Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Thus Spake Kalam

Small aim is a crime

By Shyamsunder Panchavati

Former President of India Bharat Ratna Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam speaking at the mass training programme organised to ignite & train 50 thousand students by the TTD Devasthanam Tirupati Andhra Pradesh India.Working with him and for Lead India 2020 Foundation has been a proud privilege and a great learning experience,I will always cherish till the end of my life. 

Please read and comment,


Shyam


kalam_speachNo youth today need to fear about the future

Small aim is a crime

Friends, when I see you all as Lead India team many scenes come in front of me. What are the scenes? As boys and girls below 15 years, I see you all trained by Lead India to be good students of your teachers, lovable child of your parents and good citizens of the nation.

I am happy that lead India 2020 Foundation with the motto “Aap Badho – Desh Ko Badhao” is facilitating conduct of training programme in different parts of Andhra Pradesh. I appreciate Dr. KV Ramanachari for taking the initiative in training large number of school leaders and lecturers from TTD institutions and creating a base for value based education to the students of this region. Shri Ravichandra, Collector of Chittoor district has also played an important role in inculcating Lead India concepts in maximum number of schools of this region. This type of action will definitely enable promotion of removing the illiteracy of the state and building of knowledge society.

You will succeed

This lead India training is a beautiful lifelong experience for you. With this background of training for the youth, what type of India you will make? After all India needs ignited minds of the youth which is the most powerful resource on the earth, above the earth and under the earth.

When I was a young boy of your age I had few concerns in my life. Will I ever go out of my village for high school studies? When I reached the high school in small town and saw my colleagues well dressed, good at speaking English, I used to ask myself, when will I enter into their company? When I reached 9th class I had a concern, will I get good marks to go for higher education particularly engineering science or medicine? When I reached 10th class definitely all these concerns vanished, because of the company of great teacher. He gave me the vision for my life. Definitely the members of Lead India movement have great teachers who will provide the Vision for the youth.

Let not thy winged days, be spent in vain

As you all know, the earth rotates on its own axis once in a day having 24 hours or 1440 minutes or 86400 seconds. Earth itself orbits around the sun. It takes nearly one year for an orbit. With the completion of one rotation of earth around the sun, your age is added by one year as you are living on planet earth. Seconds fly, minutes fly, hours fly, days fly and years fly. We have no control over it. The only thing that we can do is, while the time flies, we can navigate the time.

“Let not thy winged days, be spent in vain”.

Building Confidence

The next important quality required in you is building confidence. Building confidence comes out of company of great human beings, great teachers and great books.

When I was studying in the 5th standard, many of us used to get less than 40 marks in mathematics. My mathematics teacher asked us when you are getting more than 80 marks in other subjects, why are you getting low marks in mathematics. Immediately, he evolved a method of teaching and creation of confidence for the whole class. How did the teacher inject the confidence in us. He conducted a class and gave us an exercise of 10 problems. In that exercise, more than 90% of the class including me got 100 out of 100. We were bubbling with happiness. Then onwards our maths performance improved much better. After few years only, we realized, that our teacher injected the confidence in us that I can do it by his teaching and also formulation of the problem to make us succeed and promote self-confidence. So friends, to succeed in life, each one of you have to cultivate the confidence in you that “I can do it”. The nation will build the confidence that “we can do it”.

Gandhiji’s mother’s advice

When I am with the students of TTD Institutions, I am reminded of the advice given to Gandhiji by his mother.

 She says,

“Son, in your entire life time, if you can save or better someone’s life, your birth as a human being and your life is a success. You have the blessing of the Almighty God”.

This advice has made a deep impact in the mind of Gandhiji, which made him to work for the humanity throughout his life.

I had another unique experience, a few years back, that reveals how a single leader can inspire a large population. I happened to meet, in Delhi, the grand-daughter of Mahatma Gandhiji, Mrs Sumitra Kulkarni. She narrated to me an incident about her grandfather, which she personally witnessed.

Nobility in Mind

Each day, as you all are aware, Mahatma Gandhiji used to have prayer meeting at a fixed time in the evening. After the prayers there will be a collection of voluntary gift for harijan welfare. The devotees of Gandhiji used to collect whatever was given by the people of all sections and this collection wouldcounted by the supporting staff of Gandhi family. The amount so collected would be informed to Gandhiji before his dinner. The next day, a bank man wouldcome for taking this money. Once the bank man reported that there was a discrepancy of few paise in the money given to him and the money collected. Mahatma Gandhiji, on hearing this, went on fast telling that this was a donation for the poor and we have to account for every paise. Dear friends, his act of righteousness should be practiced by all of us.

On this day, let us rededicate ourselves to practice righteousness in all our thoughts and actions. Now I would like you to recite with me the divine hymn – Righteousness :


“Where there is righteousness in the heart,
there is a beauty in the character.
When there is beauty in the character,
there is harmony in the home.
When there is harmony in the home,
there is order in the nation.
When there is order in the nation,
there is peace in the world.”

Friends, we can see a beautiful connectivity between heart, character, nation and the world. Now I would like to share some examples of transformation which has taken place in TTD Institutions and other schools due to Lead India Training.

Respect to elders

I was studying the transformation which has been brought among students who have undergone the Lead India training programme in Tirupati. Miss M. Suguna studying in 10th class in Sri Padmavathi Girl’s High School, daughter of M. Lakshmi Devi working as a labourer and who had lost her father in a young age had undergone this course. Prior to attending the course, Suguna was not respecting her mother and elders. She used to remain isolated and never used to talk anybody. The training programme made her realize the value of her mother. She started taking her blessings everyday before commencing any work. She had become courageous and had started taking deep interest in the study. In her spare time, she has started educating her neighbours. Also, she is explaining the evils of drinking and gambling among the neighbourhood members. Suguna is being recognized as a Lead India social reformer in her locality.

Truthfulness

I would like to share with you another example of transformers through Lead India Training. Master Nitish Kumar is studying in class 7th of Zilla Parishad High School, Shatham Baakam, Penumuru Mandalam. He was famous as a naughty boy always telling lies. After attending the Lead India training programme, Nitish Kumar has realize value of truth and has become self-disciplined. One day when he was traveling in a bus, a person called Gangadhar belonging to Nellore, Eguvakaaluva lost his mobile. He searched for his address and returned back mobile. As a complement, Shri Gangadhar sent Rs.200/- to Master Nitish Kumar. But Master Nitish refused to accept the money sent by Shri Gangadhar that “we cannot purchase truth with money”.

Conclusion

Friends, as a Lead India team member, I suggest to the teachers, parents to ensure that the Lead India young members have three unique characteristics of life. (1) Realising the importance of present that is today (2) the confidence that I can do it and (3) building righteousness in the heart.

Friends, India today has a mission of transforming itself into a developed nation with value system. This is a great challenge. This can be achieved through our youth power. Youth has got the power of ideas, ambition and ability. This resource of the youth is an important building block for transforming India into a developed nation. No youth today need to fear about the future.

May God bless you.

I would like the youth take an oath with me.

Oath for the Youth

1 I will have a goal and work hard to achieve that goal. I realize that small aim is a crime.

2 I will work with integrity and succeed with integrity.

3 I will be a good citizen of the country, a good member of my family, a good member of the society, a good member of the nation and a good member of the world.

4 I will always try to save or better someone’s life, without any discrimination of caste, creed, language religion or state. Wherever I am, a thought will always come to my mind. That is “What can I give?”

5 I will always protect and enhance the dignity of every human life without any bias.

6 I will always remember that “Let not my winged days, be spent in vain”.

7 I will always work for clean planet Earth and clean energy.

8 As a youth of my nation, I will work and work with courage to achieve success in all my tasks and enjoy the success of others.

9 My National Flag flies in my heart and I will bring glory to my nation.

Thanks for reading,

Shyamsunder Panchavati

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Design The Life You Want to live ..........

There’s an old German saying that goes, “You have to take life as it happens, but you should try to make it happen the way you want to take it.” Are you planning to just let life “happen” to you or do you plan to play an active part in designing the life you want?




Designing a life is not an elitist idea, it is an  a commonplace idea, easily implementable by anyone, yes, absolutely anyone. 

All you need to do is, replace commotion with co-motion. You just need to move along with ideas and plans in full sync and tandem.



Some of you may say, yes, I would like to do that, but trouble is, I don’t know how to get started. So
 you just go with the crowd, or take the path that’s most hassle-free. Unfortunately, more often than not, the crowd may not know where it is going, and if so, then everyone ends up like everyone else, wondering what has happened to their life many years down the road!

A lot of people tend to take life for granted. They think that by the time they are in their 40s or 50s everything will fall into place by itself.

Are you willing to take that chance? Remember, you only have one life, and you can’t turn back the clock. Life is not a full dress rehearsal; it’s only going to happen once. You can’t say, “Cut, let’s start it all over again.”

The truth is, for most people, after 20 or 30 years of working, they only discover what they do not want, without a clue as to what they really want in life.

We all know we want something. Words like financial freedom, wealth, lifestyle, are catch words everyone is using. But do they know what it actually means? Do they know what it takes to achieve that? Do they know how or where to get it?

So my advice is: take the time right now to work out a design for your life. If life was a movie, and you are the producer and actor, what role would you want to play and how would the plot unfold? Designing your life is like making a movie. You have to be able to see the end at the beginning. It may start off a little hazy, but as you continue working on it, it would become clearer and clearer. You’ve got to write the script, put in the characters. Use your imagination, let your creative juices flow.

Does it mean that what you have designed is going to be set in concrete? Certainly not. You are the producer of your life. You can change, delete, or add in anything you want in your project. But at least by doing this exercise of designing your life, you are in control of your circumstances, rather than become a victim of them.

Here are some simple steps to help you get started!

1. Find a nice quiet spot where you will be undisturbed for at least 20 minutes.
2. Equip yourself with a pencil and a new note pad that will become your “Life Book”.
3. Draw a time line across a page, from now to say five years on.
4. At the left end of the time line, write “Present State”; at the right end, write “Desired State”.
5. On the left end, describe as accurately as you can your Present State. Ask questions like:
a. What am I doing now?
b. What is my income, if any?
c. Do I like what I do?
6. On the right side, under Desired State, describe as clearly as you can what you would like to see five years from now. Ask yourself, if I can’t fail…
a. What do I really want to be?
b. What do I want to have?
c. What will my life be like?
7. Between the Present State and Desired State mark on the time line
a. What must I do to get what I want?
b. Who can help me?
c. What skills do I need?
d. What resources do I need?

The first time you may not get all the answers you want. If you do this exercise daily for some time, I can guarantee you that you will end up with a pretty good design for your life. You will know where to get what you want, what to do, who can help you and so on.

You don’t stop working on your project to design your life. I recommend you keep going back to the “Life Book” you have created; it’s a “project in progress”.

Take charge of your life now. If not now, when?

Best Wishes,

Shyam

Friday, December 10, 2010

Wikileaks prompt Japan to plan tougher security for classified info

Tougher rules on protecting classified info eyed


Kyodo News

The government vowed steps Thursday to toughen the law and current system for managing classified information in the wake of recent leaks of investigative data at home and U.S. diplomatic cables on WikiLeaks.


The decision was made by the first meeting of a government panel tasked with improving the handling of classified information, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku said.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan set up the panel after the release onto the Internet last month of sealed video footage showing September collisions involving a Chinese trawler and two Japan Coast Guard cutters during a run-in near the Senkaku Islands that reignited a territorial row between Asia's two largest economies.
The meeting was also held at a time when Japanese officials, as with many others around the world, are concerned about the release of thousands of sensitive U.S. diplomatic cables by the confidential information-divulging WikiLeaks website.
"In recent years, information technology and the (digital) network society have been developing significantly and there is a question about whether the government has appropriately responded to this kind of changing environment," Sengoku, who heads the panel, said at the outset of the meeting, which was opened to reporters.
The panel plans to put together proposals by next spring, according to government officials.
After the meeting, Sengoku told a news conference the public's right to information and freedom of the press are "the basics of modern society but it may well be that a certain amount of restrictions are necessary."
Critics are concerned about possible actions by the government to impose stricter discipline on officials regarding information management, saying this could run counter to the public's right to know.
Video clips running for about 44 minutes, taken at the time of the ship collisions, were posted on YouTube in early November by a Japan Coast Guard navigator not involved in the run-in but who had internal access to the footage.
The collisions, which led to the brief arrest of the trawler's captain, strained diplomatic ties between Japan and China.
Sengoku, who strongly opposed disclosing video footage of the Sept. 7 collisions, shot by the coast guard, has been under pressure in recent weeks to leave the Cabinet, with opposition parties criticizing him for infringing on the people's right to know and others trying to hold him responsible for the guardsman's video leak on You Tube.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

The New Poor

The New Poor (Reproduced from New York Times Article)



The longer people stay out of work, the more trouble they have finding new work.

The longer people stay out of work, the more trouble they have finding new work.


That is a fact of life that much of Europe, with its underclass of permanently idle workers, knows all too well. But it is a lesson that the United States seems to be just learning.

This country has some of the highest levels of long-term unemployment — out of work longer than six months — it has ever recorded. Meanwhile, job growth has been, and looks to remain, disappointingly slow, indicating that those out of work for a while are likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. Even if the government report on Friday shows the expected improvement in hiring by business, it will not be enough to make a real dent in those totals.

So the legions of long-term unemployed will probably be idle for significantly longer than their counterparts in past recessions, reducing their chances of eventually finding a job even when the economy becomes more robust.

“I am so worried somebody will look at me and say, ‘Oh, he’s probably lost his edge,’ ” said Tim Smyth, 51, a New York television producer who has been unable to find work since 2008, despite having two decades of experience at places like Nickelodeon and the Food Network. “I mean, I know it’s not true, but I’m afraid I might say the same thing if I were interviewing someone I didn’t know very well who’s been out of work this long.”

Mr. Smyth’s anxieties are not unfounded. New data from the Labor Department, provided to The New York Times, shows that people out of work fewer than five weeks are more than three times as likely to find a job in the coming month than people who have been out of work for over a year, with a re-employment rate of 30.7 percent versus 8.7 percent, respectively.

Likewise, previous economic studies, many based on Europe’s job market struggles, have shown that people who become disconnected from the work force have more trouble getting hired, probably because of some combination of stigma, discouragement and deterioration of their skills.

This is one of the biggest challenges facing policy makers in the United States as they seek to address unemployment. Its underlying tenet — that time exacerbates the problem — means that the longer Congress squabbles about how to increase job growth, the more intractable the situation becomes. This, in turn, means Washington would need to pursue more aggressive (and, perversely, more politically difficult) job-creating policies in order to succeed. Even reaching an agreement over whether to extend benefits yet again has proved contentious.

Several factors lead to this downward spiral of the unemployed.

In some cases, the long-term unemployed were poor performers in their previous positions and among the first to be terminated when the recession began. These people are weak job candidates with less impressive résumés and references.

In other instances, those who lost jobs may have been good workers but were laid off from occupations or industries that are in permanent decline, like manufacturing.

But economists have tried to control for these selection issues, and studies comparing the fates of similar workers have also shown that the experience of unemployment itself damages job prospects.

If jobless workers had been in sales, for instance, their customers might have moved on. Or perhaps the list of contacts they could turn to for leads is obsolete. Mr. Smyth, for example, says that so many of his former co-workers have been displaced that he is no longer sure whom to call on about openings.

In particularly dynamic industries, like software engineering, unemployed workers might also miss out on new developments and fail to develop the skills required.

Still, this explanation probably applies to only a small slice of the country’s 6.2 million long-term unemployed.

“I can’t imagine very many occupations and industries are of the type that if you’re out for nine months, the world passes you by,” said Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal research organization. “I think this erosion-of-skills idea is way overplayed. It’s probably much more about marketability.”

Many unemployed workers fret about how to explain the yawning gaps on their résumés. Some are calling themselves independent “consultants” or “entrepreneurs.”

Mr. Smyth has been working on his own documentary film and trying to develop ideas for new TV shows with a friend. But with financing for such projects scarce, he says he is still looking for a full-time job.
Employers are reluctant to acknowledge any bias against the jobless, and many say they try to take broader economic circumstances into consideration.
“Generally speaking, when the economy’s good and someone’s been out of work for a year, you might look at them funny,” said Jay Goltz, who owns five small businesses in Chicago and contributes to a small-business blog for The Times. “These days I don’t know if you can hold it against somebody.”
Even so, old habits die hard, especially because unemployment has been unusually concentrated among a smaller group of workers in this recent recession than in previous ones, meaning that fewer workers bear the scarlet “U” of unemployment.
“From what I’ve seen, employers do tend to get suspicious when there’s a long-term gap in people’s résumés,” said James Whelly, deputy director of work force development at the San Francisco Human Services Agency. “Even though everyone on an intellectual level knows that this is a unique time in the economy, those old habits are hard to break with hiring managers and H.R. departments who are doing the screening.”
It does not help when job seekers are repeatedly rejected — or worse, ignored. Constant rejection not only discourages workers from job-hunting as intensively, but also makes people less confident when they do land interviews. A Pew Social Trends report found that the long-term unemployed were significantly more likely to say they had lost some of their self-respect than their counterparts with shorter spells of joblessness.
“People don’t have money to keep up appearances important for job hunting,” said Katherine S. Newman, a sociology professor at Princeton. “They can’t go to the dentist. They can’t get new clothes. They gain weight and look out of shape, since unemployment is such a stressful experience. All that is held against them when there is such an enormous range of workers to choose from.”
Though economists generally agree that getting the long-term unemployed back to work quickly is necessary to keep people from becoming unemployable, the mechanism to do so is unclear.
Most forms of stimulus try to create business conditions that foster the nation’s output growth, which encourages companies to hire. Output has been growing slowly, however, and has not stoked much job creation. There have also been other indirect incentives, like a small tax break for hiring unemployed workers, but as yet their effectiveness is unknown.
Direct employment programs — like the public works projects of the New Deal and World War II — may be the fastest way to put people back to work, economists say. But those raise concerns of crowding out businesses and displacing other workers. Also the approach, which smacks of socialism to some, seems politically untenable at the moment.
One possible compromise might be broader-scale retraining and apprenticeship programs, suggests Lawrence Katz, a labor economist at Harvard.
“That’s better than having more people just go on disability as a last resort, and then basically never return to work in their life, which many will do,” he said. The Obama administration has recently thrown its support behind an effort to overhaul community college retraining programs.
“One of the reasons to focus on training for workers, even if you’re not training workers for new jobs, is that when you have workers who have not been in a job for a long time, you need to do all you can to get them to look and feel job-ready when the openings do eventually come back,” said Betsey Stevenson, the Labor Department’s chief economist.
The real threat, economists say, is that America, like some of its Old World peers, may simply become accustomed to a large class of idled workers.
“After a while, a lot of European countries just got used to having 8 or 9 percent unemployment, where they just said, ‘Hey, that’s about good enough,’ ” said Gary Burtless, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “If the unemployment rates here stay high but remain relatively stable, people may not worry so much that that’ll be their fate this month or next year. And all these unemployed people will fall from the front of their mind, and that’s it for them.”
Best wishes,
Shyam








Saturday, December 4, 2010

Wikileaks server move into Nuclear Bunkers


Internet service providers often tell their clients that they offer “bullet-proof hosting.” Whistle-blower organization Wikileaks, it seems, will settle for nothing less than “bomb-proof.”
Some portion of Wikileaks’ servers have been moved to the “Pionen” White Mountains data center owned by Swedish broadband provider Bahnhof, as first reported by Norwegian news site VG Nett last Friday. That data center will store Wikileaks’ data 30 meters below ground inside a Cold-War-era nuclear bunker carved out of a large rock hill in downtown Stockholm. The server farm has a single entrance and is outfitted by half-meter thick metal doors and backup generators pulled from German submarines–fitting safeguards, perhaps, for an organization that raised the ire of several powerful military forces last month when it released thousands of classified Afghanistan war documents.
Here’s a video tour from the IT organization Data Center Pulse filmed in 2008, showing a super-secure facility it describes as worthy of “a James Bond villain.”
Earlier in August the copyright-flouting Swedish Pirate Party began hosting Wikileaks’ IT operations, and it’s not clear exactly why it’s chosen to move Wikileaks’ servers to the Pionen facility. The threat of law enforcement physically seizing or destroying the organization’s equipment, after all, is much less likely than a legal attempt to gain direct access to Wikileaks’ data. Last year the Swedish government put a crack in the country’s strong free speech protections when it passed a controversial law allowing surveillance of Internet traffic by the FRA, a law enforcement agency.
But Stockholm-based Bahnhof executive Jon Karlung tells me in an interview that the company’s data center is “a kind of metaphor” for Bahnhof’s commitment to resist any sort of intrusion, physical or legal. “We’re proud to have clients like these,” he says. “The Internet should be an open source for freedom of speech, and the role of an ISP is to be a neutral technological tool of access, not an instrument for collecting information from customers.”
Karlung says Bahnhof has not yet complied with Sweden’s new FRA surveillance law. “We have an unbroken chain of fiber-optic cables that cover 2,300 kilometers,” says Karlung. “We’re positive that [government agencies] haven’t installed any equipment yet. That day will come, and when it does we’ll inform all clients that they’re surveilled by the Swedish government.”
Wikileaks has likely spread its servers well beyond any single data center, including other facilities in Sweden and Iceland, and it’s also posted an encrypted file labeled “insurance” on its site, potentially to be used as a threat of further data spillage aimed at preventing attacks on the site or its volunteer staff.
In the coming weeks, Wikileaks has said it will release another 15,000 documents related to the war in Afghanistan. As the controversy around the site mounts, it may need every protection it can find.




Please view the Video

Friday, December 3, 2010

मील का एक पत्थर हूँ मैं,

Feelings of a Milestone


People put everything they have and beyond to achieve a milestone,but immediately after, forget all about it and proceed in the pursuit of the next one.


How does the Milestone feel about it, hero one moment, and totally forgotten the next,Please read my humble,feeble,but creative attempt at Hindi Poetry and express yourself.



Capacity Building & Development


मील का एक पत्थर हूँ मैं,
मुझ तक पोहंच्ना,हर कोई चाहता हैं क्यो 
पोहंच कर,हर कोई आगे जाता है क्यों 
 दोबारा नहीं कोई आता है क्यों 

मुझ तक पोहंचने की चाह,होती है सब में
कृषी और संकल्प,बस होतें है कुछ में  
पहुँच पाना मुझ तक आसन नहीं ,
दिन में दिखा देता हूँ , तारे नभ में .

मील का एक पत्थर हूँ मैं,
मुझ तक पोहंच्ना,हर कोई चाहता हैं क्यो 

मुझे पाने की चाह में, अपने  पराये  हो जाते हैं,
रात दिन में अंतर नहीं होता,
अभ्यास पुनर अभ्यास ही,परम लक्ष्य,हो जाते हैं .
स्वर्ग पाने की आस में,यम यातना के आदी  हो जाते हैं.

मील का एक पत्थर हूँ मैं,
मुझ तक पोहंच्ना,हर कोई चाहता हैं क्यो 

जब मैं दूर से नज़र आता हूँ , मन में  एक आस जगाता हूँ .
प्रण में दृढ़ता,प्रयत्न में नव उतेज्ना,और आशा की चिंगारी जगाता हूँ.
हर कदम एक कारनामा, और  हर कारनामा
एक अफसाना बन जाता है.
असंभव से संभव का सफ़र,
दिक्कतों से भरा, पर सुहाना प्रतीत  है.  

मील का एक पत्थर हूँ मैं,
मुझ तक पोहंच्ना,हर कोई चाहता हैं क्यो 

और जब मुझ तक पोहचता ही कोई.
संतोश और सारताक्ता  का आभास दिल्लाता हू मैं.
ख़ुशी और प्रेम से आलिंगन करते हैं मेरा,
मानो जैसे माता पिता और दैव से भी उच्च स्थान हो मेरा.

मील का एक पत्थर हूँ मैं,
मुझ तक पोहंच्ना,हर कोई चाहता हैं क्यो 

लेकिन अगले हि पल...... 

मुझे भूल कर लोग बढ्ते हैं अगले कि और,
क्या यही हैं आज, जिंदगी के तौर,
क्यों कोई दुबारा आता नाही ,
क्या मैं किसी को भाता नाही 

मील का एक पत्थर हूँ मैं,
क्यों कोई दुबारा आता नाही ,
क्या मैं किसी को भाता नाही 

लेकिन  फिर भी ...
 रंजिश हि सही  दिल को बहला ने के लिये,
इक बार फिर पास आ जाओ, फिर दूर जाने के लिये.
वक़्त गर थम जाता यही,धुंधली यादें तजा करने के लिए,
बस याद कर लेते एक बार हमें,फिर भूल जाने के लिए 

रंजिश ही सही ,दिल को बहला ने के लिए  

मील का एक पत्थर  हूँ मैं.
दोबारा क्यों कोई आता नहीं,
क्या किसीको, मैं भाता नहीं









Hum na rahe to kya 08-19




दर्द हल्का सा है,सांस भारी हैं, जिए जाने की रस्म जारी हैं.

हे मौत मुझ से पर्दा ना कर, अब तेरे आने की बारी हैं 



ना गिला मौत से हैं, ना ज़िन्दगी से,ना ही बेरुखी हैं,खुदा  के बन्दे से 

बस रब का बुलावा है,सब छोड़ जाने की तयारी हैं


  





  




  



Monday, November 1, 2010

CEO

CEO's that successfully fail

CEO'S THAT SUCCESSFULLY FAIL ! ! ! !

The myth that surrounds the persona of a CEO as a person who never fails has been blown away by the adversities that continuously affected theindustry during the past couple of years. The supposedly best have bitten the dust, while some so called non entities have not only proven equal to the task but they have also successfully steered their organization out of the turmoil and put it back on the growth track.

Now what is the factor that separates the successful CEO from the ones that fail?

It's rarely for lack of smarts or vision. Most unsuccessful CEOs stumble because of one simple, fatal shortcoming. Here's what we aren't saying: That failed CEOs are dumb or evil. In fact they tend to be highly intelligent, articulate, dedicated, and accomplished. They worked hard, made sacrifices, and may have performed well terrifically for years.

Nor are we saying execution is the only reason CEOs falter. Sometimes they adopt a strategy so flawed that it's doomed, or they refuse to confront reality in their markets, or they antagonize their board. And when a CEO really goes down in flames, there's almost always more than one reason.

It's clear, as well, that getting execution right will only become more crucial. The worldwide revolution of free markets, open economies, and lowered trade barriers and the advent of e-commerce have made virtually everybusiness far more brutally competitive. The frantic spread of information through technology is making customers everywhere more powerful and pushing toward the commoditization of everything. Institutional investors who now own a substantial portion of equities relentlessly demand results.

One important area of failure for the CEO’s is the failure to put, the right people in the right job, and of course the relative failure to fix problems in time..

Selection &; Retention factor.

Sometimes strange anomalies not strictly related to merit become the criteria for selection and retention of an employee. A relatively less confident CEO would avoid recruiting a highly accomplished deputy for the fear that the latter would attract the attention of the governing board and present a viable alternative to the incumbent CEO. A sense of insecurity within often dictates such decisions.

On the other extreme is the highly overconfident CEO, who thinks that he can mentor and coach anyone to exacting delivery levels. My man theory comes in to effect here. Here he selects a person who he thinks will remain loyal to him in adversities and not turn tables on him. The philosophy of “I would rather take the devil I know, rather than the one I don’t.

Other less important but influencing factor could be, the person creates a positive vibe in the social media, hence a good individual to be around. The person may be more acceptable to the majority of the members of the governing board. He has successes in a different field, and hence would succeed here also. Sometimes these people are selected in preference, to the home bred executives who have contributed positively to the organization. Sacking important executives may or may not impact the organization negatively, but retaining non performing ones would definitely, waiting indefinitely in the hope performance will definitely impact the organization negatively.

More often than not these deemed success turnout to be reasons for doomed bottom lines & careers.

The CEO’s role extends beyond the bottomlines. It pays to treat employees as stake holders.
Making the bottom line your top priority may not be the best way to improve profitability. Recent research shows that CEOs who put stakeholders’ interests ahead of profits generate greater workforce engagement—and thus deliver the superior financial results that they have made a secondary goal.

This finding is based on survey data gathered from 520 business organizations in 17 countries, many of them emerging markets. If a CEO’s primary focus is on profit maximization, employees develop negative feelings toward the organization. They tend to perceive the CEO as autocratic and focused on the short term, and they report being somewhat less willing to sacrifice for the company. Corporate performance is poorer as a result.

But when the CEO makes it a priority to balance the concerns of customers,employees, and the community while also taking environmental impact into account, employees perceive him or her as visionary and participatory. They report being more willing to exert extra effort, and corporate results improve.

Inspiring Vision 

Jack Welch, the legendary former CEO of GE was well known for cultivating a breed of successful CEO’s from within, who were not only great success but also contributed to GE for more than a decade as CEO’s. The continuity factor at the top often creates the comfort , and puts them ahead of organizations that don’t have this factor.

It is important to create a vision that inspires and directs the organization. And ensure that, it is broad enough to allow great flexibility. Communicate your vision to everyone in your organization and create an innovation-adept culture environment that encourages entrepreneurial creativity to make the vision a reality.


"Leaders inspire people with clear visions of how things can be done better,“ writes Jack Welch “The best leaders do not provide a step-by-step instruction manual for workers. The best leaders are those who come up with new idea, and articulate a vision that inspires others to act.”

All said and done, it is still not possible to lay down the formula for the success or the reasons for the failure of the CEO’s. People with early setbacks in life like Steve Jobs have turned out to be great success in later part of their lives & career. "Lee" Iacocca's  story of the turnaround in Chrysler Corporation is a folklore people never tire of singing. Adversities sometimes throw up leaders that normal circumstances may not.
 
Hope you have enjoyed reading this article. Please come out with your valuable views.

Best wishes,

Shyam

work ethics

When work is virtual, Why should physical presence be insisted upon????

Work from Home or at home at work place


I do understand that work from home is not possible when you are working in a manufacturing unit or you are doing a work which requires your physical presence at the work place.However if you are working out of your laptop, and the organisation is in a position to offer you the facility of home login, then I feel the work is more important than the workplace. Several multinational organizations operating in India have realized this, implemented it and found appreciable increase in productivity levels for the same man-hours and the efforts.
In fact in the recession hit United States and Europe, certain organizations are contemplating the implementation of the norm for everyone to work at home at least one day a week. This single step could raise productivity, save energy, decrease pollution, reduce traffic congestion, cut household expenses, increase quality of family life, and keep educated women in the work force.

In this fast moving and fast growing jet age, everything including technology, thinking, people, processes, and policies have changed to more dynamic pattern. Yet one thing that hasn’t changed and refuses to change is the rigid workplace of the last century. It is amazing in the digital age that most work is still associated with industrial age work rhythms and the symbolic chains that tie workers, knowledge and otherwise, to fixed locations. Flexible workplaces with flexible hours and days are long in coming. This I tell you is a very mild understatement in relation to the present situation. This is because of the business owners who while using latest in technology and machinery,are very primitive when it comes to work pattern. I have seen managed family managed conservative organisations managing to remain as as small as thinkng even after years of existence They are of course encouraged by the overenthusiastic HR managers fresh from B-Schools, and yet to get into the unlearning process.

I can give a classic example of a Indian Corporate with more than hundred years of existence. The chairman of the corporate had his chamber at a location from where he could view the senior managers’ cars entering the building. He used to call the senior managers coming late and discuss with them.

A good one hour used to get involved in this exercise. One hour loss at senior management. Apart from this the other loss was that the senior managers used their time, resources and ingenuity to work ways to avoid detection. Leave alone the loss in productivity & optimization levels, if the attitude at the senior management is such just imagine what would percolate to the down line managers and thousands of workers in the organisation.

One thing is very clear. When the management is fixed mentally on the entry time the employees are fixed on the exit time. productivity and work take a back seat, tasks are left uncompleted, manager can no longer influence the workers to stay back and complete the tasks. Production and productivity suffers.Discipline at cost?, self extinction?, certainly not I hope. I would always manage with a little less discipline if it ensured a better cash flow for my organisation.

Now let us take a look at the situation in USA

Many U.S. cities have become commuter nightmares as urban sprawl sends people across longer distances in their cars every week day. According to the 2008 U.S. Census estimates, 84 percent of the U.S. population lives within 363 metropolitan areas that spill over central city boundaries and, in some cases, over state lines. Jobs within central business districts have been declining, while jobs outside a ten-mile ring have been growing. Vehicle miles traveled have increased twice as fast as population growth.

Now does this remind you of cities in India ? Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad,Mumbai, Chennai and of course “Oh Kolkata”.

Choosing how long to work and on what schedule has long showed productivity benefits. People are less stressed when they can adjust their hours or days to family or personal needs. A greater feeling of control is associated with more energy and better health, studies show, making those workers more productive. Some savvy senior executives stay out of their offices occasionally even when not traveling, because they get more done in a setting with no interruptions, at home.

For many working parents, the chance to work remotely is the primary way to achieve work-life balance. Many women leave high-powered corporate and professional careers when they have children, frequently starting their own businesses they can run from home, because there is no flexibility and no middle ground between the all-out grind at a workplace demanding physical presence or opting out. A norm of remote work for everyone would ease the strain.

Technology exists to make remote work feasible and effective. Cell phones have liberated people from desks. The need for high-speed network connections is another argument for universal broadband and wi-fi access, with tax deductibility or reimbursement to employees for the connections to their home, as IBM and many US multinationals do in India.

The barriers are the usual human ones. Without a culture of strong accountability, collaboration, trust and personal responsibility, remote work doesn’t work. That culture is missing in too many organizations. Managers don’t always know how to coordinate and communicate with people they do not see face to face; they must value the work product and not the face time. Leadership is important. People need clear goals, deadlines, and performance metrics.

I know there is a huge other side to this also, the disadvantages. I leave it to my friends to argue and debate. As of now, I thank all my friends for their patience and allowing me a few lines about my work.

Regards,

Shyamsunder Panchavati


Some of the recent comments on this post from various forums.

Hello Shyamsunder,
Appreciate your insight. A position we both share.
In all of history, never before has communication devices and technology existed like the ones that exist today. This comment for example, physical location is becoming less important for the conveyance of information.
It has been my dream to enlist a ‘virtual’ workforce, void of physical constraints, and opportunity to embrace knowledge held by professionals in various locations, by the retired, physically challenged, and home workers to name a few.
It is my understanding that your question (captioned above) continues to be challenged, and the response will continue to weaken, to the point we all can work more remotely.
It will become the ‘norm’, help me re-engineer this future.
Change is in the air my friend.
-Harley
Shyam,
I see two separate and distinct separate issues being addressed in your article. First, are there drivers begging the facilitation of greater use of virtual work places. And second, is the specific workforce ready and able to adopt and accept responsibility for participationion the virtual workplace.
You aptly address the drivers for remote / virtual workplaces. I think most of us can identify with these issues and can draw from experience the many times we’ve been responsibly and productively engaged in working from remote sites. Although somewhat more elusive and greater challenge is in identifying the personality characteristics or traits of those who adapt to this model versus, what I see as the majority of individuals, those who need the structured workplace in order to remain engaged, productive and focused on their 8-10 hour daily assignments or unstructured tasks as they may be.
I’m not yet convinced that the 80-90 percent of deskbound workers are at the work maturity level at which they can thrive when working sans office. While automated call distributors insure that work is kept queued and measureable for remote call center personnel, the same is not true for knowledge workers or ‘meeting bound’ program team members.
I believe that driving success for this larger mass will come thru improved use of integrated video/telecommunications services and social networking tools which will spur an alternative social fabric to the office coffee station. The immediate next step being adoption and integration of these services into common work protocols.
Ron
We do a lot of “virtual” work and I find it that it is good to have it when you have very “proceduralized” work flow. Long project when all people know what they do etc. When nature of business is very dynamic we find it is very hard to have “virtual” work force.
Here is an example, one of our clients have a server performance problem that results in service unavailability. Server are up and down. When they down you need react right away and mulitple people have to work together to response quickly. If they all remote it is very inconvenient.
Posted by Michael Petrov
Many US companies are way behind in 21st Century management/HR with regards to the “work from home” opportunity that exists for both the company and the employee. Not all employees are equal in their job descriptions, skill sets or abilities – therefore, no outdated mandate should be given that no one can work from hom – when some can and should. I would greatly appreciate any further testimony from US that promotes the work from homeopportunity.
I’m in sales – primarily by phone and email – there is absolutely no reason for me to drive 50 miles a day to come to an office when I can do the same job and work longer hours from my home office.
Any persuasive facts or thoughts that I can send along to my management?
Thank you.
Posted by Le Anne Dolan