You are a role model! So be a good one.

In school, a long time ago, we used to have a Moral Science lesson. I found it boring and I am sure I did not acquire any moral standards from those lessons. The main reason is that those lessons were based on belief rather than reason. Now I think that we do need some such lessons in our school education. The lessons should be should be made thought provoking. Scenarios should be put before children and they should be asked to reason out the expected consequences. We should make sure that children understand the cause - effect nature of this world. Also, that things which are tolerable at a small scale can quickly become intolerable problems at a larger scale. Hence the requirement of stringent standards even in "it is too small to matter" situations. It is also important that teachers make it clear to students that schooling is only a part of one's education and that students should seek other avenues of education as well. One of the most important avenues of learning is role models. Students should be encouraged to have role models but at the same time they should be encouraged to have their own independent moral standards and also be encouraged to judge the role models by these standards. What I am trying to say is that no one should have absolute role models. Emulate whatever is good in your role model and reject whatever is not up to your own stringent standards. Children should understand that they will be role models for others. Therefore their conduct should be exemplary. When I say this it has often been said to me that "You encourage good behaviour so that others can be impressed". That is true but reason is not that I want to polish my own image. The true reason is that if I set a bad example, some will follow that bad example and the consequences of their bad behaviour will affect my quality of life. When we say "Do unto others as you would they do unto you" we expect the audience to take this on faith. The fact is that people do not take things on faith. Not even those who claim to have a faith. Since people do not take things on faith they do not get the message at all. I want to give the same message but on the basis of a reason. If I behave badly with others, they may not be in a situation to behave badly with me in return but someone somewhere will learn from my bad example and one day they will be in a situation to behave badly with me and I may not be in a position to return the favour. Remember, there are always consequences. It is a law of nature from which no one is exempt.

People say that India is doing well. Economically, socially, financially and so on. I agree but I would like to convince you that the price the citizens of India are paying to do well is enormous compared to what citizens of western societies are paying for their countries doing well. It will be nice not to pay such a high price even if that means not being so advanced. What is advanced anyway? Why are we paying a higher price for progress in India than in the developed countries? It is because we are constantly acting against each other. All of us are constantly swimming against a tide of our own making. If I am in a position of authority and you want something from me I make it as difficult for you to get it as I possibly can. And of course there comes a time when you are in a position of authority and then you make things difficult for me. This could very easily be changed to my making things as easy for you as possible (within the law of course) and you doing the same for me. We will both then be able to spend our time and efforts on real problems. It is a small change in attitude but one with the potential to make a huge positive impact.

A great country

I was born an Indian. I spent the first 40 years of my life in India. As a result there is a lot of Indian-ness in me and it will remain for the rest of my life. I feel very uncomfortable when someone says that India is a great country and that one should be proud of it. The fact is that India is not a great country and that there is very little in India to be proud of. Unless we accept these facts we will not be motivated to do anything improving the state of affairs in India.

Look at the poverty figures, look at the education figures, look at corruption, look at lack of education in rural India, look at the mismanagement and misappropriation of natural resources. What do you see? Do you see any greatness? Do you see anything to be proud of? If you need any more convincing — see here. So don't be proud of India, and start to work on making India something you can really be proud of. It does not need much. All it needs is a sense of honour. Don't do anything dishonourable like cheat, lie or, ask for a bribe. Don't take what is not rightfully yours or something which you have not earned. Be true to the duties and responsibilities of your job. Respect your fellow citizens. India is quite rich in natural resources. If we just stick to a few fundamental principles as a country, we will do well.

Policing

In 2009, a mother killed herself and her daughter after being subjected to ten years of anti-social behaviour. Now the police  are saying that they are putting in place a system which will help identify the vulnerable quicker.The news is here. A senior policeman was on Radio 4 earlier today and it was obvious that he was enacting a script because he could not state what was new or different in this system or give any details about the system. I wonder if there is a system. Anyway, I will carry on with my analysis.

It seems that the often, reports of crime which should get linked are treated as separate incidents. Linking of incidents seems like such a basic thing to do but it seems that it is not routinely done. I don't know what sort of new system has been put in place but I will say what sort of system should be in place. Hopefully all crime reports are logged into a national database. The minimum details such a database will hold are the details of the crime, details of the victim, time and date of crime, how was it reported (999 or the local police number) and, incident number. All an analyst has to do is to search for addresses for which more than a certain number of incidents has been reported within a given period of time. This is really easy. A lot more complicated things can be done but let us stick with this one simple thing for now. I am sure there is not a very high  proportion of UK households which a victims of repeated crime. They will get flagged up very quickly.

This sort of thing does not need a lot of money. A team of less than 5 can handle entire England quite easily. Crime is being recorded under the current system anyway. If the right information is being recorded in the right format then this is really easy to set up. Now the question is, why has this not been done yet? I really do not know. May be nobody has thought of it yet.

All we need is food!

I am now unashamedly homophobic. This document about global food security on the John Innes Centre website makes me wonder how stupid can we possibly get.

How can perfectly reasonable human beings think that food is our only problem? How can they NOT realize that food is the problem? I don't mean shortage of food, but the easy availability of food. We think that by increasing food production we can sustain a larger human population on earth. Human beings don't just need food. Once they have enough food to survive they want other things. First, food production has some environmental cost then the higher desires of human being have higher environmental costs. Once we have food we are not content to walk, we want cars, trains, airplanes etc. (Maslow's triangle). And what about habitat? When human population increases where does it go? It encroaches upon the habitat of other species. It replaces the wild species with domesticated ones and if any wild species poses a threat to the domesticated ones then it is killed off.

So I think that all programs to increase global food production should be stopped. Instead, available resources should be spent on educating people and making them realize that there is a limit to the population that can be sustained comfortably on this earth.

I am not saying that the clock should be turned back on all the technological progress we have made since the discovery of fire. It is this technological progress which allows us to know about our environment and also to know when something is not right about it. We have the knowledge but not the will to act according to that knowledge.

We are unwilling to question the right of people to have children. May be this is a social or cultural thing but this is one right people have to question in their fellow human beings. My suggestion is the the right to have one child should remain unquestionable but we should be forced to think a lot before deciding to have second and subsequent children. Like it or not, people can only be made to think in terms of money and comfort. So their money and comfort should be used as a tool to make them think. If the child support for one child is 1 then for two children it should not be 2 but 1.5. For three it should be 2. What I am suggesting is a method of diminishing returns. Parents should be allowed, even encouraged, to have a tubectomy or vascectomy if they want to so they do not have to worry about having children by accident.

Something more worrying comes to my mind. And that is that scientists know that an increasing human population is not sustainable but they deliberately keep quiet about it. They even exploit the emotions we have for human life to get science funding agencies to fund their research. And funding agencies exploit the same emotion to keep the politicians happy. Politicians play the same game to keep the voters happy. Someone has to break this chain and say clearly that further population growth is not sustainable and that we should stop all efforts to increase food production and focus our efforts on education which I think is the best way to control our population growth.

Banks again

Yesterday I saw Robert Peston's program about our banks titled too big to save. It was extremely clear and well made. To me it seems that the basic problem is that we have separated banking from economy. Only economists should be in the business of banking. Instead we now have "capable of reckless gambling" as one of the essential requirements for the job of being a banker.

Banks and Bankers. Talent and remuneration

Ever since the economic crisis began banks and bankers have frequently been the topic of discussion. One thing which irritates me always is people saying "... but we need banks" as the reason why we are tolerating over-payed and under-performing bankers. For some reason we cannot seem to be able to distinguish between banks and bankers. We need the banks as institutions, not as a collection of bankers. One of the the requirement to keep any institution running is to get rid of poor performers before they cause too much damage. Bank boards claim that they need to keep paying exorbitant bonuses to keep attracting good talent to work for them. Surely the strategy is not working because if they had really attracted talent, the same talent would have asked them to stop paying bonuses until the banks financial position started to look respectable. So I don't believe you attract real talent by offering loads of money. By offering loads of money you do attract the most greedy and unethical of the managers.

We make the mistake of thinking that the highest paid are the most talented. The highest paid should be very talented but often the best talent in an organization is not the highest paid. These are the guys, not listening to whom, the highly paid ones led us into this hole. Another thing happening here is that because we do not know enough about banking and finance we like to hire talent but we don't know even that which we need to know to assess the talent we are hiring. So what do we do in this situation? Increasing our own knowledge of banking and finance might not be an option. Whether we know something about a trade or not, we can always assess the end result. Anybody can assess the end result. Why don't we assess our bankers by the results they have produced? Is it because we have made them so big that we dare not assess them! They themselves lack the moral uprightness required to assess themselves and admit that they have performed poorly, forego their bonuses, and put their heart and mind into salvaging the situation. Instead they are too busy protecting their own bonuses. Surely this is not the talent we are competing to hire!

So how do you attract real talent to work for you? You attract them by offering them a strong and positive corporate culture where they can build something great. You can even attract them by being very honest and saying that you are in trouble and need help and that you cannot pay a lot for that help. You can attract them by promising support for their visions and endeavours, and recognition for their achievements. You could reward achievement with bonuses but just ensure that it is not unconnected to performance.

Staff training

Yesterday we went to Bennetts in Longwater.  After looking at a few TVs we placed an order for Panasonic Viera TXL42D25B. The waiting time is about 3 weeks. We were given two stapled sets of papers, one was the receipt and the other was the paper for the 5 year warranty stapled to a another paper. They said once I get the TV I should fill in the serial number on the guarantee paper and send it off to Panasonic. From Bennetts we went to Sainsbury's where I had coffee and Kake did some small shopping. On reaching home I had a better look at the papers we had got from Bennetts and I saw that the paper attached to the 5 year guarantee paper was not for me but for someone else. So I went back to them and this guy on the till says "Oh you don't need this paper" and simply detached it. I asked for the second piece of paper I was supposed to send along with the guarantee paper and he just said all I need is the receipt and the guarantee paper. He was right, but I did not know that. I said that I needed another paper to send to Panasonic along with the guarantee paper. I also insisted to speak to the girl who had served me. Ultimately she came out of a cabin and gave me a copy of my receipt saying that this is what I needed. I said that this is not the same as the paper I had been given earlier but in a different name. When I asked to see the original paper again she said I cannot see it because it is somebody else's.

I this whole conversation the word "sorry" was not mentioned even once. The idiots had made a mistake, given me somebody else's guarantee paper, I had driven 3 miles to bring it back to them, and they did not have the decency to either thank me or apologize for their initial mistake. I am not going to buy from Bennetts again. But the issue is much bigger than just Bennetts. What has happened to staff training? What has happened to training in general? Why do I come across clowns doing jobs they are not properly trained for so often?

Some time ago we bought a digital clock from John Lewis. We ordered it online and then collected it from the store. So far so good. On opening the packaging I found that although the clock was what I had ordered the invoice/receipt was for something else in somebody else's name. I did not bother to do anything about it because it was only a £30.00 clock and I could afford not having proof of having purchased it.

In both the Bennetts and John Lewis incidents, a well trained staff whould have double checked the papers they were giving me and spotted the error before any damage. In Bennetts, they should also have explained to me how the 5 year guarantee works. It wouldn't have taken long and I would have known that the second piece of paper that I have to send to Panasonic along with the guarantee paper is nothing but a copy of the purchase receipt. Had this been done I would not have insisted on a second piece of paper thinking that it is something special. Finally there is the matter of common business courtsey. If you make a mistake you apologize. You do so in your day to day life so why can't you do it in your working life. At the very least do not treat the customer as incapable fo understanding anything.

Until now my experience of Jessops has been nice. When I bought the D60 from them there was a cashback of £30.00 on it. They explained to me very clearly what I had to do to get the cashback and also gave me a duplicate copy of the receipt to send to Nikon.

Companies are simply not paying enough attention to staff training. They just hire people and let them loose to learn on the job. The trouble with relying on your staff to learn on the job is that you do not have any control over what they will learn. Depending upon circumstances they will learn good and bad things. It will probably work out on average, but what you are loosing here is the opportunity to build a corporate culture which leads to consistently high performing employees. Maybe companies are not aiming to build a good corporate culture. Maybe they are simply just aiming to make money. Maybe the senior management doesn't know what corporate culture is. Whatever it might be, it leaves me very disappointed.