TGIF or TGIS

Do not worry about the abbreviations on the title. I am sure most of you have been dealing with more complicated ones like RFID or RGBS and the like... This is really simple...Thank God Its Friday (TGIF) used to excite a lot of people... After a hard day's work one would look forward to the weekend from Friday evenings onwards etc etc...I have realised Friday is the worst day of the week. Its not Monday, it;s actually Friday... At least for people like me. it's the day when bosses dump a lot of work just around 4 PM and extract your promise to deliver by luchtime on Monday... that is tolerable, after all what else can bosses do... More repulsive is the behaviour of your reportees..... they have been promising to deliver a finished product since Monday and failed... come Friday 4 PM when you are tired of following up.... you get an email attaching a half finished work, which has to be completely reworked and the obviously Monday is the deadline... You rush out of your room to catch the bugger and the security guard tells you very helpfully that the guy jist left five minuted back... As a good guy you do not like to bother juniors on the mobile on Friday evenings......I have therefore devised a way of surviving this two two sided pressure: from top as well as from botttom... Whether I am in office on any other day of the week or not, I make sure that I put in at leat four hours every Saturday.. That's is the best time to get some serious work done... That is why I have devised this rather unimaginative term TGIS, thank god it;s saturday....
You may dislike this strategy, but for me it works very well. On Monday morning I am the only one laughing in the office.......

Highway Robbery

Have you ever been robbed by law enforcement authorities? I have never been, but I was told as a young boy growing up in Bihar that even when you are paying a bribe, do not ever take out your wallet in front of a police man, else whatever you have inside the wallet will no longer be yours i.e., what you have inside the wallet will determine how much you pay. It works noth ways, many a times I have shown empty wallets and got scott free with of course remarks about my economic and social standing. I do not mind those comments am thick skinned:) But that was not higway robbery. What is highway robbery is to pass an ordinance to get free stuff which has been bought at a cosiderable value by a small company. This is highway robbery and has beencommitted by the government of india or its infamous arm the Information and Broadcasting Ministry.I am sure the government has a sound reason to pass this ordinance, but it is just that it has failed to explain the reasons transparently to the public. If this is to reflect the popular feeling about cricket and how the teeming millions who have no access to cable TV or cannot afford to pay for viewing, it is then a good reason. But then it is the same ministry which has done away with Cable Operators and has started the expensive version of Cable or Satellite TV where viewers in certain areas of the major cities have paid through their noses or not been able to afford it at all [I paid 4000 Rs in Delhi for Tata Sky and 1500 for a CAS in Mumbai my maids and driver in both the places have not been so lucky. And now CAS is going to be extended to all cities].
Secondly, if cricket is so popular and needs to be reached to the masses whenever those matches happen, isnt Ramayana, Mahabharata or Nach baliye, Kyun Ki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu thi equally popular? Does the government have any plans to ask for free feed from TV companies for these popular serials as well? Then all of us can go back to watching good old Doordarshan free of cost:)
Confused? So am I!

Neo Colonialism

The buy out of Corus (erstwhile stolid British Steel merged with a dutch company) has had the Corus union in UK worried: obvious fear of job loss compounded by the fact that the jobs would be determined by and Indian company. Normally, the Brits are pretty tolerant and Bindas and the anti outsourcing lobby does not work threre half as well as it works in US. But as they say even the worm turns at last... Like the Indians have a high level of tolerance till you show Krishna as a vicious political animal, or try to paint pictures of Allah or think of releasing the last temptation. Let us face it, Corus is a very inefficient company and Tata Steel is very efficient. J N Tata while planning to establish a steel factory (which became TISCO the forerunner of Tata Steel) had returned empty handed from UK: he had gone there to raise money and seek exeprts in prospecting etc. He was told that the idea of building a steel plant in India was a pipe dream [I am sure the Vitorian Englishment would have used more soothing words to drive this message home to Mr Tata] Subsequenltly much of the technical expertise was brought in from the US and much of the money was raised in India [Mumbai]. This is history turning on its head:) Tata's of course have never detached themselves from the brits. In the initial years Tata Steel survived and thrived on guaranteed orders from the India Railways [which was owned by British stockowners] and Tata House in Grosvenor Square in London has been as venerable a sign of Indian presence in UK as the India House off London School of Economics.
India is the fourth or third largest inward investor in UK and with the corus deal we would have expected the following:
Airtel to take over Vodaphone in the next 3 years, BSNL to buy out British Telecom, DMRC to buy of London Underground; Vijay malla to buy out White and McKay and give us some good scotch at Indian prices; Appollo Group with eh support of Max can buy out National Health; HDFC and ICICI can make a joint pitch for the Insurance companies in Scotland and the Indian BPOs can buy out the Irish ones. As my Bangladeshi Brit friend in Whitechapel would say "In your dreams buddy"

Am I a Fool

I think I am a fool or something is seriously wrong with our crime investigation agencies. Since last week CBI has been raiding homes of police officers involved in allegedly conniving in the henious crimes at Nithari in NOIDA.I would assume that in order for a raid to be effective it has to be done suddenly and without prior information to the person or persons who homes are going tobe raided. This is at least true of Income Tax related raids, information on which are only shared in the last moment with only relevant officers of the department and raids are essentially carried out at ungodly hours so that the raidees are caught unawares. After the first raid on a junior police officer's house a more than a month after the case came to light, the CBI claimed to find some incriminating papers. So far so good.What did they do next? Spoke to the press and said that more raids would follow! This is what I read in newspapers yesterday. What was the wisdom behind this cute piece of communications to the press? To inform us that CBI is really working hard on the case? Or to inform the other suspected policeman to be aware and make best efforts to hide all incriminating papers before the raid happens? I dunno reallyOR is that the safe assumption of CBI that police officers do not read newspapers an watch television?I think it is the pathetic desire to talk more and work less that drives most organisations these days. In teh zeal to talk they sometimes forget what they should talk and what they should not talk about. This bug seems to have bitten many ministers, government departments, police and even the judiciary. I guess normally quiet and reticent government types are learning their communication skills pretty fast from the coprorate types:)