Perceptions of Indian developers in the West

I landed in the USA in late 1999. We were to take over maintenance and further development of a travel website. Me and a couple of colleagues were excited and awestruck by the skyline of Boston.
One day were discussing finding an apartment at work when one of the American consultants said, "You guys are going back - don't bother looking for apartments".
We actually became crucial for taking over the website and two years later the same person told me that he had never believed that offshoring or bringing in Indian consultants would work. He said he had no idea if we would even speak English. And he said he had been proved wrong (not just about the English).
Cut to the present - I was talking with one of my friends (a swedish guy) who is used to complaining about "the Indian way" of doing anything. He said he was discussing with a department head of a Fortune 500 company about offshoring when the head guy started complaining about not being able to understand Indians or whatever.

Twenty years after the software outsourcing boom started, it is obvious that the Indian developer, whether onsite or offshore generates a lot of hostility in the West. Just for a sample, read this article and its comment thread.

The question is why does this happen? We call this hostility "racism" but I dont believe in using imprecise, general terms. There are other issues at play here. The both sides of the offshoring game have to understand certain undercurrents:

1. For Indians - Offshore outsourcing is not a preference of middle managers in the USA - middle managers want control. The directives come from executive management and middle managers are meant to cede control and make it work and show results by cutting costs.

Digression:In many cases outsourcing is about more than cutting costs. The truth is that Indian companies present a very attractive package to enterprise customers in the developed countries. The degree of expertise that even medium-sized companies in India offer to such customers is high (this is from my experience for 11 years in the services industry). Even in terms of sheer process methodology Indian companies offer a lot more as compared to Western equivalents.
There are systemic reasons why this is the case: it is just that a considerable portion of the Indian economy is invested in the success of IT and therefore has spent a lot more time specializing in the services industry.I have worked in American services companies as a consultant - they are excellent, but they are simply rolled by bigger Indian companies.

The middle managers are actually led kicking and screaming to offshore work. They, therefore, are resentful and not much hopeful of success.
The resident developers, of course, have their jobs threatened.
Therefore much of the "racism" is not racism at all - it is simply hostility and fear of change.

2. For the Client - One frequent issue is the power that some clients feel about offshoring. This took several forms including making fun of Indian names in India itself. The idea seems to be that you can generally get away with saying anything at Indian managers or developers.
Let me give an example:
A developer in my old company had a normal Indian name. The clients were in a room meeting and asked him to come over. One of them (he thought he was funny), tried to pronounce the developer's name but could not. He then announced that he would call the developer "Sam". Everyone had a good laughover it - but they actually implemented it by calling him Sam every time.
A variation of the above scenario occurs in some offshore companies - the main reason it occurs is twofold:
- The degree of power a western client has over a small offshore company is enormous. He can cut off the spigot at any time. This level of power exists even if you outsource to a different company within the US or UK - but socially there is a taboo to exercising power in those societies. Thus the average American client would be very loathe to make such comments publicly about other people in their social setting.
When these people land in India, they basically feel free from such taboo. They do not think that appearing like a jerk before other humans matters. They let this liberation get to their heads and end up sounding like jerks. Not all of them, mind you, just a small minority.
- when a western client makes a comment like this or exercises power in such unusual ways, we do not know how to respond. Is it just normal humor in their countries? Or is this specific guy being an idiot? This is not surprising - after all the fault is not ours if a client behaves like an idiot. This non-response enables the client and leads him to try more such idiocy.
My advice to Western clients is to not be stupid and say something you won't dare say in your own home country. In short, don't be a dumbass.

3. For the West
The biggest issue, I feel, that lets Western technical people comment about the competence of Indian developers is this - they romanticise coding too much.
I have noticed that American developers, working even in the IT departments of crappy companies, have a very romanticised image of coding. I can understand the developers at IBM or Microsoft feeling this way.
Mind you, this is just an image - these develpers are not particularly competent. They just have a self-image of Ninja coders toiling away at solving the Turing Test.
They are convinced that only the superior education offered by their system prepares people for the tough challenge of building an Access based inventory list.
Again, this has nothing to do with racism. It is merely what they have been told from childhood.
The contradiction between this self-image and the discovery that their jobs could be taken away by a $5 worker shocks them. That, I believe, is the reason for much of
the animosity at Indian developers.

"Does offshore outsourcing work?" - this question has been answered in the affirmative for some time now. The particular experience for different companies may vary - as it should - but in the aggregate, it is like any other work outsourcing. There is nothing system specific that prevents it from working when Indian developers are involved.

By the way, there ARE specific examples of generalization and racism; I will close with a last episode that I faced:
A developer at my employer was onsite. There was some dispute between him and my employer, but he was well liked by the client. The employer decided to bring him back. They lied to the client saying the dev's father was sick.
The client came to know about the lie through rumors. At that time on of them was at Chennai. I was talking to him generally, when he narrates this lie and says: "Is it a cultural thing to lie like this?"
Get that? The evil brown people lie as a cultural trait. Pure white culture does not lie.

Disclaimer:
I hope I have managed to avoid writing some generalizations myself. I do not, of course, believe that most Western clients are prone to exercising their power in unprofessional ways. Some do. The vast majority are pretty decent. My goal was simply to point out that there are specific reasons why some may face hostility and that the hostility has little to do with racism.
And I do sympathize with the social cost of outsourcing - but I always think restrictions on immigration should be done away with. A lot of our problems will go away if we do not restrict human beings from travelling anywhere they want to.

The Nithyananda Affair

(updated below)
I had a facebook conversation on this and I wanted to summarise my thoughts here:
1. The dumbest argument I have seen about this is that Nithyanada "cheated" people by engaging in false propaganda. I watched Sun TV for a half hour yesterday and I saw several advertisements for fairness creams, nutrition products that make your kids grow taller and claims about how Coca Cola makes you cool. ALL of that is false propaganda. Should we prosecute all of those companies and Sun TV for engaging in false propaganda?
We should realize that there is a religious industry out there; there is a market for their products. You may disagree with that - but the people who are gurus, devotees and followers have RIGHTS. You may think them delusional, but I think all "followers" and "devotees" of Jayalalitha or Karunanidhi are delusional.
Should we then arrest Jayalalitha or Karunanidhi, because they are engaged in "false propaganda"?
Whatever individuals think about other people's beliefs has no relevance to the law. Most people do not like other people in India. That does not mean we should go about prosecuting each other.
2. So, Sun TV telecast this video; and then police is obviously struggling to justify the completely unreasonable "popular" anger. If we had to prosecute people for their private affairs, most of us will be in jail. There is NO law by which a self-proclaimed holy man cannot have sex in private.
So we see the utterly ridiculous spectacle of a set of charges filed that make no sense. For example, Nithyananda has been charged with offending religious sensibilities! That law (more on section 295-A here) is so overly broad that anyone can be charged and noone can be convicted in a sane court.
The idea that holy men now better not have sex or otherwise they will be LEGALLY prosecuted is just hilarious. This is a moral issue, not for courts. The case will be thrown out of court and rightly so.

3. Let us consider the following cases:
- a politician declares in a party meeting that he/she will go in a bicycle to work every day. After he/she comes to power, can they be sued if they take a car to work? Can the police file charges? No
- a product says that consuming it makes people strong. Can the people who consume it then sue the product for not making them strong? No.
- a holy man says he is celibate. People follow him. Can the police sue him if he is proved to be not celibate? No (apart from the impossibility of proving whether someone violated celibacy. Masturbation violates celibacy - so I bet Sun TV is going to have a video of this guy's bathroom coming out soon)

4. I have not touched upon Sun TV's utter arrogance in telecasting this in prime time. In a sane country, their license will be revoked. I do not know if the newsroom guys consulted with their lawyers.
We are now entering a new age of "proto-fascism" in Tamil Nadu.
Sun TV and the Karunanidhi family now control television, cable distribution, movie production, FM radio, and newspapers. I think this is their first demonstration that they are not answerable to anyone and can manipulate Tamil people as they want to.
We have a long fight ahead to rid ourselves of this family's control.

5. One of the factors that surprises me is the contempt that people express for followers of such "godmen" as the media calls them. I have seen a bunch of people shaking their heads (on television) and talking about the followers as if they are sheep.
In the modern era, we are ALL sheep. We either worship digital products, celebrities, businessmen, politicians or godmen. I don't know why we pretend that followers of religious gurus are uniquely dumb. The average DMK, ADMK or Congress worker worships at politicians' altar. Why are they better than devotees?

6. More than anything I want to highlight a subtle problem in Tamil politics. For a long time the Kazhagams (DK, DMK, PMK and ADMK) have been calling themselves rationalist. The truth is these guys are far removed from any rationality or scientific approach to anything. A rational movement will not have made such a nasty issue of Kushboo's statement about women a few years back.
But this guise of a rational base has twisted popular culture in Tamil Nadu and taken it towards such unreasonable response to the Nithyananda scandal. I have seen NO public or media figure come out and call this affair for what it is - a violation of privacy by Sun TV is the core issue here. That a corporation can telecast the private affairs of an individual is shocking. This means that you and I are not protected from such violations either. Sun TV is not just the press - it is a media corporation that has stepped in forcefully into a citizen's privacy.
THAT is the chilling aspect of this "scandal". yet, I don't see ANY media or public figure come out and call a spade a spade.
The reason is that lynching Nithyananda (a religious figure) gives people the impression that it is a very rational thing to do.
That is, the narrative has become:
A public person was cheating people. The brave Sun TV folks exposed his true face. they performed the role of a true press.

The above story is appealing, but is FALSE. I am all for Sun TV exposing public corruption such as by the political parties. But I have never seen such coverage by Sun TV. Instead here they have violated the law and broken the privacy of a private citizen. As I explained above, I can be a god man, say anything and people are free to believe or disbelieve me. That does not violate the law. IF THAT violates the law, then every politician, banker, and most businessmen will be in jail.
The function of society is a balance between private rights, freedom of speech, government powers and press freedom. In this particular case the violator of this balance is Sun TV NOT Nithyananda.
But (I may be wrong), most people are unaware of such distinctions in India. They confuse morality and legality.
Sun TV has now moved one step more in getting into our lives. Being the most powerful network, the above perspective will not even make it into any media coverage.
No one is going to talk about the absurdity of prosecuting a person under section 295-A for having sex.

Update:
I missed another aspect of this issue. One of the reasons why everyone sounds enraged about this issue (but secretly enjoys it) is the sexual starvation in this country. This is a state in which women cannot travel freely in buses because of the constant groping by sex-starved men. Slowly the TV media have been ratcheting up the levels of sex and violence in reality shows, television serials, movies and advertisements. The public has been told that we are "modernising"; but no modern society tolerates this level of objectification of women in their media. I know that the US media constantly gets pushback from parents and consumer organizations. Their society is not as sex-starved as we are.
The Nithyananda affair is probably less about any exposure of wrong-doing; it seems to be more about pushing the boundaries of such sexual exposure. Anyone in advertising knows that the cheapest and easiest way to be "creative" is to go directly to sex appeal.
By showing such sick voyeuristic images, Sun TV has reserved the option to push the sex envelope to the extreme. They now know they have their audience captured and unable to fight back. Now, our kids and family will be sitting and watching news when they will be shown naked images of Sun TV's choice. We will all be told that these are features of a modern society. Every other media house will follow through.
Kalanidhi Maran owns us.

I am proud of Indian Software Services

I am generally proud of the Indian software services industry - there was a business model that the pioneers caught on and developed into a mega money-making, and value delivering exercise. I have been in services since 1999 and I do NOT believe that:
- the services industry does not serve Indian society
- the services business itself is non-innovative compared to creating products
- the work that services companies do is uniteresting or boiler-plate.

I believe that all of the above are myths; many of these opinions - including calling IT employees as coolies - arise out of plain resentment than any substantive reason.
For example, one claim is that cost differences beween India and the USA have been the sole reason for the dominance of Indian services industry. People who say this seem to think cost differences are somehow not the right reason for doing business. That is absurd, of course. The whole idea of competition is the ability to gain an advantage by showing better value - and lower cost is a HUGE value.
I also see nothing wrong with "body-shopping". It is pure propaganda that selling labor is "low" compared to selling products. The reason why we think that way is simple - that way leads us to accept free trade in products and not free trade in labor.
Let me explain better - for the past 50 years since the founding of the GATT and later WTO, developed countries have gone around preaching free trade and in many cases succeeding in opening up borders so that their products can compete with local products (and many times decimate them). They have justified this pointing to consumer choice and lower prices.
How can business in a country like India compete with this? We found our own competitive advantage - we have plenty of cheaper labor and we have managed to turn that into a business model.
I don't see how this makes Indian services industry "lower" in the hierarchy.
In fact, logically, we should have free movement of labor across borders (just as we have for products). That is the logical and fair conclusion of free trade. But guess what? Politicians in the West (who preached free trade to everybody all these years), have suddenly discovered the virtues of tight immigration policies. So you find the Democrats in the USA threatening to abolish the H1B work visa (while simultaneously calling for legalizing illegal immigrants).
Trading labor is equally valid as trading products. The only reason we think otherwise is because the West benefits one way and not the other.

The IT Industry is Built by IT Workers
The truth is also that this industry has been built not just by business founders - but by the individual employees all across India. Since the business model is built using labor, the model's success is a vindication of the quality of this labor.
This is why I always thought it weird that the average IT worker is never congratulated or appreciated in the media. They celebrate Ramalinga Raju or Subrato Bagchi or Narayana Murthy. Actually most of the credit in IT organizations should go to the IT workers, developers, leads, architects. managers - all of them.

I have only heard complaints about IT workers - that they push up rents; that they are all showing off; that they are working and creating value for foreigners, not India. Then within the industry itself people blame them for job hopping; fake certificates; asking for too much salary and so on.

The average IT guy in this industry comes from a rural or urban poor/middle class background. He/she does not know much English. He/she has a family dependent on their paycheck almost entirely. He/she has to work insane hours and weekends. Most of these men and women did not learn about the industry-specific skills until college or after leaving college.
I recently met a fresher who passed out in 2009. He is from a lower middle-class family. He was offered a job in campus by an IT company. Then they got wind of the recession and so just suspended him from joining indefinitely (I am not blaming them for this; just that if the employee had done that kind of thing, he will be accused of disloyalty). His degree in computer engineering only gave him skills in C and C++.
So he learnt Oracle and cleared Oracle certification. He learnt Java and cleared certification in that too.
He has got job offers from every interview he attended. But, they all have caveats:
Company A wanted him to sign a 3 year bond.
Company B wanted him to sign a 2 year bond and give a check for Rs. 2,00,000 at the time of joining. If he left in between, they would take that money.
Company C asked for a 2 year bond and all his original certificates.

All of the above is against labor law and would be overturned in court - but who is going to approach courts?
This fresher and many hunderds of thousands like him join this industry every year. They work hard. They learn the technologies at stake even though those can change from project to project. I have seen 21-23 year old programmers learn the Facebook API in 2 weeks and create excellent applications. I have seen these guys struggle balancing work pressure and family requirements and deliver again and again.

If they had NOT delivered, we would not be holding 60% of the world's offshore outsourcing market share in software.

The idea that, instead, these guys have to be blamed for not "innovating" or not taking risks or having bad attitude is absurd.

A Criticism of "3 Idiots"

After hearing that the Hindi movie "3 Idiots" had shed light on the educational system in this country, I was excited. I had read the original book "Five Point Someone" (Chetan Bhagat) and did not see anything regarding the educational system in the book - I saw that book's marketing potential being people's fascination for IITians more than anything else. The book was mediocre.

I watched the movie yesterday. Frankly it was entertaining, but it seemed to have a lot of climactic scenes and needless symbolism which made it dragging. I counted five climaxes with rousing music and all that. I counted 3 different symbols - the Dean's pen, people pulling their pants down (no idea why) and "All is Well" (used tiresomely over and over). English movies have such symbolism, but usually there is a single one in a movie.

But I have two specific criticisms of the movie:
1. Aamir Khan talks about the system - but nowhere in the movie does he identify ANY element of the system. What is a feature of the system? Rote learning is NOT a feature of the system - students learn by rote because the questions asked of them is in that manner. Saying "Rote learning is an issue" is to start blaming a symptom - it is in NO WAY a criticism of any system.
I have explained this better in the article "Are Indian System-Blind?". Basically, conservative societies (such as India) blame people for issues. They do not look at underlying root causes of people's behavior. Such societies also blame the victims for systemic shortcomings.
When we were in school, we used to be contemptous and (yes) envious of people who learnt by rote. ALL of us did it to a certain degree because you cannot pass Indian board exams without rote learning. The people who learnt by rote and got a lot of marks were not any less smarter than us. They were merely performing what was expected in the examination system better than us.
This movie, instead, casts Chatur Ramalingam as an antagonist at the very beginning because he learns by rote. Instead, if you think back to our own experiences in college, our classmates who learnt by rote were also suffering from the same problems that we were. They merely had better memory.
So, Aamir Khan pays lip service to raising questions about the system - but this is still a movie that does not shed ANY light on what the system is. Instead, true to form, it blames the victims.
You could argue that Chatur Ramalingam is competitive while Rancho (Aamir) is not "chasing" after success. But again, that is not a choice individual actors can make. We have a large number of people with a fewer number of jobs. Competition is a natural corollary of such an economy. It is not as if Chatur has any choice in being non-competitive.
That is supposed to be other message of the movie - follow your career dreams. Be whatever you want to become. Do not chase after engineering. I explained why this may not be as easy as it sounds even in ideal environments (See "Myths on Careers"). But in a society in which high-paying jobs are few and concentrated in a few industries, why is it surprising that people chase after engineering or doctor degrees?

My point is that it is easy to pontificate about people going after lucrative jobs or people being competitive - all that you are doing is blaming the victims, instead of explaining why people behave a certain way.
A lot of people chasing after engineering jobs does NOT mean that there is something wrong with those people - it means something is wrong with the existing economy or educational system.

There are so many actual, strong issues in this area. Instead this movie PRETENDS to talk about the system and then switches to blame-the-victims mode. All that it does is reinforce people's prejudices about other people.
And in order to "prove" that its message is authentic, it uses a implausible plot - in which the rote-learner is a bad guy; there is a convenient wild life photographer waiting to fly Madhavan out of India; Raju gets a job in a impossible to believe interview; and the guy who scoffs at rote learning is actually getting the first rank every time (because he is the hero).
If all of the above happens in real life, yes, you have a valid message. The message of this movie and its plot do not coexist.

And stop with the pop-psychology already. It was good in Munna Bhai - but here it is just tiring to see so many "psychological" insights from Aamir Khan squeezed into every scene.
Plus everyone has to be drunk to express their true feelings or show their acting talents - I don't know why.

2. I also see the same distressing trend continuing - people such as Chatur Ramalingam get punished out of all proportion to their actual "crimes". And we are all supposed to enjoy these punishments. Thanks to incredible acting by the guy who played Chatur, I felt extremely sympathetic to him, throughout the movie. I could not find any reason in the movie itself about why he was such a horrific person to be punished with the public humiliation in the "college speech" - we only accept it because Aamir is the hero, and a hero cannot be wrong.
That is, our movies still want us to accept that a hero, by definition is good - not because he does good acts; but because he is the hero. He can harass a woman, steal, be an alcoholic, humiliate a harmless person publicly, pee on someone's frontyards - whatever. He is still the hero.
The personality cult that these guys promote is disgusting. In the book, by the way, Rancho is not a top scorer. Nor does he get the woman. They changed all that in the movie so that Aamir Khan comes out like some kind of intellectual superman.

My Short Story in Chennai Book Fair book

I was browsing in the Chennai book fair when I noticed a book prominently displayed with an attractive cover. It was called "Vaanavil Koottam" (Group of Rainbows). I had seen this book name earlier (at least an year back) in my email. On a hunch, I picked up the book and turned and the inner cover had my name! It is an anthology of short stories and the second short story is "Garvam" (Pride). By A.R.Ramiah (that is me).
Here are a few pictures of the book and display.













This story was written along with others 5 years back when I was in the US. I had lots of time in my hand and wrote a series.
Then I sent it to Kalki magazine (I had won a short story competition many years back in Kalki and hence liked them). They said it was too long.
So I just kept it for a couple of years. In 2006 I published it in Thinnai, the online magazine.
A couple of months later I got an email from someone who said they wanted to publish it and asked for my address. I was worried for some reason and did not provide my address. It seems they went ahead and published it anyway.
I talked to the publisher. I was actually not upset - it made me happy to see (after such a long time) my story in print. He said they had to get approval from 37 writers (including Sujatha and Jeyamohan). I felt sorry for him.

I somehow feel more motivated now. I have not been able to complete a single good short story since I came back. I have not felt good about the ones I wrote recently. But this is motivating.

Airtel Super Singer Junior 2009 Update - I

(Updated Below with Priyanka's wild card performance)

I am following this show as much as possible on Vijay TV.
Initially I was disappointed in the kids' performances - except for Alka Ajith who seemed like a prodigy. But it is obvious the training is helping a lot. The remaining kids now (except for Monisha and Srikanth) are very talented and capable singers.
The poor boys, particularly older ones are at a disadvantage - their voices are ready to break and sound awkward. The girls, of course, do not have this problem. Many of them sound ready for play back singing right now. I liked Sowmya, Priyanka and SreeNisha (Amazing voice). I liked Oviya for her command and versatility.
The question is Alka. Somehow I thought she was unbeatable in the beginning, and judges (particularly Chitra) obviously love her. But I have begun to not like her singing as much. Her performance in the "Playback first song" round held this week was not good and her song selection is generally mediocre. I think she is being spot selected because of past performances and not so much for her current performances. I still would like to listen to her sing "Udhaya Udhaya".
The orchestra is atrocious - Vijay TV has completely messed up their role in providing a good experience. They sound like the orchestra played in kinder garten fancy dress competitions.
I am also annoyed about them bringing Srikanth into the contest - he is too young and seems to be there as a show piece for people to consider cute. I feel sorry for him - his parents should have waited before bringing him into a singing circuit. And the misery is being prolonged by passing him on in every round. It is an embarassment.
Ignoring "winning" the prize, I think all of these singers (except for Monisha and Srikanth) are good.
Right now, my favorites are (the contest will probably be not won by these kids):
Roshan - he is very sincere and a great singer. His voice will break later, but his performances (such as Poove Sempoove, Raathiriyil Poothirukkum, Pon Maane) have been superlative.
Bala Sarangan - this kid has improved a lot over the past few rounds.
Sree Prasanna - this kid will likely be eliminated; his pitching still breaks, voice is not perfect and because of that he is not confident. BUT, he has something - his nuances are very, very appealing. He shines in certain renderings. I thought his "Jab Deep Jale Aana" was very, very good in certain places - particularly for his age.
Vishnu Charan - this kid chooses very different songs; he sang "Pitchai Paathiram" from "Naan Kadavul"; "Vasantha Mullai" and this week he chose "Unakkaena Pirandhen" from "Kaadhal". He has no classical training but good musical sense.
Of all the kids, I enjoy listening to Roshan, Sree Prasanna, Vishnu Charan and Sree Nisha the most.
Let us see how they fare.
Here is a video of Alka, Vishnu Charan and Roshan singing "Poo Vaasam" from "Anbe Sivam". Three different versions and all good:



Update I:
The below (Maraindhirundhe Paarkum, Priyanka, 3rd week of May, Starts at 1 minute into the video) is one of the best EVER live performances I have heard. This girl's voice is just amazing. She can directly go into playback singing. I have already heard the song ten times in the space of a day.

Is Entrepreneurship a Cultural trait?

A friend of mine sent this New York Times article a few days back.
The article discussed the lack of entrepreneurship (it took me two minutes to type that) culture in India. It discusses the lack of venture funds and angel investors.
It starts out by saying:

Innovation is hard to measure, but academics who study it say India has the potential to create trend-setting products but is not yet doing so. Indians are granted about half as many American patents for inventions as people and firms in Israel and China. The country’s corporate and government spending on research and development significantly lags behind that of other nations. And venture capitalists finance far fewer companies here than they do elsewhere.

More later:

Mr. Raghavan and others say India is held back by a financial system that is reluctant to invest in unproven ideas, an education system that emphasizes rote learning over problem solving, and a culture that looks down on failure and unconventional career choices.

I found the article informative. But the friend who spoke to me about it seemed to focus on the last line above - the cultural angle. In fact, I think most people who read that article would find the cultural angle more easier to understand than the financial or educational.
Most of the people who talk about innovation in public also seem to prefer trying to influence this "cultural" factor. There are conferences and seminars focussed exclusively on innovation and the need for inspiration for innovators.
Unsurprisingly, this coincides with a slew of management books about innovation in the corporation.
The narrative seems to run as follows: India has a culture that looks down on investing in new products. Failure is not an option. Therefore Indians do not start companies that create new products. To change this, we have to motivate Indian future entrepreneurs with a lot of seminars and conferences which charge a minimum of Rs.1000 only.
I am completely prepared to believe that entrepreneurship is low in India and that India is not a source of many patents. What I do NOT trust is that there is a cultural angle to it.That is, I believe that there are perfectly rational economic reasons for Indians not to get involved in creating products - I don't think you have to bring culture into the mix.
I also believe (cynical bastard that I am) that the only reason culture is touted as a prime factor is this: that is the only way a lot of people can easily make money, offering to change the culture. If we were to go after the root causes, we may be required to fight the battle on the political, policy making front. That is truly in public interest and there is not a lot of money to make in that direction.

The Cult of the Entrepreneur

I think entrepreneurship is being elevated as something equivalent to superstardom by management gurus. To start a company, and to create a product - the decision is usually made based on evaluating marginal benefits, not based on good intentions.
Let me take the case of the software industry:
(By the way, The Indian Patent Act does not apply to software! That is, you cannot patent a software algorithm in India. Software is protected by copyright - not by Patent Law in India. )
If you start a software company in India, you have two choices - start a company that creates an innovative product (remember, you cannot patent software innovations in India); or perform coding services for American, Japanese or European clients. Which option would you choose?
Purely going by marginal benefits, I would prefer a services company unless I am rich already. This is because with no outside investment, getting a software services company up and running is easy in India. Not only that, if I had just a couple of clients, I can break even pretty fast. The market for software services is high and has stayed high for the past fifteen years. Even under a bad recession, the market has been able to accomodate thousands of small companies.
Now, you may ask me, why would I do this? There are a thousand small and medium services companies - wouldn't I rather start a product company that I feel passionate about?
But people run businesses not just out of nobility. They run businesses because they want to make a lot of money as fast as possible. I know that we are all supposed to believe in passion, innovation and all that - but has anyone considered the true state of the Indian economy?

1. Our healthcare costs are skyrocketing
2. IT workers have no government mandated pension
3. There is no real social security net - unemployment benefits are abysmal and difficult to secure.
4. The public education system is bad and private education costs are soaring.
5. It is not easy to go into bankruptcy and come out of it.

Let me highlight the final point - the European Corporate Governance Institute had a paper out (pdf can be downloaded here)on Bankruptcy law and Entrepreneurship in 2008. The authors, John Armour and Douglas Cumming found a link between countries that support a "fresh start" through personal bankruptcy laws and entrepreneurship. The USA, for example, enables such a fresh start through Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Countries that allow such fresh starts have significantly more entrepreneurial activity.
What is the status of Indian law on this? The Indian Insolvency laws are dated. But more than anything, going to the a court managed bankruptcy in India will drain all your energy and time away.

Unlike Western countries, a person living in India cannot depend on government if he gets sick, for his children's education or for his retirement. Meanwhile it is obvious that all our costs are increasing exponentially. Would I be trying to make as much money as possible or would I be passionate about a product that may never work? The answer is clear.
So, my question is why don't all the innovation gurus turn their attention to a better bankruptcy law that actually works? Why don't they focus on a social security net? Why don't they focus on pension schemes?
Well, there is no money in such fights. You will likely lose over and over fighting policy changes.
Therefore, we are all back to wondering what the devil is in the Indian culture preventing risk taking. We are back to organizing seminars and conferences on innovation.

(By the way, I believe that people who create products also use the same marginal benefits analysis. They are not guided by nobility or pure passion either. They may see a niche market opening or a way to get funding. My point is that we can discuss innovation and entrepreneurship purely as economic decisions, without bringing in cultural angles.)

Those of you who find this article interesting may also read more about its background here.

James Bond talks to Taxi Driver

In most American Action movies involving foreign countries you have these well-dressed military men and politicians pondering life and death decisions. Meanwhile a surveillance plane is tracking a terrorist 10000 miles away. Sometimes this plane even picks up the terrorist's conversations. The all-upright military men place the decisions on their civilian leaders. And then the drama goes on.
There have been so many movies showing the dramatic reach and power of American (and British) intelligence organizations and military in very subtle ways. In the movie "The Bourne Supremacy", CIA tracks (from their headquarters in the USA), the movements of Jason Bourne in a train station in London. At one point, they ROTATE the camera in the London train station FROM VIRGINIA.
There is an immense sophistication projected by these movies that, to an extent, you are subconciously awed by Western power. You forget that these movies have a propaganda element.
Bob Woodward, in his book on the Iraq war and the Bush administration describes a scene: Donald Rumsfeld, Defense Secretary at that time, is meeting the Saudi Prince along with Dick Cheney. The Prince is concerned about the fallout of the proposed invasion. Rumsfeld shows a map of Iraq with army positions and sweeps his arm across. "All of these will be gone" says Rumsfeld.
Seven years later these guys are still fighting an insurgency in Iraq.
The propaganda of American movies is not just directed at foreigners - it also misleads the American people; it makes them believe that their army is full of upright men who do not torture (see Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, Rendition) and who do not engage in criminal acts (see the Haditha rape).
Which brings us to the Taxi Driver of Baghdad.

James Bond and the Taxi Driver
One of the key elements of the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) canard perpetrated by Bush and Blair was the "45 minute to deploy" story. Sometime during 2002-2003, during the run up to the invasion of Iraq, Tony Blair released a dossier to public which claimed that Saddam Huseein could release WMD within 45 minutes.
Remember that Saddam Hussein had no WMD, but where did this 45 minute claim come from?
A British investigation shows that the claim came from a Taxi driver in Baghdad.
Here is what happened (you can find details here):
MI6 was asked to find some dirt on Saddam and WMD. They put some pressure on an Iraqi official. That guy said that a Taxi driver had overheard a conversation between two Saddam officials in which they discussed the 45-minute-to-deploy nugget.
That is, the claim that Blair showed in his public dossier came from a third hand hearsay through a taxi driver!
The Iraq war has killed at least a hundred thousand people - the war was based on a claim of WMD that could be operationalised in 45 minutes. Yet Blair got into this war FULLY KNOWING that his sources were taxi drivers.
Isn't this criminal?

What does this illustrate for democracy? It means that people in power in the USA and UK could get away with murder. All that a democracy has to do is provide good local services - as long as that is done, the leaders of those countries can "Manufacture Consent" for any of their pet wars.
But, more importantly, none of this has shaken the American or British public from their absolute belief in their politicians or their military or their intelligence services. The people who voted Bush out now have Obama escalating the war in Afghanistan. There are a few powerful people clamouring for a new war with Iran.

Smart Bombs
Just as many American people believe in the noble intentions of their leaders in dropping bombs on foreigners, they also believe in specific concepts that helps them deal with this.
For example, the idea that you can target bombs so effectively with their missiles that they will kill only the evil guy and not the innocents in the surrounding street or city.
This idea of smart bombs is not new - American media was talking about smart bombs in World War II! Whenever a new war comes up, their media starts talking about how accurate their bombs are - they did it during the Vietnam war, during the first Gulf war and the Iraq invasion.
During the Iraq invasion, some of these smart bombs actually missed the entire country of Iraq and fell on Jordan.
But, you see, you do not need real smart bombs - you just need to bring that up as an abstract concept. That is enough for civilians to approve of any aerial war. This time, this current debate is going on about the drone strikes in Pakistan. And people are talking about smart bombs again.
America uses her bombs so freely that all that you have to say, to be known as Serious Foreign Policy Expert is "Targeted Military Srikes". If you just say military strikes, then you come across as a warmonger. Instead, just say "targeted military strikes". It makes the experts sound intelligent and eases the fears in American minds about getting civilians killed.

So, the next time you see, in an American movie, a bunch of honorable men in military unfiorms discussing Very Important War Decisions, remember that there is probably a taxi driver who is helping them out.

My son and my music

I have already said here, that I am going to make sure my son becomes a singer. I decided to take his training myself and the below is the result.
He seems to show a keen interest in getting away from me when I sing, but I think that is because of the bad acoustics.



He also laughs at weird words. Here is the video:

Some advice on Arranged Marriages

I was married eight years back. It was an arranged marriage; people think (especially abroad) that arranged marriages are very easy and that you do not have to make any effort. Let me narrate my experience and you can judge for yourself:

The very first problem I faced was managing my hair. I had it all nicely turned and everything so that I had the 50s samathu payyan (good boy) look. I spent atleast two hours before the mirror trying to adjust every individual strand of hair. I had no idea how my potential future wife would judge my looks. I knew vaguely that they did not like the Albert Einstein hairstyle.
Well, after this struggle, I got into the car and sat, stupidly, in the window seat. So my hair ended up looking, indeed, like Einstein. I hoped that the woman liked physics.

It is best, in my mind, to keep the affair as low-key as possible. I was sure that the girl would not like me. I would be lucky if she did not throw up on seeing me and hated every word that I spoke. So, I did not want one of the huge movie style episode in which a bunch of my relatives and a bunch of her relatives, plus all her neighbors show up to watch me getting rejected.
I actually wanted to meet her in a restaurant in a remote corner of the city so that only the waiters would know, but no one would leak the matter to the press. But when I asked for this specifically, I was accused by my parents of being an un-Indian brat. Her parents did not like the idea either - they thought I would kidnap their daughter. They wanted the full glory.

Thus, my ONE attempt at trying to influence the course of my own marriage and life failed. I stopped trying after that.

So, we ended up at her home. Luckily there were not too many people around. I got out of the car and ran in before the tabloids could take photographs.
I sat in a nice elevated chair and kept my head down. Her brother sat in a corner and kept looking at me with an impassive face. Let me tell you what he reminded me of: In American movies they show a secret CIA interrogation room where one inscrutable American sits silently in the corner while they try to get information from the terrorist. At the end he usually walked over and banged the terrorist's head on the table until he revealed the location of the bomb.
Her brother never took his eyes off me the whole time and never said anything. He rarely says anything to me even after 8 years of the marriage.

Her mother and sister buzzed about and we all tried to make conversation. I tried a few jokes. But I was waiting for my future wife to show up.
I had spent a lot of time (the previous day) in front of the mirror trying to see the angle in which I looked good. I was sure that there must be atleast one angle out of the 360 degrees where my face would show up handsome. So I tried each one of those angles until I found that there was one particular way, if I raised my head and bent my face to the left - I looked absolutely dashing. Turn a little bit to the right or left and the "effect" was gone. I could see myself only from a corner of my eye in the mirror, but I was sure I had hit upon the ideal way to present myself to my future wife.

Now, sitting in front of her whole family, I tried to find that angle again. I was almost there when the door opened and my future wife walked in. She did not look at me at all. She sat in a chair and studiously avoided looking at me.
So we both sat like statues while the rest of them had fun.
The one advice I would give you, the future arranged marriager, is to AVOID eating mixtures (this is a south-indian dish), while you are on a "girl-seeing" episode. It is a nasty trick played by the bride's family. They are trying to judge your mechanical competence. There is absolutely NO way to eat the mixture without a)looking uncool or b) spilling most of it on oneself. If they offer you the mixture, politely say no. If they insist, tell them you know their dirty trick.
Do not drink coffee either. They will offer a very full cup of coffee and figure out how scared you are when your hand shakes. Ask for half a cup; if they offer anymore, throw it on your brother-in-law. That will teach them.

There are several misconceptions about arranged marriages. Movies show the guy and the girl falling in love immediately; then pining for each other while the evil villain takes the girl to a mountain cave. The truth is that you don't really feel anything when you look at her. Your goal at that point is to get out of a really awkward situation. There is no place for love. It is a tough world out there.

After some time, they suggested that we talk to each other. This is the most liberal advancement in the institution of arranged marriages in the last two thousand years - they allow us people to talk.
So, me and her went to the terrace. It was evening time and the terrace was cool. It was very romantic except for the airport close by. There were flights zipping over us every five minutes.

I had prepared a long speech to her. It went something like this:
"I do not have much experience in this. I like your family. Let me say something about myself. But before that, I want you to be assured that you may say no to me without any reservations. You do not have to marry me out of compulsion. But that does not mean that your family compels you. I am just saying, if your family is of the type that comples daughters, then if they compel you to marry me, you can freely say no. This does not mean that I suspect your family of tyranny. No, no, on the other hand I like your family a lot. But it is all circumstances. Instead if you say yes to me because of compulsion, then our life may not be that happy. No, I am not saying that I will torture you. But I am just saying that if I do...."

I forgot most of the speech when I sat there. It sounded like a PhD dissertation.
Anyway, I started with "I don't have much experience in this"
My wife said, "It is not as if we are all sitting here with lots of experience."

That was it. We ended up chatting for an hour and by the end of it, I wanted to stay at their home.

PS: Apparently there is a rule as to the decent time when you can get back to the girl's family and let them know you like her. Say you see the girl on Monday evening at around 6 PM. Then the decent interval is to let their family know Tuesday afternoon at 3 PM. If you do it any sooner, they think you are too needy. If you do later, the girl may be married off to someone else. The optimum time interval is the above.
I did not know this. We got into the car and I started badgering my family about the marriage date.

Encounters in "A Wednesday"

I watched the movie "A Wednesday" very late, last week. I had heard much about the movie and Kamal Hasan had remade it in Tamil.
I did not like the movie at all. This is a belated analysis of the movie. This is just my opinion, I am not claiming to be a connoiseur of fine movies.

(By the way, if you have not seen the movie, please be aware that this is NOT a proper review. It reveals everything about the ending. I am taking this liberty because I think the movie has been out for more than six months now. Don't read further if you want to watch the movie. This analysis is more about political beliefs than anything else.)

Before you stat reading this post, please visit the link - The Hindu -Ishrat Jehan's encounter.

The Story
The Police Commissioner of Mumbai gets a call warning him about five bombs set to explode at 6 PM unless he fulfills certain demands. We are introduced to a couple of second level police men. One of them is Arif Khan, who seems to enjoy bashing up people. He is with the ATS and the police themselves call him a psycho and a problem guy.
The guy who set the bombs, Naseeruddin Shah, then proceeds to demand the shipping of four terrorism suspects to the Juhu airport. In an abandoned runway, amid lots of drama with cell phones, three of the suspects are killed by Shah's bombs. The fourth one escapes, but then the police shoot him on the request of Shah.
Why did Shah do this? He explains in a lengthy dialog with the commissioner that he is just a common man and is tired of being killed by terrorists.
In the final shot of the movie, the commissioner does find Shah, but then leaves him free after shaking his hand.

The Writer and his stand
I have seen that in India, directors create movies with dubious moral stands (such as demeaning women). Then when questioned about such stands they ask us to enjoy the movie as a story. That is, they ask us not to attach any "meaning" to the movie.
Thus, a director like Parthiban can show a movie in which a raped woman ends up seeking and marrying her own rapist. Rajinikanth or Surya or Vijay can insult women's dresses and teach women how to behave all the time. But when confronted, they claim that it is just a story.
So, the first question to ask is if writers take stands about social issues or not in movies. It is recognised throughout the world that this is, indeed, the case, most of the time. A story in a movie is a point of view. It is somewhat like an argument. The writer positions characters around the argument and shows them in a bad or good or gray lights. This is particularly true of "commercial" stories. It is certainly true that when a shrew is shown to be slapped in a movie, the writer is guiding you towards certain judgements about women.
This is NOT the case with every story. I am not saying that stories are written with bad and good people in mind. But I think we are all intelligent enough to know when a writer is trying to guide us.
In this light, who are the "heroes" in "A Wednesday" and who are the bad people? What does the writer guide us toward?
The movie is not at all subtle in this regard. Naseeruddin Shah is shown as a "common" man again and again. He calls himself as a represntative. At the end of the movie, the commissioner lets him go (in spite of him killing three people) with a proud handshake.
So, the writer expects us to identify with Shah. He wants us to sympathise with the commissioner. And he wants us to spare no thoughts to the men killed for "terrorism".
Now that we are clear about what the writer is saying, is that a moral stand? I will not ask this question of every movie, but this movie, clearly, tries to make a political statement. It is not "just" a story. The writer is writing about contemporary events and asks us to judge a consequence of that.
This is where I had a big problem with the movie (I had other, more aesthetic issues which I discuss later).
The idea that some vague "terrorist" can be encountered at any point of time, without a trial, is morally abhorrent. And in this movie there is not enough shown to "judge" these guys.
At one point, Naseeruddin Shah says that people are kept in jails for ten years without a judgement - but that happens with EVERY case in India. By that logic, why shouldn't we be killing murder suspects? Why only "terrorists"? There have been serial, mass killers who have killed more people than some terrorists. Shouldn't we be killing people in the streets?
Once you have decided that a trial is just a bureaucratic requirement, then why stop with terrorists?
In fact, the cruel arm of the Indian state punishes more innocent people, by keeping them without trial in jails for as much as seven or eight years. Why didn't anyone make a movie out of THAT?
If Shah, the common man, has to be angry with someone, anyone at all, it should be the delayed justice system. Instead focussing on a formless "terrorist" who can be killed just like that, how morally repugnant is that?
To me, it is clear that Shah is the murderer in the movie. At least he should have been showed as deranged. This is why I could like the Tamil movie "Evano Oruvan" ("Dombivli Fast" in Marathi) better than this movie.
The director is not required to give a solution - but at least do not PERVERT the original issue.
The most revolting scene in the movie was the policemen killing Ibrahim in cold blood. Do people really think encounters are fun hunting of "terrorists"?
If you have not visited the link above yet, here it is, again: The Hindu -Ishrat Jehan's encounter.

The Revenge story
Now, we all enjoy revenge movies, of course. We all like it when a single man takes revenge for his family or lover. But there is a difference between that and this movie.
You see, in a revenge movie, the director has already shown US the viewers, who is responsible for the crime. At that point there is a direct, personal line of connection between the crime, the murderers and the vigilante.
In "A Wednesday" I saw no such connection -
1. There was no personal connection between Shah and the "terrorists"
2. There is no connection between the CRIME and the terrorists either.
So what the hell?
This is why I felt that the movie was deeply dishonest. I felt they had made it to exploit the resentments of people after the Mumbai attacks while really coming up with no innovative stand.

The Aesthetics of the movie
1. I told my friend that this could have been made as a telefilm or something more appropriate for television. The big twist in the movie was just the revealing of Shah's intentions. I did not think that was so mind-blowing that they make a movie out of it.
2. There are ZERO other innovations in the story. The entire "detection" process was a cop-out with a contrived "cool" hacker solving everything.
3. What is with Hindi movies and pretentious characters? I have heard NOBODY in my entire life saying "I love you" and "I love you too" over the phone. Only American television characters talk that way.
4. The movie also shows people in very predictable wooden stereotypes - the hacker, for example. This idea of a "cool" young computer geek is so stupid. I am in the industry and I can tell you I have never seen such people.

I would actually suggest that these guys make real Indian movies instead of thinking they will make an "almost Hollywood movie" as they say in reviews.

Airtel Super Singer 2009 Junior

Is this the group of singers that they selected after going through every city in Tamil Nadu? Most of these young singers should not be on TV singing - they need lots of training.
Zee Tamil had a far better show last year.
Chithra as a judge is too much for this show. She is carrying on gamely.
I only like the girl Alka's singing - she is a star. There are a couple of others who are good too.
Anyway here is a classy performance:

History, Race and Politics

A couple of years back, one of my friends wrote a post on logic, science and nature. I commented on that post and in the ensuing discussion, my friend mentioned that the Rig Veda could be 6000 years old! You can read the whole exchange here.
To support this he mentioned a few authors.
I also used to participate in debates in the forum at karuthu.com. Most discussions veered into history automatically. I noticed that people had lots of historical theories of themselves. One guy posted an image of a Babylonian bronze statue and said it looked like Thiruvalluvar and therefore Dravidians were Babylonians or some such weird theory. Many of the forums devolved into wild theories about Aryans and Dravidians. (Many of these threads are still active in Karuthu - for three years!).
I have always wondered about a couple of things:
1. Why do people have a need to invent dates more and more ancient for their cultures? I read a Tamil language history book long back which basically said Tamils were some of the earliest descendants from apes, and they were the first civilization. It also linked with the debunked "Lemuria" continent and so on. And this is a history book. Of course, Hindu fundamentalists keep tracing their history to Harappa, even though that civilization shows no traces of ancient Hinduism. Tamil fanatics trace to Harappa too.
2. Why do people think a thousand years is a short time? The Rig Veda's earliest parts are dated to around 1200 BC. Isn't that ancient enough? Why dump another 5000 years on top of it?

History is a Science
I believe one of the reasons we see this kind of extensions to timelines is this: people think anyone can reason out history. That is, the perception is that History is not as exact a science as, say, Physics. I don't think a non-physicist would go in and say one day, "Oh, special relativity is really wrong.". They don't dare to because in their minds Physics needs rigour and mathematics.
On the other hand, the way we are taught History, historians seem like a bunch of imaginative people who can just sit around cooking up theories. We do not see any rigour in History, even though historians go through as much peer review as other scientists.
(If you want to explore rigour in history, just take a look at the books dealing with Microlithic era(Later Stone Age). The level of detail and scholarship is amazing).
If we are asked about specific heat capacity or photoelectric effect, we do not volunteer our own theories. We refer to text books.
The text books say that the Rig Veda is 3000 years old. Why don't we just accept that?

History and Identity Politics
There is of course, another reason, the primary motivator: amateur intellectuals in India are not really happy about our present condition. We tend to glorify our past so that the recent humiliation of colonialism goes away. We blame our present condition on obscure historical roots and try to trace history to a "Garden of Eden" long back.
I noticed that RSS and VHP supporters think we were enslaved a thousand years back - that is, even before the British, they say, the Muslims were "occupying" our country. Thus their freedom struggle started in 1000 AD, not after 1857.
Believing this is a stretch - because these people are corrupting the definition of colonialism. The British were colonialists, who (because of reasons related to economics), kept the relationship suited for exploitation. The Muslim invaders, on the other hand, were basically migrants. Their system of exploitation was no different from, say, the Mauryans or the Guptas. India had endured such waves of migration - the north-west border was porous.
To call Prithviraj Chauhan's fight against Ghazni as a freedom struggle and equate it with our fights with the British is just not accurate.
Yet this myth has a very profound impact for Hindu nationalists. It fueled crazy acts such as the Babri Masjid demolition.

The Tamil Political Tool
One of the worst uses of history as a political tool was the Dravidar Kazhagam (DK) propaganda in Tamil Nadu.
when I was in college, I asked one of my friends what he wanted most to clean up the country. He said he wanted to clean up the Aryan people from Tamil Nadu.
I was surprised by this, because I had no idea what he meant by Aryan people. Then one of my father's colleagues visited home and ranted for a long time about how Aryans worshipped Vishnu, while Shiva is a Dravidian god. A brahmin friend of mine said he wanted to learn German because that is where Aryans were from!
Now, if you took any standard reference book (such as Romila Thapar's Early History of India), you would understand that Aryan is a language grouping. For example, Hebrew is an Aryan language. NOBODY would call Jews an Aryan people. In fact six million Jews were killed during WWII because they were considered NOT Aryan.
Both the term Dravidian and Aryan are used as language groupings. Yet nobody can deny that they have been used as racial terms - without any basis.
I have read several books on Tamil History. Anna, a former CM of Tamil Nadu wrote an entire book on the "Aryan Maya". Almost none of these people were historians! That is, these people were doing the same thing that Hindu fanatics were doing - using History as a political tool, and basically revising history to suit their needs.


Race as a Social Construct
Modern historians consider Race as a social construct. Romila Thapar calls Race as an European concept.
Let us think about that for some time.
When people talk about race, they usually mean biological distinctions - when we call white people or black people as a "race" we mean they are identifiable by looks. Or atleast we imply a genetic distinction.
When Karunanidhi talks about the Tamil "race" he is not talking about Tamil speaking people. When the DK leader Veeramani or Periyaar talk about the Dravidian "race" what they mean is a biologically distinct set of people. If they just meant Dravidian language speaking people, there is no reason to exclude Brahmins from it.
Yet, NO such biological distinction exists in nature.
The whole idea of a biological race - whites or blacks or mongoloid or semitic or Aryan is a concept created by European society in the 17th and 18th centuries to deal with differences. It has no independent "scientific" meaning.
The only meaning race has is as a social idea. Because we all believe in race, it has an effect on society. It has no independent biological role.
Mind you, I am not saying that the caste system is good (people tend to make such jumps in reasoning) or that the Brahmin caste is an innocent bystander. By all means, let us condemn the caste system; let us undo this brahmanical order. But let us look for sociological reasons for such differences (if at all we are concerned about the origins). Caste has an independent social meaning - it is not necessarily identical as race. If you picked up a standard sociology text book, you will see that caste system is given a separate section. That is because it is a unique oppressive system.
The idea that "race" exists is very deep in our psychology. The first time I read about race being just a social construct, I had difficulty assimilating what that means. I had been trained to see the world as composed of different races, some of which "achieved" while others were also-rans. It took me some time to get my brain around the fact that this whole view is a myth.

Tenth Standard Exams

I will write more about our examination system later. I am trying to inteview one of my nephews.
Meanwhile, someone wrote in my comments (among lots of abuses), that the Indian education system is ideal because it separates good students from bad students.
That is, of course, not the goal of an education system. The goal should be to educate, not eliminate people from the job pool.
But then I remembered a few details about the 10th standard exam when I took it, back in 1987. I don't think much has changed till now.

You start preparing for the 10th standard exam when you are in the 9th holidays. From then on, if you go out to play, neighboring aunts frown at you and complain to your mother. So you stay at home the entire year.
Here was the list of things we had to endure going into the exams:
1. Geography - you had to remember the imports and exports of a dozen countries. Most of them had the same imports and exports except for one particular item. For example Cambodia would export rubber, rice, teakwood and coffee while Laos would export rubber, rice, teakwood and tea. So you had to remember that little change. Somehow the question paper writers loved to ask about the imports and exports.
So you ended up preparing acronyms and match them like this:
Laos - rrtt
Cambodia - rrtc
and so on. The day of the exam you tried to mug all these down.
Doesn't this sound pathetic? I have more below.

2. Apparently the guys who were correcting the answer papers were paid by how many papers they corrected every day. So, their incentive was to zip through your paper. So, you wanted to convince them by using - wait for it - color pencils. You had a bunch of color pencils and you had to underline key items in your answer. Supposedly the paper evaluator would then just look at the key words and award you marks.
Let us say the question was:

Write about the weather conditions in North America

You could write a learned tract about how the weather is shaped by the Rocky Mountains and the North Atlantic warm current. You could explain that weather moves from West to East in the plains and all that. Or, you could do this:

Weather of the Rocky of the Mountains of the Atlantic Ocean of the North of the America..of the.

And then underline the key words with red pencil and you will get full marks.
I am not sure if this was a myth or not, but we ALL had color pencils. All of them were sharpened and kept in boxes where the tip would not break off. Our own teachers said this was true and they should know.

3. If you skipped a question, you wanted to REALLY bring that to the attention of the evaluator. So, if you answered question numbers 1, 2, and then skipped 3 and went to 4, then unless you did something drastic, the evaluator would assume your answer to question 4 was really an answer to 3 and so on. So you would FAIL!!!
So when you skipped a question, you wrote the question number down and then struck through the paper twice. And then you pray.

4. The worst thing was the Science exam in 1987. It had 40 "one word" answers as the first section of the question paper. Since we were all focussing on saving time, our teachers suggested a classic method.
You see, as soon as you get the blank answer sheets, you have to draw margins. You should do this BEFORE they give you the question papers, because then the bell will ring and your countdown starts. You don't want to be drawing margins when the clock is ticking.
So you draw the margins. During the exam, you should write the question numbers down and then draw lines after every answer.
Well, our teachers taught us ANOTHER way to save time. You see, you know that there are going to be 40 "quick" questions in the Science exam. So, why not write the question numbers down and then draw the lines BEFORE they give the question papers?
So we were all trained to do that. Most of us got the answer papers and drew lines next to each other with the question numbers.
Unfortunately, that year the science paper setters wanted to create a "tough" question paper. Their idea of doing this was to ask questions that required long answers in the first 40.
So, we got completely messed up when we were given the question papers. Some of us bravely tried to "fit" the long answers within the existing lines. Some others started erasing the lines. But these left black marks on the white answer sheet and your answer sheet did not look "neat".

5. Again the science paper was supposed to be tough - so the idiot paper setters asked questions from remote corners in the text book. For example, there is a small "Do it yourself" section at the end of each lesson. They asked questions from that section, because no one notices it.

This is what passes for examinations in our education system. It is simply a way to play mind games with the students and torture them to paranoia. I do not remember a SINGLE thing I was taught in 10th - other than the sheer terror of the exams.
Remember we all have "exam nightmares"? The ones in which you dream about ending up in an exam without preparing? These are only next in horror to the "naked sprint" dreams in which you are walking outside nude.
(The worst dreams are ones in which you go to an exam unprepared AND nude).
I wonder if only Indians get these dreams...after our exam freak shows.

The left-behind majority

I hear often that racism or casteism cuts both ways. That is, it affects the perpetrators as much as the victims. I have often wondered about that - how does majoritarianism affect the majority and how does casteism affect the forward castes?
Some clarity came when I was reading this excellent series of blogs by Joe Bageant, the American author of the book "Deer Hunting with Jesus". Going through the letters in his site makes it clear how assumptions of white superiority affects whites themselves.

You see, the majority of American poor are white people. The majority of social security recipients in America are white people. Yet, whenever people in the United States talk of a "welfare queen" what they typically mean is a reckless black single mother. At least that is the image they conjure up.
This has come to mean that debate about health care reform or "entitlement" programs have sought to revolve around subtle racial messages. When Republican voters in America protest "socialism", what they are protesting is really their money benefitting black people.
Yet, blacks are not the major recipients of welfare.
Thus liberals and conservatives in the United States are locked really in a fight about benefits to black people and Hispanics - with liberals accusing of racism and conservatives of socialism.
Meanwhile the white poor in America receive no attention.
You see my point here? It is as if the myths of racial superiority of the white people actually end up making poor white people INVISIBLE to the media and activists. While debating back and forth over racism, people have forgotten that not every white person is an investment banker with an Ivy League degree. For example, the trade policies of the past 20 years in America have devastated manufacturing jobs held by whites as well.

Back to my first statement above, THIS is how racism, casteism and cultural hegemony affect the perpetrators' cultures themselves. Racism ends up hiding the poverty of white people. Untouchability practiced in India hides the plight of middle and forward caste members with little or no land. It makes such members subservient to their own rich caste members.

That is, racism and casteism rarely benefit anyone other than the creepy people who directly make money out of such antagonisms.

In my own (although limited) experience, Casteism also forces forward caste members to confirm to social rules and career paths and peer pressures that they can neither ignore nor meet adequately. I have seen this in school and college - forward caste students were expected to perform extremely well by their families; expectations that these students could not meet most of the time.
Holding up caste based or race based differences does not help anyone.

In another view of this, take the majoritarian views of the Hindu nationalists or Hindi nationalists. Both these views end up covering substantial cultural differences in North India. Telugu actor Chiranjeevi once said that entire sub-cultures in North India (such as Bhojpuri) were being disappeared by the domination of Hindi. What Hindu nationalists are attempting is not a secret - their goal is to create a lockstep mono-culture throughout India. In such efforts, they end up causing the numerous sub-cultures that make up Hinduism to disappear - thus making Hinduism itself a colorless religion.

The Myth of the Talented Few

Recently rediff.com published an article discussing economic inequality in developing countries. Predictably, anything related to reducing inequality brings out the crackpot theories in people. I reproduce below a coherent comment. I think to a certain extent this sentiment is believed in by some educated people in India. Therefore, this post is simply a rebuttal of such opinions.

Comment below
This is what the comment says:

There is a huge demand and effort to achieve "equality" among our planners, politicians and economists. They would like nothing more than to greatly reduce the wealth disparities that exist in society.

Though it would be a noble goal or objective, these people are living in a fools paradise.

God has not designed all people to achieve equally in all fields. Creating wealth is also one of them.

The only way a society can create wealth is to allow the talented few among the population to pursue their goals in a legal manner. This created wealth then dissipates into the economy following sound economic principles.

This way, the entire population gets benefited, not just those select people.

The moment you start interfering with this formula and cast a jealous eye on the wealth creators who end up with huge fortunes(at least in the beginning), under the mistaken objective of creating equality and egalitarianism, you choke the development of that society. The economy goes into decline. You can then spread poverty equally !

So, wake up. If we have still not understood this very basic economic principle, then we have no hope for the future.

Let the Ambanis, Mittals and Murthys earn their wealth. It is bound to come back into the economy in time. Till then wait patiently and dont complain.

Economics and Personality Cults
There are several things wrong with the opinion above, but the main one is this: "talented few creating wealth" is not an economic principle. Economics does not talk about talent or the absence of it. The above is simply a variation of Ayn Rand's "objectivist" philosophy as explained in her "FountainHead" and "Atlas Shrugged" Ayn Rand was a cult leader and a classic analysis of her cult is here.
I will come back to Ayn Rand later, but what the above opinion does is, it takes a personality cult of the "talented few" and tries to push it off as an economic theory.
It is informative that in the above list the commenter includes the Ambanis. He would probably include the Tatas. But the current members of the Ambani clan or the Tatas have INHERITED their wealth. What is their talent other than being BORN to rich fathers?
Talent or the lack of it only plays a very slight role in being rich in India (or as the author puts it, "creating wealth"). India is anything but a meritocracy where the "talented few" and the untalented compete in a fair playing field and the winner wins a fair fight. The myth of India as a meritocracy is dangerous - because it ignores the most fundamental reasons why we have so many people in poverty. But I will come back to this.
The closest in economic theory in the above comment is the idea of "trickle-down" economics. But as any economist will tell you, they don't teach that in economics courses because, again, it has no theoretical foundation.
Also, the commenter above is not clear on how long we should all wait sitting on our butts while "the talented few" go out there and "create wealth". I would like a timeframe.

Economics and "Equality"
When economists talk about "equality" they are not, as the commenter above thinks, talking about suppressing "talent". Neither are they talking about "egalitarianism". They are simply talking about creating a system where every economic actor has a choice and role in making rational decisions about their investments and labor. Such an economic system is ideal, because it enables efficiency, growth and trade. It so HAPPENS that such an economic system only exists in politically free societies with a strong, fair legal administration; and where income disparities are minimized.
This is why economists focus on reducing disparity - it is the only way an ideal economic system can be created.
Let us take the top 10 countries in the Human Development Index list in the UN. I have written about this previously here. Sweden, Norway, Australia, Canada, New Zealand all figure in the top 10. All of these countries have minimum income disparity.
Thus, empirically, the world's most livable countries have minimum economic inequality. How did they get this way? Not by accident. From the early 20th century policies were explicitly designed to reduce economic inequality.
If they had sat around spewed forth about the "talented few" as an economic theory they would not be in this position today.
If a country has wide economic differences, as India does, you cannot explain it away saying the talented few are kicking butt. That is not science. That is simply a personal opinion. When an economist looks at a country like India, they talk about equality because only equality inducing policies can result in our development to a livable nation.
That is, the above commenter is putting the horse before the cart. There is no simple "economic principle" that claims that you have to allow inequality for development to occur. It is the other way round - the lesser the inequality, the more a country develops.
This is why economists focus on property rights and land reform. Most land in India is held by very few people. Did they acquire this land because they were talented? No, most of them inherited this from a colonial and feudal past where they could take over whatever they wanted by force. Land reform and redistribution in India is a focus not out of emotion or charitable reasons. That is the only way a middle class with proper legal rights over their property can be created. That is the only way an economy can become efficient.
If Tata or Ambanis can just take over private property whenever they want to with the collusion of the government, then you have a deeply flawed economic system. Such a system cannot grow.
What we call redistributive policies, such as Social Security or Universal Health Care are the MEANS to India's development. They are not discussed because of jealousy.

Is India a Meritocracy?
Fundamental to the commenter's above arguments is the idea that India is a country in which the meritorious succeed and those who succeed are meritorious. This is patently not true - our colleges or schools are not designed to tease out merit. They are mostly designed to make us pass exams. Secondly even primary education is not universally available, 60 years after independence. Most importantly lower middle classes and the poor are unable to trade freely in their labor, capital or land. They get no credit line. The rural poor are worse off - with no access to even electricity or running water.
May be all this is because the poor are untalented. May be they should have been born to the Tatas.
May we should also forget that there is this little thing caled the caste system.
Here we have running dynasties in politics and industry, yet people have no shame talking about merit.
As long as India is not a meritocracy, the very little that is done to improve economic inequality is completely justified.

The Personality Cult of Objectivism
For those of who are unfamiliar with Ayn Rand and her books:
Ayn Rand was a Russian immigrant to the United States who founded the philosophy of objectivism. She expounded on this in the very popular books, "The FountainHead" and "Atlas Shrugged". Usually people read these in college and it makes a heavy impression. Then you grow mature and realize that this whole "philosophy" is a personality cult. Ayn Rand herself was a cult leader (she also believed that a woman should always be subservient to her ideal man).
In "The FountainHead" Rand writes about the idea that society has a talented few who "innovate". Everyone else is a parasite who lives off of the talented. The whole book has erotic fantasies of submission and is just a complete rant.
By no means should these books be taken seriously by an adult. More dangerous is trying to fit these ideas into economics.

To a large extent the reason some people like Ayn Rand and talk about the talented few is because they think they are one of the talented few. This is basically a syndrome where you become oblivious to class differences and support the super rich for no reason than that you think you would become super-rich one day. This idea is pushed through by the media powerfully. In the process you tend to forget that you are also harmed by inequality.

What I am afraid of is that the above is not an isolated opinion. I have come across it repeatedly in discussions. One of the fundamental indications is that entrepreneurs (company founders) are glorified beyond reason in our media. The owner of a company such as Narayana Murthy or Ramalinga Raju are given incredible glory, and all success of their company is singularly attributed to them. Everyone who works in that company is discounted before the original "entrepreneurial" vision of Raju or Murthy - even though, Infosys or Satyam were neither pioneers in their field nor do they follow a unique business model. This glorification of company founders and businessmen is also a personality cult more than anything linked with actual economics.

Notes for freshers trying to get a job in IT

There is a recession and the market is bad for freshers trying to enter the software industry. Graduates who were offered jobs in campus interviews have been asked to wait by companies. Companies have dropped out of campus interviews for this year. I know that last year many freshers who were being trained were laid off (almost the entire batch in my last company).
Things are looking bad for people looking into stepping into the software industry for the first time. On the other hand, if you have a couple of years of software experience, things do not look so bad - companies still are recruting people with minimal experience.
In this post, I will try to give some advice on how to tide across these times. I will follow it up with a primer for freshers about the workings of an IT corporation and career paths.

My Credentials
I was a VP in a medium sized company for some time. Among other responsibilities I was one of the primary trainers for incoming freshers. I set up syllabus for such training, and also evaluated freshers regularly. I have been an interviewer on campus a few times. I have also evaluated computer training companies for outsourcing our training.

Why do Freshers fare worse in a recession?
Let us say I am running an IT company. I have projects coming in "pipelines". I have a set of current projects and they may be expanding or closing down. These projects may be in different technologies (such as Java, .NET) and therefore moving people around in these may be a problem.
An IT company constantly faces manpower issues. People tell us that the main reason is "employee turnover". That is, employees keep leaving companies in search of better jobs. But that is a small part of the problem.
Unlike manufacturing companies, software work cannot be transferred easily from one person to another. In manufacturing companies, producing a piece of a product (such as a telephone) takes the same amount of work for each telephone. Reproducing each product the same way is the main focus in manufacturing. Thus there is lots of manual, repetitive work.
But in a software company, reproducing a software or packaging it in a CD is trivial. It does not take any effort. The main problem in software is CREATING it according to specs.
Thus the avreage worker in IT needs to be much more qualified and intelligent than the average worker in other industries.
So, when a new project comes in, finding the RIGHT person for a role in that project is a big pain in software. Even if you have ten people sitting in bench, it may be difficult finding the right person.
I as an IT company owner, find staffing and recruitment difficult. I decide that I may run my business more profitably if I found smart people from college. The college already has a built in evaluation system, so I depend on that system to find smart people.
In India, seeking computer science engineers alone does not help me. A person passing as a computer science engineer, with high marks, still may have NO idea about what a company needs right away. I will come to this later, but that is the nature of the university degrees here. Particularly in computers. It is not so bad in electronics or in automobile industry. I joined an electronics company when I passed out of college. I got no training, but I was productive in two days, fixing circuit boards. That does not happen with software so much.
So companies end up seeking college grads, and then training them for two to three months. For an actual productive work, it takes upto 6 months of hand holding for a fresher - even if they are from a computer science background.
But companies still do it, because they can justify the costs. Freshers are likely to stay longer in a company. They are also paid less. And they are less dmeanding from the company. There are several advantages to investing in freshers.
But they all disappear in a recession - because the lack of projects and mass layoffs flood the market. All of the above advantages now also apply to experienced engineers in a recession. So, companies end up not recruting freshers.

Training Courses and Certifications
There are different modes in which companies recruit outside campus. They have walkins. They have a referral system - so if you know someone's friend, it helps (nothing wrong with that).
Meanwhile, you are sitting at home, trying to decide your next course of action. Your parents are worried and they want you to do something to get a job.
In this situation, I see many freshers take a standrad approach - they join computer courses to learn more. They write certifications or other exams.
My opinion is that these are useless. I can tell you right away that computer courses have ZERO value for a recruiter. In my opinion they are a waste of money.
So are certifications, unless you actually use that as an opportunity to learn. The certification that a fresher shows is simply a way for recruiters to ask questions in that direction. The certificate itself has no value.
I have evaluated software training companies to determine if we can outsource training from my last company. I interviewed people from some premium training companies. The trainers had NO idea about technology. They themselves had no grasp of concepts - they needed training themselves.
There are three types of training companies:
1. Top-tier like NIIT - In my opinion, these are bad too. But they may have some value because they have placement services. But they are costly.
2. Second tier - these guys want to be NIIT but they are really really bad. They are affected by the lack of good trainers.
3. Third grade scamsters - these guys will promise a job and have other scams up their sleeves. They are evil - stay away from them.
My advice is, do not spend money on computer training courses. Recruiters do not respect them. In fact there are people who even disrespect if you went to NIIT. If you have an engineering degree or an MCA, they are of much more value than computer training certs.

Self-Learning
In times of recession, as I explained above, companies are not going to train you. They want someone they can put on a project and can be productive in atleast a week.
If you can prove that you can do that, you can get a job.
Let us assume there are walk-ins or you get a referral through a someone you know. The aptitude test part of it is over and you are about to face an interview. Let me tell you what I would like from a fresher.
I would like him/her NOT to be a fresher. (From now on we will assume the fresher is a female).

Seriously, I would look for proof of the following (much of this assumes a web development project):
1. She should know HTML, CSS and Javascript - no excuses. When I say HTML, I don't mean creating a list with a marquee flowing on top. Do NOT list plain HTML in your resume, without including CSS and Javascript. And learn CSS and Javascript.
Your BEST hope as a fresher is to know HTML, Javascript, CSS, and then ASP.NET or JSP or PHP. That is the correct combination for an entry level position without training.
2. That she knows a language such as Java, C#, Visual Basic .NET or PHP. It is not acceptable to say you know C or C++. You are unlikely to get a job with C or C++. Don't even list C in your resume if you know one of the other languages.
3. That she has worked in a project that makes "business sense". Address Book is NOT a project we like to hear. Instead if you said you worked in creating a website for you college library, it is slightly better. If you had created a web application for managing your syllabus and project work at college, still better. If you had actually built a website for someone's electronic store, you are ideal.
That means you understand the complexity of a actual web application. Hopefully all that you are saying can be justified when the recruiter further questions you.

Employable Skills
As a fresher, your job is to learn employable skills. I mentioned above the knowledge that can get you a job. Let me break it down a little bit more below. Again, I am talking about a company mostly performing web or desktop development - not writing embedded software.
1. You should be familiar with an editor such as Eclipse, Netbeans or Visual Studio.NET. Eclipse is the best bet. It is also free.
2. Given a photoshop layout of a webpage, you should be able to lay it out in HTML. This is a key skill. It requires lots of work to learn.
3. You should be able to write a simple "Register" form and save it to the database in any platform such as .NET, Java or PHP. You don't need to know all of them - just one platform is fine.
4. You should know standard algorithms such as reversing a string or sorting a list in either Java, C#, VB.NET. I do not like to ask these myself, but people still ask these questions.
5. You should know how the web works - cookies, query strings, going from one page to another (redirects), session state and other ideas.
6. You should know how to design a couple of database tables with foreign key relations (normalization).
7. You should know basic SQL. Inserts, selects, updates, deletes and joins.
8. Try to know what source control or version controling system is. Knowing the concept or having someone demo it to you is enough.
9. You should be able to create "reusable" controls in ASP.NET or JSP or PHP.
10. You should know how to "validate" a form on the client side - making sure phone numbers are correct etc.

How do I gain these skills?
Here is my advice on how you can go about building these skills:
If you are in college or just out of college, prepare to do some learning of your own. Forget about computer courses and certifications. I will give you a small path for learning PHP. You need a computer at home or a friend's home.
1. Buy a book. You have to learn some things from books, no other way. Spend money and buy the Wrox press book "Apache, PHP and MYSQL".
2. Follow the instructions in the book to download Apache, PHP and MySQL and install them separately.
3. Follow the few examples in the book and build simple web pages.
4. Take a website you like. Choose a simple page in that site. It can be a complaint page or a contact us page. Even use my website http://www.alphazonsystems.com. When you view it, the images will be downloaded to your computer. Take them and use HTML and CSS to build the exact same page as it looks on your browser. Try this in IE and Firefox.
5. I think there is a Wrox press book called HTML, Javascript and CSS. Buy it and use it to learn CSS and Javascript.

After these steps, try to do a couple of simple projects - one is the famous Address Book. Others should be more complicated, such as a bookstore.
My point is this - if you have computer access, then get a couple of books and SELF-LEARN. There are numerous resources in the internet to help you learn programming. If you face a problem such as "How do I restart Apache?" just search in Google and you will find hundreds of pages.
Remember when you learnt how the television works in school? After that whenever you looked at a television you can understand how it works. Understanding websites is like that. Once you build a couple yourself, you can understand how any webaite works. Take a look at Google. Try to figure out how it works. How does Yahoo mail or gmail work? It is easy to figure this out from the bookstore example, believe me.
If you walked into an interview with the above skills under your belt and listed in your resume, it is likely you will get a job.