, which is the only time that truly exists. We all have equal time throughout the world. No one has more or less. The difference lies in how each one of us does with our time. We need to live each moment. As John Lennon said, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans".

My Stupid Suicide Plan... By CHETAN BHAGAT

My Stupid Suicide Plan... By CHETAN BHAGAT

Last week, an IITian committed suicide. People who commit suicide do it

when they feel there's no future. But wait, isn't IIT the one place where a

bright and shining future is a foregone conclusion? It just doesn't add up,

does it? Why would a young, hardworking, bright student who has the world

ahead of him do something like this? But the answer is this-in our constant

reverence for the great institution (and I do believe IITs are great), we

forget the dark side. And the dark side is that the IITs are afflicted by

the quintessential Indian phenomenon of academic pressure, probably the

highest in the world.

I can rant about the educational system and how it requires serious

fixing, or I can address the immediate-try my best to prevent such

suicides. For this column I have chosen the latter, and I do so with a

personal story.

News of a suicide always brings back one particular childhood memory. I

was 14 years old when I first seriously contemplated suicide. I had done

badly in chemistry in the Class X half yearly exam. I was an IIT aspirant,

and 68% was nowhere near what an IIT candidate should be getting. I don't

know what had made me screw up the exam, but I did know this, I was going

to kill myself. The only debate was about method.

Ironically, chemistry offered a way. I had read about copper sulphate,

and that it was both cheap and poisonous. Copper sulphate was available at

the kirana store. I had it all worked out.

My rationale for killing myself was simple-nobody loved me, my chemistry

score was awful, I had no future and what difference would it make to the

world if I was not there.

I bought the copper sulphate for two rupees-probably the cheapest exit

strategy in the world.

I didn't do it for two reasons. One, I had a casual chat with the aunty

next door about copper sulphate, and my knowledgeable aunty knew about a

woman who had died that way. She said it was the most painful death

possible, all your veins burst and you suffer for hours. This tale made my

insides shudder. Second, on the day I was to do it, I noticed a street dog

outside my house being teased by the neighbourhood kids as he hunted for

scraps of food. Nobody loved him. It would make no difference to the world

if the dog wasn't there. And I was pretty sure that its chemistry score

would be awful. Yet, the dog wasn't trotting off to the kirana store. He

was only interested in figuring out a strategy for his next meal. And when

he was full, he merely curled up in a corner with one eye open, clearly

content and not giving a damn about the world. If he wasn't planning to die

anytime soon what the hell was I ranting about? I threw the copper sulphate

in the bin. It was the best two bucks I ever wasted.

So why did I tell you this story? Because sometimes the pressure gets

too much. Like it did for the IITian who couldn't take it no more. On the

day he took that dreadful decision, his family and friends were shattered,

and India lost a wonderful, bright child. And as the silly but true copper

sulphate story tells you-it could happen to any of us or those around us.

So please be on the lookout, if you see a distressed young soul, lend a

supportive, non-judgemental ear. When I look back, I thank that aunt and

that dog for unwittingly saving my life. If God wanted us to take our own

life, he would have provided a power off button. He didn't, so have faith

and let his plan for you unfold. Because no matter how tough life gets and

how much it hurts, if street dogs don't give up, there is no reason why we,

the smart species, should. Makes sense right?

Very Good Speech By Mr. Narayan Murthy

A Very Good Speech by Mr. Narayan Murthi (Founder of Infosys) for those who are working hard upto late hours in evening


"Mr.Narayana Murthy's Speech (read last line twice)"


I am not relating this to the present scenario.

Hope that many of us start leaving early for home after reading this...

Infosys' Chairman and Chief Mentor Officer (CMO) - Mr.Narayana Murthy's Speech on Late sitting:

I know people who work 12 hours a day, six days a week, or more.

Some people do so because of a work emergency where the long hours are only temporary. Other people I know have put in these hours for years. I don't know if they are working all these hours, but I do know they are in the office this long. Others put in long office hours because they are addicted to the workplace. Whatever the reason for putting in overtime, working long hours over the long term is harmful to the person and to the organization.

There are things managers can do to change this for everyone's benefit. Being in the office long hours, over long periods of time, makes way for potential errors. My colleagues who are in the office long hours frequently make mistakes caused by fatigue.

Correcting these mistakes requires their time as well as the time and energy of others. I have seen people work Tuesday through Friday to correct mistakes made after 5 PM on Monday.

Another problem is that people who are in the office for long hours are not pleasant company. They often complain about other people (who aren't working as hard); they are irritable, or cranky, or even angry. Other people avoid them. Such behavior poses problems, where work goes much better when people work together instead of avoiding one another.

As Managers, there are things we can do to help people leave the office.

First and foremost is to set the example and go home ourselves. I work with a manager who chides people for working long hours. His words quickly lose their meaning when he sends these chiding group e-mails with a time-stamp of 2 AM, Sunday.

Second is to encourage people to put some balance in their lives. For instance, here is a guideline I find helpful:

1) Wake up, eat a good breakfast, and go to work.
2) Work hard and smart for eight or nine hours.
3) Go home.
4) Read the comics, watch a funny movie, dig in the dirt, play with your kids, etc.
5) Eat well and sleep well.

This is called recreating . Doing steps 1, 3, 4, and 5 enable step 2. Working regular hours and recreating daily are simple concepts. They are hard for some of us because that requires personal change. They are possible since we all have the power to choose to do them.

In considering the issue of overtime, I am reminded of my eldest son.

When he was a toddler, If people were visiting the apartment, he would not fall asleep no matter how long the visit, and no matter what time of day it was. He would fight off sleep until the visitors left. It was as if he was afraid that he would miss something. Once our visitors' left, he would go to sleep. By this time, however, he was over tired and would scream through half the night with nightmares. He, my wife, and I, all paid the price for his fear of missing out.

Perhaps some people put in such long hours because they don't want to miss anything
when they leave the office. The trouble with this is that events will never stop happening.
That is life! Things happen 24 hours a day.

Allowing for little rest is not ultimately practical. So, take a nap.Things will happen while
you're asleep, but you will have the energy to catch up when you wake.

"LOVE YOUR JOB BUT NEVER FALL IN LOVE WITH YOUR COMPANY (Because you never know when it stops loving you)"
- Narayana Murthy

WHY EMPLOYEES LEAVE ORGANISATIONS ? - Mr. Azim Premji, Wipro

Managing people

WHY EMPLOYEES LEAVE ORGANISATIONS ? – Mr. Azim Premji, Wipro

Every company faces the problem of people leaving the company for better pay or profile.
Early this year, Arun, a senior software designer, got an offer from a prestigious international firm to work in its India operations developing specialized software. He was thrilled by the offer.
He had heard a lot about the CEO. The salary was great. The company had all the right systems in place employee-friendly human resources (HR) policies, a spanking new office,and the very best technology,even a canteen that served superb food.
Twice Arun was sent abroad for training. "My learning curve is the sharpest it's ever been," he said soon after he joined.
Last week, less than eight months after he joined, Arun walked out of the job.

Why did this talented employee leave ?

Arun quit for the same reason that drives many good people away.
The answer lies in one of the largest studies undertaken by the Gallup Organization. The study surveyed over a million employees and 80,000 managers and was published in a book called "First Break All The Rules". It came up with this surprising finding:
If you're losing good people, look to their immediate boss.Immediate boss is the reason people stay and thrive in an organization. And he's the reason why people leave. When people leave they take knowledge,experience and contacts with them, straight to the competition.
"People leave managers not companies," write the authors Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman.
Mostly manager drives people away?
HR experts say that of all the abuses, employees find humiliation the most intolerable. The first time, an employee may not leave,but a thought has been planted. The second time, that thought gets strengthened. The third time, he looks for another job.
When people cannot retort openly in anger, they do so by passive aggression. By digging their heels in and slowing down. By doing only what they are told to do and no more. By omitting to give the boss crucial information. Dev says: "If you work for a jerk, you basically want to get him into trouble. You don't have your heart and soul in the job."
Different managers can stress out employees in different ways - by being too controlling, too suspicious,too pushy, too critical, but they forget that workers are not fixed assets, they are free agents. When this goes on too long, an employee will quit - often over a trivial issue.
Talented men leave. Dead wood does'nt.

" Jack Welch of GE once said. A company's value lies "between the ears of its employees".