Well, John Oliver got on the bandwagon too.
...
Monday, 6 November 2017
Thursday, 2 November 2017
Wednesday, 25 October 2017
Xi who must be obeyed (with apologies to The Economist)
The title of this post is directly stolen from The Economist which ran a cover story by this name a year or so ago. They themselves were punning the quote from here.
The much awaited China's People Congress ended today with the expected climax - the unveiling of the new Politburo Standing Committee ; the men who will run China for the next five years. More of this in just a little while. This ended...
Monday, 16 October 2017
Wooing HQ2 ? Yuk !
If you are an American, here's a a nice issue to distract you from your fixation about you know who and direct your attention to a different issue you can get all worked up about.
Witness each city falling over each other and doing the most stupid of things to land HQ2. Tucson Arizona, where one of the readers of this blog lives , uprooted a 21ft cactus and tried to deliver it to HQ1. The...
Wednesday, 27 September 2017
Ramamritham falls in love
Who is the person I hate the most ? No; not that one, whom I frankly don't care about . He is half the planet away and troubling other folks; not me. My visceral hate is reserved for somebody much closer home. The "dotard" called Ramamritham. Allow me an unhinged rant please; I badly need it !
You see, the problem is that Ramamritham has fallen head over heels in insane love. We all know how crazy...
Monday, 25 September 2017
A French soap opera is about to unfold
The world's richest woman just died. If you didn't know this, please stop focusing on the tweets and turn your attention to more weighty matters of the world.
Liliane Bettencourt passed away four days ago at the age of 94. She was the heiress to the founder of L'Oréal, the world's largest...
Sunday, 17 September 2017
China's new lineup
Anybody who predicts what the next Standing Committee and the Politburo will be is almost certain to be wrong ! This is why most newspaper columnists are content with naming possible candidates and leaving it at that. This blogger does not care if he is proved wrong or even as a fool. There are no consequences to getting it dead wrong. So here's my prediction what's going to happen !
There are...
Saturday, 16 September 2017
China's Issues
Every country faces challenges and China is no exception. But by global yardsticks, China's issues are less critical than what most other countries face. It is after all the one country in the world which does not face a serious growth challenge (at least as of now). China is however such a large country that even a seemingly minor issue is of gigantic scale and one that will affect the...
Friday, 15 September 2017
Politics and the average Chinese
The man in the street simply does not care ! At least politically !!
In a country of 1.2 billion, such a sweeping statement is an outrageous generalisation. But it is broadly true. The average Chinese does not care because (a) what is the real choice (b) she has very little access to information that is even remotely political in nature and (c) she doesn't seem to be hugely interested anyway
And...
Thursday, 14 September 2017
Who's who in Chinese politics
Xi Jinping, the current Chinese leader is easily the most powerful leader that China has had ever since Deng Xiaoping faded away in the early 90s. But in order to understand his power, we have to go back a bit in time in modern Chinese history.
Mao was a tyrant and supremely powerful in China and until his death, he was simply the sole power centre. But that degree of concentration of power resulted...
Wednesday, 13 September 2017
This blog turns to politics
On October 18th, or immediately thereafter, a small line of people will walk in into the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square. That will be the new Standing Committee headed by Xi Jinping. And at that time the world shall know what has happened to the "elections" in China. The stunning fact is that very few people in the world seem to even know about one of the most momentous events...
Saturday, 19 August 2017
Letting go
When your child is born, it is probably the greatest moment of your life. It's your child. It is the creation of you and your partner. It's a new life created out of the blue. And only because of you.
You then slog your butt off to raise the child. You shower it with love and affection. In the first years of the child's life, you don't have a single night's sound sleep. You worry about your child...
Sunday, 23 July 2017
Job losses in India too ?
My good friend who goes by the moniker of Vaingluory, at least on my travel blog, messaged me drawing attention to this story . The opinion piece from a headhunter is titled 'Expect 100,000 to 200,000 Jobs to be Lost Every Year For The Next Three Years' .
There is a lot of hyperbole in this - I don't think India is going to lose jobs at that rate. Certainly not from the IT industry...
Saturday, 15 July 2017
Beggars in Nigeria will start paying tax !
So says the Finance Minister of Nigeria. Beggars will have to pay taxes. Apparently some beggars are earning millions in Nigeria. Perhaps its fair enough that Mrs Adeosun , the Finance Minster said “proceeds from begging are taxable. You are supposed to pay taxes even if your means of income...
Thursday, 13 July 2017
Right problem ; Wrong solution
The extreme left , as this blogger is wont to repeat ad nauseam, is as bad as the extreme right. The champions of the hard left - Bernie Sanders in the US and Jeremy Corbyn in the UK have one policy in common that is a good example of this. Free college for everybody.
They also have another thing in common which is often the case with the left's policies. Right problem. Wrong solution.
First...
Monday, 10 July 2017
The pox on Ramamritham (for the nth time)
Regular readers of this blog know that this blogger rather likes railing against Ramamritham. Ever so often, there has to be a post yelling at this cursed individual.
This time it is on the Department of telecom (DoT) which is a pesky nuisance that purports to regulate every aspect of ...
Saturday, 8 July 2017
Turn the world vegetarian
Humans love eating meat. Vegetarians and vegans (this blogger is a vegetarian) don't stand a chance. In quite a few countries in the world, you simply have to starve if you are a vegetarian. In many others, your only ordering choice in a restaurant is likely to be an apology of a salad,...
Saturday, 13 May 2017
Companies don't make investment decisions based on tax rates
If you cut tax rates, will companies invest more ? This is almost a religious belief in a certain party in a certain country in the world. Is it justified ?
The answer, in my opinion, is mostly No.
Companies make investment decisions based on markets, sales projections, competitive advantage, margin potential, scalability and the like. These are extremely complex business variables...
Monday, 8 May 2017
Fear of Flying
In the normal world of business, companies are supposed to treat their customers with kids gloves. And customers are supposed to be very partial to the brands that they buy. It's all supposed to be a love love relationship .
Not so in the airline industry. Customers absolutely loath airlines. The act of flying is considered by most flyers, especially the regular ones, as next only to root canal surgery. ...
Monday, 1 May 2017
Corporate Fluff
Lucy Kellaway of the Financial Times is one of my favourite columnists. One of her specialities is to roast companies that spew out meaningless bullshit in their communications and press releases. She even hands out annual Golden Flannel Awards for the worst corporate gobbledygook.
She's at her best today canning Mondelez (The Oreos to Cadbury company). The company's marketing head quit and this...
Tuesday, 25 April 2017
The flying car
Did you see the news item about a flying car, revealed by Kitty Hawk, a Silicon Valley startup funded by Google's founder, Larry Page ? If you didn't , watch the video below
I now petition Kitty Hawk that the best place in the world to launch it first would be in Bangalore. Everybody knows that a basic version of this already exists in the wonderful city's roads , for after all, a two wheeler can...
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