Sunday Posts

If you live a life like I do, you will know one never really fails - only pivots. So it is and I am in the middle of one now. To be sure, I am well into it: The difference between a pivot and a failure is whether one gets started at all, and I have done. And, as I have started feeling comfortable in my new skin, it's time to write about it. Indeed, it must be written about, as I have just been weighed down by this massive writers' block, the very thing I wanted to avoid through blogging, and that's because I was ending one life and beginning another. It was a bit of crazy time too, over the last few weeks, with a perfect storm of deadlines, with my course of studies in History of Ideas coming to an end and my work on Education Technology going through a period of approvals and validation. So, I was writing, a lot, but all of that was out of urgent compulsion and not out of any creative urge. So, there is more than one reason to start writing again, and to writ...

The big question for many college graduates is whether to work for a start-up or, wait and look for opportunities with more stable companies. In my straw poll, the opinions are split right in the middle.  About half the people think start-ups are cool and fun, and therefore, better to work for. The more practically minded make the point that they offer a range of opportunities, to grow and to learn, which an established corporation wouldn't allow.  The other half feels that working for start-ups are the worst of both the worlds. They offer no security - the point of a job - and rarely big rewards, as most of it is usually reserved for the Founders. Most start-ups also fail. There is little transparency with regard to the finances and working practices of a start-up, and therefore, very little to make a well-informed decision. And, finally, while the learning value is undeniable, the value of that learning is questionable. Even the start-ups themselves often pay a...

India faces a general election in 2019 and the battle lines are clearly drawn. The Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government, which came to power promising an economic miracle, has been an abject failure: Like many other administrations before them, this administration gave precedence to political imperatives ahead of economic policy. While its defenders would be quick to list out the government's various achievements, the brevity of the list would be embarrassing to all but those who are either ignorant or have a political motive. The Modi revolution was a whimpering affair, more of tinkering than of bold moves, and after four and half years, as is usually the case with a country like India, the country has gone backwards by not moving forward. Despite this, however, in the run-up to the general election, no one seems to be asking the economic question: 'Are you better off now than you were four years ago?' Rather, the big battle cry of the opposition is Secula...

That governments are so enthusiastically trying to promote start-up cultures, handing out investment grants and building fancy new hubs, would make Milton Friedman turn in his grave: One can anticipate his protest - it is not the business of government to do business!  But then, democracy in its 'for the middle class, by the middle class' incarnation expects the government to be a job creation machine, and when all else fails, the Ministers say 'let start-ups be'! In fact, they celebrate it: In this affair, failure, the hallmark of government programmes, is some sort of credit. It allows the governments to celebrate the doctrine of creative destruction - ever so cool - while destructively creating a self-blaming proletariat, whose revolutions are limited to ventures and whose idea of nirvana is an Exit. There was never a better mantra invented to justify a permanent bureaucracy. But, at this point, I must stop and make an important distinction. My post is abou...

Liberalism is a contested word. So contested, in fact, that I can't even qualify it with some catch-all phrase, like 'as it is commonly understood'.  In fact, it is not understood at all: It's often a term of abuse in India, where it's seen as a form of retardation (hence, the coinage, in the great Indian English tradition of joined-up words, 'Libtard') while in the West, it's a lost ideal nostalgically mourned. In North America, Liberalism is often synonymous with economic justice, an activist state restraining the excesses of the market, combined with unrestrained individual choice, allowing people to live their lives as they please; in Europe, it is about a non-interventionist state and unrestrained operations of the market, with individuals permitted to do as they please as long as they don't threaten social harmony. So, the creation of a National Health Service would be considered a Liberal policy and right to abortion a great Liberal ca...

I titled these posts the Global Condition as I thought my Internet-inspired, immigration-induced state of life is best expressed as such, but the debate whether this is living global or being international is still quite topical. International it indeed used to be, till Global became commonplace. Again, as in my personal narrative, I don't know when the pivot came, but one can say that our views, and words, changed at some point in the early nineties. Perhaps this was Berlin Wall, perhaps this was the demise of Soviet Union, perhaps it was World Wide Web making Internet a commonplace. International used to be cool - it was connected to workers' movements and the global legislative body was named 'United Nations' rather than 'Global Forum' - and nation-state was a progressive, forward-looking thing; but then global took over.   In that sense, one could say being global and living internationally are not the same. It is perhaps rooted in the left-right d...

I have reset my life. I did this before: When I hit a roadblock or got stuck doing something I hated,  I would imagine a day when a new life started. And, it works, because, all frustrations wash away, and hope comes back in. Besides, I let go of expectations, all that I accumulated over time, as those often are the biggest roadblocks. I have just done that again. So, everything needs to start again, and this blog too. Having just separated it out from my work not very long ago, I want to connect it back again. In fact, I want to restart my blog and bring it to the centre of what I do. That may mean letting go of certain things, like my profoundly agitated thoughts about Brexit, Trump and other global calamities, but - who really cared for those thoughts anyway? The new blog would hopefully allow me to be more personal - and meaningful - as I intend to write about a thing that I am discovering more and more: Identity!  I grew up in more hopeful times. By the ti...

The death of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the first non-Congress Indian Prime Minister who served a full term (the incumbent, Narendra Modi, is likely to become the second), occasioned a wave of sympathetic reflection, even from those who disagreed politically, about the charm, wisdom and integrity of the old man. Scorned in his lifetime as the 'civilised mask' of the Hindu Nationalists, Vajpayee appeared - in his death - a different breed of a politician, particularly in contrast to his successor,  approachable, consensual and incorruptible. Though he would always have the dubious distinction of being a lifelong Hindu warrior, stretching from the collaboration with the British government in the pre-Independence years to active sponsorship of sectarian politics in the 80s which led to the horrors of religious riots from Bhagalpur to Bombay, Vajpayee came to represent the reasonable case for Hindu Nationalism in India. His death and the outpouring of respect, demand a re-examinat...

I am working on developing a certification programme for professionals who have to work outside their countries, or, in an industry which needs constant global interaction, with customers, colleagues or investors. In a way, this is U-Aspire 2.0. We did develop something like this, Global Business Professional programme, which was built around global business strategy and intercultural competence. This time around though, I am looking at a slightly different audience. This would be less about strategy and more about everyday competence. Besides, this would have more focus on practise and interaction and less on 'knowledge'.  When I worked on this last time, the programme was designed to be blended, with a component delivered face to face. Because of this, and because we wanted to fit this around certification frameworks, we went on to define learning hours and outcomes etc. I now understand, with the work I have done since then, that while all of these things sound lik...

So the date is near and the signs are unmistakable. House sales have stagnated along with house prices. The Sterling is forever stuck in a zone of weakness. Shoppers are staying home. Supermarket shelves are showing the inflation and the Bank of England is trying hard not to see it. Unemployment is at an all-time low and too many shops are displaying 'Now Hiring' signs on the door, but none of that looks like good news. Though everyone has gone on holiday, and newspapers are living off the anti-semitism of Corbyn and Islamophobia of Boris Johnson, this is a summer of waiting in Britain: The Brexit curtain is about to - and inevitably - fall soon. But there are people in Britain for whom this is a summer of hope. For Theresa May, who loves the limbo, and indeed is its creator, knows that this is the best state to live in. For the two people who would want to see her gone, it is a time for optimism: For Boris Johnson, this would be the time to be unhinged and get back to em...