I. IIT, IIM and IIO

The next time some one asks me if I went to IIT, IIM, I can truthfully say answer in the affirmative. I was at IIT KGP in 2012. And in December 2013, Deepta took me along to an alumni reunion at IIM Ahmedabad. It was largely uneventful for me, but what happened to me upon my return left me in a state of shock of an order from which i am yet to recover fully.

It happened the morning after my return. The car door would not open. I struggled with it for some time to no avail when suddenly the car started speaking to me. Turns out the car wanted to know about my trip.

So how did the recall go? Did they fix her or has she come back none of her faults resolved?
What, are you talking to me ? What recall ?
Yes I am talking to you. If there is a problem, there is a problem. It is not your fault. There is no need to be defensive.
I don’t get it, what are you talking about ?
Last week, you went to IIM Ahmedabad, did you not, you went with Deepta.
Yes.
And did she not go there where many of her batch mates were present?
Yes.
That’s the batch recall I am talking about. How was it.
This was no batch recall. It was a batch reunion.
Now now, again you are getting defensive. There is no shame in admitting to a problem.
There is no problem with Deepta.
Come on man. What about her poor sense of direction? What about her tendency to straddle two lanes when on a highway ? I have heard you rant about it. I have often wondered why you don’t send her back for repairs if you are this unhappy about her driving.
That’s not something IIM Ahmedabad can fix. In any case, this is not something that I can send her back for.
Aha, we are making progress. You are finally admitting that she is defective. You are just saying that this was not the right factory to get this fixed in. Do I also hear that it is not for you to send her back, because you are but an accessory? May be you are not an approved accessory, may be therein lies the problem. It happens with us, cars, too. If a car is fixed with an accessory which is not from an approved source, it goes out of warranty. Is that what happened?
Nothing. Because nothing needed to be fixed. Not in me, not in her. I am also not an accessory. Ok?
Ok ok, no need to get angry. Getting angry will not change the fact that you are just an accessory.
Bull shit.
Don’t swear at me when I am holding up a mirror to you. Are you from IIT, no. Are you from IIM, no. Did you not hear about the Oswal groom hunt? Every dad wants his daughter to marry someone who went to a better college and can therefore provide better for the girl.
But I did go to a better college, I studied at Yale, one of the best universities in the world.
Did you even finish your Ph D, no. Your MA is a far cry from an MBA.
Nonsense. I am the CEO of IRIS. And let me tell you, Deepta is not an MBA, she only has a PGDBM.
How terrible you are. It is Deepta and Balu who made you CEO.
Come on.
Sorry to prick your ego, but you are only an Iyer, she is an Iyengar. She is well read and talented. I am convined that you must have slipped in through some CSR program.
Stop stop. I thought you wanted to discuss the batch recall, sorry I mean the batch reunion.
You really are rotten. You are prepared to change the subject to save you own face. But you know, we cars are trained to be more focussed, else we won’t be able to take you places. So yes, lets discuss the batch recall.
Honestly, Honda san, this was no recall, this really was a reunion of her batch.
You know just before I came to you and was still in the factory, they had a recall of the batch of September 2013 Gurgaon factory. They all had a carburettor problem which needed to be fixed. Tell me, was the whole batch recalled ?
Not all of them could not make it to the reunion. And the only recall was of memories.
I wonder why the batch sent back without repairs. It happened to the July 2013 batch in our factory. The engines were heating up, so the batch was recalled. The company though sent the cars back without fixing them as it was too expensive to fix. They found some loop hole in the sale contract which allowed then to get away. The same must have happened here. I get it. Since this is the batch of 1989, the manufacturer would have invoked what you call the statute of limitations since it is 25 years since manufacture. Nothing lasts for ever you know. And no warranty can be to perpetuity, obviously.
But let that be. You know the fun part of batch recall for all of us is to see how different owners have accessorised their cars. Did this happen? Though I must admit that this cant be fun for the cars that are getting compared.
If you wish to compare like for like, as you should, I don’t I think there was anybody quite like me. There were some 25 women in Deepta’s batch of which only 8 or so showed up. Most of the 8 had opted for what is called comprehensive placement on campus itself. Deepta was the only person who showed up with a spouse like me. So, no comparison, sorry to disappoint you.
Another thing that happens during our batch recalls is to see how well the cars have been maintained. I am sure the humans would have done the same, na?
Arey, these are friends, they are batch mates. They have come together to rekindle old bonds.
If you are trying to tell me they don’t compare, you need to wake up. You don’t think people were comparing the marketcap of Rashesh, Bichoo and Nirmal ? Hell, why do you think Roshni, Dingo and Rashesh made a pact to finish ADHM together ? To avoid embarrassing each other withe the recall happening so soon afterwards. At the same time, you need to ask why Roshni did not show up at the recall. Because by finishing with the men, she was showing that she was better. Of course they compare, they kept comparing all the time. The men were even comparing which of their spouses had been better preserved. I don’t know what world you are living in.
I am tired of this. Let me tell you once and for all that this was a batch reunion, where friends got together, not a batch recall. Human beings don’t get recalled in the way cars do. Before you get started again, yes we do die. I think you could call that a recall but that is by God, our maker.
Do you know this God. After fixing you will he send you back?
Depends. I have heard that the more spiritually evolved among the humans don’t come back in physical form, unless they choose to. They become one with the universe, they blend into what we call universal consciousness.
That happens to us too. I have heard in the factory that those that cannot be set right are sent to the scrap yard after which we are melted down and become one with other metal.
Scrap. Consciousness. I have never heard of them being equated. And seriously, when you think about it, batch recall, batch reunion, same same only. Na?

Ten action points for AAP ka aur mera Arvind Kejriwal

Suggestion # 1. Every minister must put up his daily appointment calendar for the public to view. the same must be insisted of the senior bureaucrats at the level of Secretary and above to the Delhi government.

Suggestion # 2: The annual IT returns for the last 2 years (and from now on for every year) of every MLA of AAP and therefore every minister must be available on the AAP website for the public to view. I see from the candidate affidavits that many of them have family members in business. It is important to know what business they are in, not to mention the naems of the firms and associates and if they, directly or indirectly, do any business with the Delhi government.

Suggestion # 3: AAP must take a cue out of the US and get a DATA ACT passed, this will make every rupee of government spending visible to the public. Here's a link to everything you may wish to know about the DATA Act.

Suggestion # 4: The mohalla sabhas must have an offline and an online component. I have been to a mohalla sabha organised by Arvind and they really are powerful platforms. But an online platform is a must too.

Suggestion # 5: Every MLA must have a microsite which must be available as a forum for reaching out to his / her constituents. It will also be a forum for the voters to stay in touch with whats happening and to offer their inputs to their MLA.

Suggestion # 6: Arvind and the rest of the leadership should immediately project themselves as being rulers of all of Delhi. Arvind should issue a statement that he is CM of everyone, including those that voted for the BJP or the Congress.

Suggestion # 7: It is easier being an activist than being in government. I can see that the transition is understandably difficult for AAP too. as a first step, the party should identify leaders who are authorised to speak on subjects in which they have expertise. Others should keep their mouths shut.

Suggestion # 8: AAP has made 18 promises in their manifesto. One MLA must be assigned one promise to carry forward and take full responsibility for. From the day the government is formed, there should be a weekly briefing on the progress.

Suggestion # 9: It is time to stop being touchy about things like the offer of security. An assault by a lunatic on an elected official is an attack on the state and if visible security can be a deterrent, it must be recognised for what it is. Security is not a status symbol in such a situation.

Suggestion # 10: I am yet to see how the Rs 20 crore that was raised was spent. It is time to get the accounts from each candidate and publish it online and make it available for the world to peruse.

Will you atleast read the Aam Admi party manifesto before being dismissive of them ?

Until a little while ago, I had not bothered to read the manifesto of the Aam Aadmi Party. I am not a resident of Delhi and I had figured that it would make no difference whether I read it or not.

But something changed last evening. All these days I had been under the impression that the party had been promising 700 litres of free water to every resident of Delhi. The media kept screaming about the stupidity of this promise and how this was a classic example of their incompetence, their ineptitude and so on.

All of this changed for me last night too, on the Karan Thapar show. A very articulate, self assured Atishi Marlena of AAP put things into perspective. She clarified that households consuming less than 700 litres get the water for free, the rest have to pay for water and those that consume more then 1000 litres have to pay a premium. But in what has become par for the course when one's mind is already made up, Karan Thapar played deaf, repeating what he had been told by his editorial staff that AAP had promised 700 litres of water to every household. I was enraged.

Which is how I decided to go back to the basics and read the manifesto. The manifesto itself is in Hindi and the party website provides what it calls the gist of the manifesto, crux is the word they use, in English. It says: "Households using up to 700 litres of water (per day) would be given free water." crystal clear, i should think. I am not referring to the water which we still need to test after it is served up. But the promise could not have been clearer.

So what is Karan Thapar's problem? To be fair to him he was much more patient with AAP than many of his fellow travellers. Yet the fact remains that many of those who depend on the media are getting badly shortchanged. facts are not presented, except after twisting them to support a conclusion. That is tragic, to say the least.

AAP deserves a break. The next time you see a channel trashing them, a newspaper criticising them for a promise they are supposed to have made, please, please get a fact check done. For the first time in my living memory, have some people made us believe that change is possible. Let us not bury that under a avalanche of lies fed to us day in and day out by a bigoted, self seeking, self serving media controlled by vested interests.

I want to leave you with but one thought. Honestly, the folks in the Aam Aadmi Party are not the greenhorns they are portrayed to be, nor are they irresponsible by any stretch of imagination.

Post script:
I had planned to launch this section of my blog on the day AAP takes over in Delhi but after what I saw yesterday and have been seeing over the last few days, I simply did not want to postpone it.

I. Me. Myself.

I am an extinguished journalist. I am the slowest runner on earth. I am also the Founder & CEO of IRIS Business Services Limited (www.irisbusiness.com) a firm I founded with Deepta Rangarajan and K Balachandran. I became the CEO not because I am the most deserving. Just because.

I am also horribly overweight, ok, may be not so horribly. But enough for every doctor to make fun of me when I tell them about my running. You cannot be too good, they tell me and they are right.

I took up running to deal with my attention deficiency disorder as Americans are wont to call it. You know how they have converted every situation to a disease or illness so that one does not have to take responsibility for it.

When you are on the road for as long as I am, you cannot afford to be very attention deficient. As I like to tell people about my long runs, I am so slow that I leave home yesterday only to return tomorrow. Not because I run long distances but because I am so slow that it takes me a long time to cover even short distances.

I took to writing for the same reason, to deal with my ADD. I started by getting onto Facebook where I put up notes for people to read. Some did. And now I have decided to take all of my Facebook notes and put them together to launch a blog.

I will write about anything that attracts my attention, running, politics, economy, whatever.

When I was a journalist and even now, I meet a great many number of fascinating people. Each of them has a story to tell which I will share with you.

At IRIS, we have built a reasonably successful business around XBRL, an information standard which is becoming ubiquitous across the world. Today, as we approach 2014, I am thrilled that we have a presence in as many as 14 countries where we have implemented our software.

I will write about politics as the subject fascinates me. i returned to India after my education in the US in 1987 because I entertained aspirations of being a politician, I have long given that up, instead I am now trying to do something to reform our politicians.

I studied economics at Yale, a subject in which I have more than a passing interest. My greater interest is in public policy where I am convinced that the quality of discourse can be improved significantly. It is for this reason that we launched www.esocialsciences.com, perhaps the biggest social sciences research portal in this part of the world.

I call my blog Abol Tabol, inspired by the work of the same name by the great Bengali writer Sukumar Ray whose son, the legendary director Satyajit Ray, everybody would have heard of for sure. Sukumar Ray’s Abol Tabol, a collection of poetry, belongs to the genre known as literary nonsense.

Welcome to my Abol Tabol, my world of nonsense. Because I recognize that what makes sense to me may seem nonsensical to you.


S Swaminathan

Crack Crime With XBRL

Over the last week, the CBI has been reeling under the embarrassment of goof-ups over incorrect information. In the Purulia arms drop case, the warrant had expired. In the case of the two wanted men who are actually in India even as the list given to Pakistan says that they are in Pakistan, the information was always available in the system but somewhere along the way the validation checks did not happen. All of these mistakes could have been avoided with XBRL. The government should seriously consider moving all crime records to XBRL to prevent recurrence of such incidents and, more importantly, to make investigations speedier and subsequent prosecution more effective.

XBRL or eXtensible Business Reporting Language, as its full form is, has been in use in India for the last three years at the RBI. From July onwards, some 30,000 companies will be filing their annual returns in XBRL. SEBI too is all set to start receiving filings in XBRL from mutual funds to start with and has drawn up plans to receive data from all market participants in XBRL.

LEAVING A FOOTPRINT

So, what then is XBRL. Simply put, it is an information standard which is also machine readable, or if one is familiar with the technical term, XML. Except that unlike most other XML standards, this is open source and royalty-free. Nobody owns XBRL, though there are several companies in the world which have written software for XBRL.

Every piece of information leaves a footprint. In the case of Feroze Abdul Rashid Khan, who has been lodged in Mumbai’s Arthur Road jail, the records would have shown that he had been the government’s guest since February 2010. If only the list had been generated from a set of records in XBRL, this information would have jumped out, pointing to the error. Similarly, in the case of Wazhul Kamar Khan, the man living in Thane, the fact is that he is out on bail. His footprints were visible all over the cases registered against him and by simply writing software to match information footprints, this contradiction too would have been caught. Moving the information to XBRL is about much more than merely creating a database of crime records. The XML nature of XBRL makes it machine readable; what comes over and above is the prescription of data standards which spells out how data will be captured fully.

In the most celebrated white-collar crime of recent times, the problems at Satyam would have been detected early, had the filings been in XBRL. It is unlikely that Ramalinga Raju would have allowed a provident fund deduction from the salaries purportedly paid by him to allegedly fictitious employees; amounts that he allegedly siphoned off for his own benefit. Even the JPC probing the telecom scam would do well to use XBRL in its investigation.

AVOID INHERENT CONTRADICTIONS

Whether it is a white-collar crimes or crimes of any other colour, painstaking investigation requires the piecing together of information that tells a cogent story without inherent contradictions. In short, the footprints must match. With the help of XBRL that task will become a lot easier.It is time the CBI, as the nodal investigative agency, or NATGRID, the National Intelligence Grid, the brainchild of the Home Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, adopts information standards to make their respective tasks easier. XBRL is still in its early days in many parts of the world, and the focus in many countries continues to be on business and financial reporting. India would be viewed as a pioneer if it looks beyond. The time to do that is now.