Limitless

Essays & Articles on Business, Organisation  and Personal Development, Book Reviews and more

[asimpadhi]

Delivering Happiness-A path to Profits, Passion and Purpose

I was not aware of Zappos till someone referred to this book. It was strongly recommended but I was skeptical and since it was not long enough and not that costly, decided to take the plunge in spite of my hate towards self help books. Happily enough it turned out to be not one of them. Though it has pieces of advice for individuals and corporates alike but they are more practical and has been practiced at Zappos. The author of this book is Tony Hsieh former CEO of Zappos who died in a fire accident in Nov 2020 at the age of 47.

This book is a mix of autobiography of Tony, history of Zappos and PR material of Zappos and its unique culture. This may sound like a let down but the same gives the book its life as everything mentioned is real and has happened.

The life of young Tony sums up how he always ran a side hustle and how it helped his thoughts, relationships and business acumen. It also depicts how education should not be the sole purpose of children, they must try various different things (which does not endanger their safety). The young Tony talks about his investment in real estate and how it backfires in a firefight.

The biography of Zappos talks about the need to focus on execution for success. It is also true that a higher vision or WHY is a must for a team to come together and build the path to the vision together.

There are some details about how they went on building the Zappos culture and how it is so great which kind of takes out the interest while one can always skim through them and comeback if they need it in future.

The story of Zappos also tells the startup world how important it is to turn cashflow positive and eventually profitable. Investors do not possess infinite pockets and patience.

Overall it is a one time read and will force readers to look back at various incidents that would have taken place which are similar and kind of reflect on them. Finally, one very small part of the book tells us that it is indeed OK to have some humor at the workplace and I find a lot of happiness practicing it myself.

[asimpadhi]

Life is a Game - Enjoy every moment

India was still a minnow in the game of Cricket. We had not won the world cup. I was in Class 3. Saturdays were half days in school. Post that we would go to a nearby clearing of 100ftX60ft and start our game. Sometimes we will organize competitive matches with our seniors. We used to loose more than we used to win against senior classes. However the love of the game was such we all looked forward to the Saturdays. On one such Saturday we were beaten fair and square and we wanted to get back. We fixed a match for the next Sunday.

I do not remember when and how but I was the captain of the team. There were children physically stronger than me but somehow I was the chosen one. Both sides decided to have a longer match and hence a Sunday was found suitable. The time was fixed as 11 a.m. in the morning.

I went home and was excited about to tell all my siblings and my mother about this. They all laughed at me. They were sure there is going to be no game. I persisted. I even went to my father and told him about the game. He just smiled. We (siblings) were too scared of my father, may be out of respect or may be the way my mother created an image of him.

Finally the day dawned and I was all ready. I somehow persuaded my mother and father. We had a cricket bat made by some carpenter with us. It had a very small handle even for a kid like me. Still It was a prized possession. I sat on the front rod of my father's bicycle while the bat was safely locked on the carrier at the back. The designated place was some 1.5km from our place and me and my father chatted along to reach there on time. We waited there for some time, nobody turned up. None of us had telephones at home in those days nor public phone booths. It was impossible to gather people at short notice. My father only smiled at me and said lets go home and we did go back home.

When I think over this incident now, I cant resist having a smile on my face. I wonder what persuaded my family to allow me this adventure, may be love, my passion and exuberance. Whatever the cause, life is always full of such small moments and we must enjoy them at that vary moment and relive them every time we remember them.

[asimpadhi]

Team of Rivals - A Leadership Lesson

Team of Rivals - the title is such an oxymoron expression. How can rivals be part of a team, a team is supposed to be equal minded and working towards one goal. True but some times it does not produce the best of the results owing to a concept called groupthink. However this book written by Doris Kearns Goodwin is a based on historical facts and is a story for all ages to come. This is reality of Lincoln administration of 1861-65 in the midst of the civil war in America. The team here argued vehemently but ultimately took decisions which they thought are in the best interests of the country at that point in time.

The team that is being referred to here is the cabinet and senior members of the administration during the presidency of Abraham Lincoln. Three members in the cabinet were direct rivals of Lincoln in the republican nomination. Some other members were not die hard fans of Abe.

The story brings to light that leaders are also human, they make mistake, they have personal ambitions and they also love and hate. Abraham Lincoln was a leader who always thought for a long time before taking a decision. It gave him the time to assimilate various perspectives and weigh his options. This method of decision making gave him the strength to back himself in spite of opposition and as a true leader he never shied away from accepting his mistakes and correcting them.

Abe made Seaward (most favored to win republican nomination) his secretary of state and the main advisor. AL was astute enough to know whom to listen to in which moment. He even tolerated some very ambitious rivals of him. He thought them to be valuable for his administration and the country in the midst of the civil war. When the time was ripe he even fired them only to rehire them for positions which are most suited these people.

I started the piece by saying that a team is always made of like minded people, rather it should always be a mix of bright people suitable for their roles and who gave their perspectives freely and helped the team make the best decision under the circumstances. The leader should never be insecure in such an environment rather work as a moderator to bring out the best in all members and take the conclusive decision.

The book is almost 750 pages long and is full of many stories and each story says something about the life in America in mid 1800s and the relationships that existed between people concerned. However the details with extracts of letters are sometimes dull and boring and seems to be have no contribution towards the title of the book. I think a more concise version should be available for easy reading while not missing out on the main topic.

In spite of the length and detailing, the book remains a strong recommendation for reading for people of all ages. It would be great if one has some background of American Civil War. It is a kind of a text book for people studying leadership.

[asimpadhi]

Does the world really needs a digital currency

There has been a lot of excitement around crypto currencies (digital currencies) across the world. There was one crypto (Bitcoin) a decade back and currently more than dozen crypto currencies are available. This has come on the back of some path breaking technology known as Blockchain. The Blockchain technology holds a lot of promise and cryptocurrencies are most evolved use of this technology. However the question remains whether cryptocurrencies are out there to solve a real world problem or just a practical showpiece of the technology.

The initial excitement about Bitcoin and more generally about crypto was due to the benefits that such digital currencies will bring to the world. The general perception was that this will eliminate the need of intermediary (say Banks) to settle payment processing and payments can just happen peer to peer. This will reduce cost, processing time, reduce or eliminate paper currency etc. Some people even believed that Bitcoin make the whole world economy accept them as a common medium of economic exchange.

As we stand today there are more than a dozen popular crypto and hence the question of one global crypto is ruled out. The peer to peer transaction is happening but we have not eliminated all middlemen as we still have crypto exchanges and need of nodes to authenticate transactions. There is an inherent fee or cost attached to the transaction.

Let us turn our attention and compare crypto digital currency against the paper currency. Paper currencies do have negative impacts in terms of usage of paper, ink which are detrimental to the ecology, there is normal wear and tear to them and need replacement. While at the same time crypto uses lot of energy in its mining and settlement and hence equally detrimental to environment.

If we look at the current monetary activity all over the world a very large proportion of the money are in digital format in terms of a number in various bank accounts and move about electronically. The electronic payment mode has been very widely accepted and hence kind of reducing dependence on physical currency. Crypto just like cash transactions make it difficult to find a trail of ownership and hence does not help prevent money laundering either.

Finally, crypto currency systems are either designed for limited supply or limited supply every year and hence they cannot be used as economic tools as the current currencies are. Limited supply and unlimited demand will only increase its value over time and be subjected to vagaries of human fear and greed.

Therefore, my assessment is crypto can only be considered as an asset class which is not backed by any asset/cashflow or sovereign guarantee. The value of this asset will be purely based on the supply and demand and the economic behavior of humans.

[asimpadhi]

Drawing helps to calm the mind, focus on the activity, removes distraction and if the output is appreciated the joy knows no limits.

[asimpadhi]

Drawing - Perspective and Perception

It has been a long time since I have been in this platform. I had taken to drawing and sketching and kind of learning various techniques there. I have been reading multiple things simultaneously. I have been quite upset that I have not been able to keep up with my writing. I think I can now manage both at different times of the day.

My journaling habits have also taken a lot of beating, not because I was busy rather I was not in the right frame of mind. It is indeed important to keep the journaling regular as it is the requirement and it helps one to understand the frame of mind and what needs to be done to deal with it.

I do not need to explain my absence from writing but felt it necessary to acknowledge my shortcomings and then work on them. I am sure I will be able to come up with some thoughts on my drawing and reading in these times. It is my intention that whatever I read and understand to be written somewhere as it not only gives the reader a perspective but I find it as a medium of transferring my understanding to as many people as possible.

I was terrible at drawing, that is what I was made to believe when I was in primary school. My teachers in secondary were not different either. This kind of made me believe that I lack the necessary skill and talent in this wonderful human faculty. What made matters worse was the comparison of my drawings with that of a girl who was kind of a special friend. When I finished grade 7, compulsory drawing also ended and I was relieved of my torment. I studied Science and Engineering and I kept drawing limited to what was required and completely out of creative ones. However I was always attracted by good drawing, painting and any kind of visual fine art.

Finally COVID19 gave way to lot of time in terms staying at home even in weekends when there was no WFH. I kind of thought of drawing to just pass time but could not gather enough mental strength to do that. As we were moving out of second wave I came to know of online learning platform where I started to learn some tricks and kind of got an alibi of learning to start drawing.

I have once shared an art work in this platform and as I write this, there have been a lot of improvement. However what has been more important to me is the way it has affected my frame of mind. The time I spent on doing my art is kind of meditative, the world seems to be devoid of any sound, people, gadget or any kind of distraction. It is pure joy. The output only adds to the joy. My mood only adds to the calmness and sleep comes to me naturally.

It is true that drawing is not a talent one is born with rather it is one which can be learnt. People might take different length of time to reach a particular level of excellence. People may vary in their ability to imagine and hence the lack of uniqueness in their art but otherwise it is quite a teachable human faculty. Humans have been able to draw to communicate much before they were able to write or speak a particular language.

Therefore it is my firm belief that drawing should be given more importance in primary and secondary school not only for making future artist but rather as a tool help children understand perspective and perception as drawing is  only a medium of creating perception of reality.

[asimpadhi]

Atomic Habits

image source : Amazon.in

Habits are good and addictions are bad. We always wanted to inculcate good habits and get rid of bad ones or addictions. The whole question that comes up is HOW? James Clear is very clear in terms of steps to be taken to create good habits and get rid of bad habits in his book Atomic Habits. As the name suggests, he is talking about building of small habits leading to big change just like small periodic investments compound to a large sum of money over time.

Atomic Habits talks about various tricks which can be executed to slip in good habits to already set routines of life. All the new year resolutions fail as the big changes planned are not executed well. Habits to be broken down to Cues, Craving, Response and Reward. The way to execute is to understand the cue and how does one respond to it. Hence start small, change to gym clothes, it will be very difficult to overcome the craving to go to gym if you are dressed up. Once you take the response of going to the gym and working out the rewards will follow.

We have also seen habits not forming since we do not see changes. Habits do not provide linear benefits. The benefits of a habit are almost negligible or invisible until suddenly it comes out to the open. If you write regularly nothing will come out but the writings over a period of time can be compressed into a meaningful book. The habit should be to write and to be a writer and the intention should not be to write a book. Habits should make you what you are and identify you and not what you want to achieve. Achievements will follow as a result of good habits.

James Clear mentions about certain actionable items which I felt are important as well as doable and hence worth a mention here. Habit formations is very much dependent on the environment, reducing frictions in the process.

It is also important to ritualize the beginning of the process, set incentives for performing the habits in the right frequency. It is also important to reflect and review on your performance in the path of creating a habit.

The idea of having an accountability partner or nagger (put crudely) who will keep following up on your rituals for habit formation is a nice one. It is also important to note what kind of habits to be formed , which are suitable and required for us. The habits must align with our natural abilities. It is also important to select a habit which is right in the edge of our abilities. This will help increase our skills and as they say habits with deliberate practice will bring in the mastery.

The overall structure of the book is logical and easy to read and not very pompous in language. The summary at the end of each chapter is a great way for readers to comeback and refer the main points without going through the book again. However there are quite a bit of concepts about habit formation which are kind of a reread for people who have already read "The Power of Habit" book by Charles Duhigg. The idea to do the smallest change required to start a habit is definitely a big idea.

[asimpadhi]

Love for Crerativity

Image Source - Asim Kumar Padhi personal drawings

I have been pursuing creativity as a subject and have been trying to bring out the creative side of mine out. I had brought out a writing piece on this blog site mentioning how I lost my creativity and how am I trying to bring it back. I have consumed some stuff on creativity at a philosophical level and some in pursuing specific creative skills. The whole idea of the endeavor is to understand my skills and hone them and probably use them in producing something meaningful. The production as such may not be for the consumption of the outside world but at least my world. I wanted to see what these moments of creativity brings in to me as a person.

I had come to a conclusion that I can dabble in writing and drawing/painting as two of the creative fields. While I possess some amount of writing skills but the decision to draw came in from seeing my daughter draw. In the process I had resurrected my blog and started drawing in a sketch book. The outcome of my blogging exercise are here for everybody to see, I have improved my regularity but still quite off the mark that I had set for myself. At the same time my drawing has been quite regular (almost one every day). I am not sure where I am better at, but the regularity of drawing rather than writing has raised a question as to why?

If one has to make a habit of something, then it has to be regular but at the same time it is important that one must love doing it (see the sketch above) and at the same time one must get enough motivation to continue. My sketches reach my family easily (whatsapp image) while accessing my blogs are not that easy. In the process, I have seen feedback coming in for my sketches and that has helped me improve, continue some good work and look at resources and invest time to improve my skills.

The idea if this piece to bring to the wider world my sketches (good, bad, ugly) and at the same time asking people to provide comments on feedback so that it keeps me motivated on the writing front as well.

[asimpadhi]

REWORK

Rework! I am not talking about the need to redo something that one has already done, rather it is a book written by Jason Fried and David H Hansson founders of 37signals which is now known as Basecamp, a software company. The company produces productivity and collaboration tools for teams and organizations and hence it is needless to say it is book about productivity hacks, do's and dont's while starting a business (not a start up as they say). I had got very passionate recommendations about it from various sources (mostly social media) and I sat straight though to complete in 6 hours. Was it that interesting? Let's see.

The book is only approximately 200 pages and has many images and half pages. While this explains partly why I could complete it so fast, it is a very easy read with conversational language and authors have done well to write half pages if the topic warranted one. As has been mentioned it has many productivity hacks which I was aware of and have read in some other books, that made life much easier.

This book is not only for people who start businesses but for every individual whether working in a job or self employed. It is to be remembered that these type of books needs to be revisited once in a while to ingrain the learning in one's mind. It is also important to have a glance through the contents and get back to the topic that is important at that point in life.

There were some interesting observations in the book which I think is worth mentioning. I liked the idea that failure is pillar of success is kind of overrated and success begets success is the right one. However the fact remains that many times people will fail but would have to get up and get back at whatever they want to do.

The other idea was about planning and planning long term and how it is a waste of time and energy. It is indeed true most of the planning goes haywire as real world is too dynamic and volatile for any linear thinking. One may only look forward to next week. The world is that volatile indeed.

Authors feel the  idea of starting a business is different from a start up as the aim of the businesses is to make money while start ups may not. I have no opinion on this but I am not a big fan of those businesses which only show growth in revenue and valuation without making money. A business which does not make money is not a business, it is charity. In the same veins it is important for a business to look at the by product of the businesses they are in. In the endeavor of creating a business, they produce wastes, ideas, software etc. which can be monetized legally and ethically.

The idea of focusing on "You" and not the competitor and others is very important as it is to remain obscure. It is important to do donkey work and refine one's work before coming to limelight. It augurs well for a writer/creator like me who wants to remain low while building on my consistency on blog writing and focusing on me and my work rather than all other fellow bloggers. If I am good visitors will follow and things will flow.

There are indeed topics and subjects like Hiring and Evolution where I do not completely agree with authors point of view. One may argue that I am coming from a corporate point of view but I would refute the same because hiring is a process in which I have been a part of on both sides and I do not completely agree with their assertion that experience does not matter what matters is Personality, Dedication and Intelligence. There are many young people out of college with such traits but it is not always possible to give them all kinds of roles. The opinion of authors might be true in certain cases only. There are certain aspects of culture creation which I do not fully agree with, it seems more suited to the authors world and not universal.

It is a really good one for those who have not been exposed any productivity hack books and content and for those who are avid readers and may have been exposed to such hacks and might be using them, some parts of the book are a repeat and can be scrolled through (since I used a kindle). I liked the brevity of explanation in various sub topics and the boldness of the authors not to extend the prose. Overall a good read and things to take away from. I must thank people who recommended this to me.

image source : goodreads.com

[asimpadhi]

(image source: goodreads)

I had mentioned about my intentions to remain in some form of creative pursuit while I am still involved with my daily chores and professional activities. I also did mention that how my involvement in creative pursuits died down as education and profession took center stage in life. One may argue that I allowed education and profession to come in the way of my creativity and it would not be incorrect. However one must never forget that coming from a lower middle class background where getting a job was the ultimate goal, flowing in the mainstream was  the only option. The urge to get my creativity back to business was ignited by the lack or slack in the mainstream activities. The lockdown caused by the pandemic and the consequent isolation helped my brain breath fresh air and relive old memories and found that fire, that urge. The shadow of the normal life was so much it almost took a year before I could really muster enough energy and clarity to get going,

The urge led me to start writing as one of the methods of channelizing my energies. I started re-writing blogs from 26th July 2021 and the intention was to be regular (at least once in 2 days) but I failed to keep that momentum in 3 weeks. As they say any creative field, one should create everyday or in quantity and quality will slowly develop. The idea is to create a habit, but a habit without any observable outcome leads to disappointment. The question arises whether it is really worth it.

In this disillusionment, I caught hold of a book called "CREATIVITY.INC" written by Ed Catmull, President of Pixar Animation and Disney Animation in collaboration with Amy Wallace. It was a book I had read before and had liked it but did not remember much. This time however I was able to appreciate the book much better.

The book is about how did Pixar come into being, but more than that the dilemma people in the creative space deal with on an everyday basis. There are lot of questions which do not possess a write answer. Whether to adopt new technology, whether to allow new people with responsibility, whether to follow the previous methods of success or try a new one. The question comes in whether to believe in quantity of output or quality, whether to make the creative process an assembly line or let the chaos handle it on its own. Furthermore there are questions regarding uncertainty, commercial viability of the enterprise. One may wonder what is so different in creative world, these questions are there for every profession and every organization. While it may be true but the difference lies in the fact that unlike manufacturing and services where the output is quite standardized, creative fields produce different output every time. The output may be a movie or a song but every movie and every song is different.

The book is full of some practical examples of handling mavericks and their energies and quite helpful in handling things at any innovative organization. The chapter "Change and Randomness" was of particular interest to me. As a risk professional it did ring lot of bells in me. The stress on candor being a game changer in organizations was reemphasized, hope people can inculcate that in organization culture. The importance of process being more valuable than outcome is true for everyone but more so in creative pursuits. The five pages summary at the end "Thought for managing a creative culture" is handy and one can always refer back to them.

There are instances in the narration where it becomes little too technical related to creating animation and their rendering etc. which could be a drag to some readers. It is also sometimes repetitive in trying to put across a point. The detailed description of various animation movies produced by Pixar could be exciting or drag depending on the inclination of the readers towards animation movies. Barring these pitfalls, a good book for people inclined towards creativity or in some kind of creative pursuit.

[asimpadhi]

Social Media – A necessary evil?

To be on social media or not! There are lot of content be in books or internet which promote social media detox. The argument there is in favor of reducing unnecessary exposure to gadgets and content which may not be healthy, could be fake and does not have value for a person. If this is the case then indulgence with social media is indeed harmful. However, if you are an individual who is in a profession or marketer who wants to reach as many people as possible and to create your own or company brand then the social media can be a very targeted and innovative way to do that.

The above question was on top of my head and I tried understanding this a bit more. I read and watched stuff on this. The motivation behind this was two pronged. On the one hand I wanted to increase viewership of my blog and kind of find ways by which I can popularize it. At the same point in time I had to settle my argument with my daughter who is 16 and wanted more access to Instagram and Snapchat on her own mobile.

After some study, I am kind of satisfied to come to the following conclusion. Social media does different things to different people. It is definitely kind of distraction for students unless they are specifically searching for some specific stuff. It can be useful for them provided they are in some kind of creative field or do creative stuff and want them to reach millions. There is no benefit in social media if one is only a consumer. It is a great media when you are both. It helps take your product, services or any kind of creative energy to millions without much cost and kind of gives a lot of ideas in your field when you search for right stuff.

Therefore social media is like a necessary evil where one needs to know what and how much benefit will be getting by indulging in it and how much time and money to be spent on it. Hope my logic and conclusions are acceptable to my daughter. I would be eager to know her counter arguments which may lead me to research further and learn more. I am kind of excited about it.

[asimpadhi]

Blogging - Reflections and Learnings

It has been couple of weeks since I have been more regular on my blogs. In these 2 weeks I have reflected upon my processes and general feelings of mine about my blog. I have also invested some time to learn more about blogging from various online and offline sources. This is my endeavor to describe these learnings and feelings.

Lets first turn to my reflection on the process of blogging. I have not limited myself to any particular theme but many a times I find it difficult to set up a theme for the day. It becomes difficult to think about the subject and thoughts are sometimes disjointed. I start at a point looking to reach a particular destination but end of making a completely different conclusion. There are times when I ponder too much whether I should be making a particular point or describing a particular situation. The worry is always about what the readers will perceive about me. I believe my writing time has to change and may be the place. I am that kind of person who wants solitude, silence and stillness for the best to come out. Finally, my limited vocabulary helps me to use simple language but my over indulgence in keeping the length of sentence short has an opposite effect. I must work on these and find solutions for each which works for me since there is no one solution fits all writers.

I have tried to gather information on blogging process online and offline and it is still in process. In this short time, I have come to certain conclusions. It is important to understand who are my readers and what are their interests. At the same time it is also important to know what are my strengths and how can I make an impact on that niche segment. It all sounds good but I am and known to be quite eclectic in my interests. This kind of puts me in a difficult situation. While am still at it to find a workable solution, the thing that comes to my mind is to have separate blogs separate subjects. May be just may be.

I will continue to keep updating on my reflections and learning of the blogging process from time to time. Hope this will help some people and keep motivating me to improve every passing day.

[asimpadhi]

80 days of solitude - Then and Now

It is 10th June 2020 and am going to office after a lock down of approx. 81 days. And then I suddenly realized that 81 is the number of days which I had spent 20 years ago when I passed out from college and was waiting to join the corporate world. However the situations were so very different. I was 20 years younger, full of excitement and expectations of what the life in a job would be like, some amount of anxieties in terms of a Boss, working and not studying. Now when I am 20 years older with a lot of life experience I am little more anxious than excited about the future. Does life, Job, Family make us more stressed? Are they not what we are supposed to relish?

Twenty years ago, I had a family which I still have and they took care of me and currently I have an immediate family where I need to take care of people. Huge responsibility, changes the way we process situations, information and react to them. In last 80 days, I have thought about it and found my own reasons of being happy, stressed and my own IKIGAI (the reason to be).

My reflections of the past 20 years, gives me my successes and my failures, it is the way I want to see things. We always measure our achievements through a yardstick (may be money, wealth etc.) and then compare with others. We may feel happy or unhappy based on this and completely oblivious of the yardstick the other person is using. Therefore none of these yardsticks are universal to be applicable to everyone. Moreover as time passes by, people change their measure of success and what they want to do. Therefore it is important to understand that irrespective of similar beginnings, the ends are different. This has to do with the frame of reference of every individual.

The simple fact that I have lived for these 20 years in spite of so much of stress, pollution, economic upheavals is a success on its own (many have left us). I have a stable marriage (many marriages have failed) two beautiful kids (some have none), I have been doing a job continuously for 20 years, and many have had unemployment in between. If we look at, these are our achievements with a pinch of luck placed in it and we must show gratitude for all that has happened to us. The good things have brought us joy and the not so good ones given us opportunity to learn. Life is like this, a never ending chain of events. The idea is to remain joyful or strive towards it.

[asimpadhi]

Tech Banking

It was the electronic wallets and the online payment modes which started the revolution of technology in the banking space. This brought in companies like Paytm, PhonePe etc. to the fore front. Then it was the fintech lenders who started their own journey to smoothen the process of retail lending. It is NeoBanks which are creating the noise off late. The purpose of this piece is to assess the proposition each of these segments and their successes and failures and what I consider the way forward.

We will start with the early movers which are the payment wallets and payment enablers. The online payment is leaps and bounds ahead of the other two segment. They have provided the proposition to the user by simplifying payment process even for 1 rupee in seconds. While they are working on further to improve efficiency and remove bottlenecks, at the same time they have been aided by demonetization and COVID19 towards larger adoption. Today more and more people are adopting this. The security around the transactions have been fair and improving by the day.

The problem which still persists is the availability of network for the payer, speed and availability of the servers of the bank and the payment enabler. The payment enablers and banks are constantly working on this. The biggest bottleneck for this segment is that it is currently free but it cannot remain free always. There are huge investments done by payment enablers and Banks. As the volume increases they have to keep on investing. They will have to find out a way to recoup these investments. It is also true that adoption of the method will drop once there is any kind of charges levied on online payment. It is a difficult problem which needs to be resolved at the earliest.

Fintech lenders are also burgeoning by the day. I literally come across a new one every other day. It sometimes feels that we have too many of them. Moreover all of them are in the unsecured lending space which is the most riskiest segment of them all. These players have reduced TAT and made the processes digital and hence reducing physical touch points and paperwork. The noise that comes out is that they intent to make the whole process completely digital through the use of ML/AI and remove underwriting and collection (in some cases) activities redundant.

In spite of so much noise, fintech lenders have been mostly confined to small ticket unsecured lending and mostly to consumers. The penetration in business segment is limited. Further, they are concentrated around top tier cities in their distribution and have NPA levels which are higher than the average for the segment. The idea should be to strengthen the processes and control NPAs and take their proposition to the every corner of the country and participate more in financial inclusion. We will continue to argue whether ML/AI can replace underwriters but one should continue those experiments. It is also important that fintech lenders look at various government initiatives on digitization of property ownership and look at solutions related to secured lending.

NeoBanks as I understand is an initiative to run banks completely on a digital mode without any brick and mortar presence. It is an audacious goal but worth attempting. Those attempting this in India are currently digitizing the front end processes to give a smooth experience to the customers while the actual banking is done by partner banks. We can get rid of brick and mortar branches only when we can digitize processes for completing every banking service online and build the trust in absence of a physical presence. Banking requires lot of trust and crux of the matter is managing the risk when we are dealing with public money. The trust in the banking system today is due to the trust between customers and bankers and the overall belief in the regulatory and judicial systems. It is to be seen if we can build technology/algorithms to replace bankers and still maintain that kind of trust. It will be a case of building trust between animate and inanimate and it would be huge achievement.

Technology is helping banking and financial services space change very rapidly. This progress is enabling faster processing, removal of bias if any. Technology has also helped put process controls and check check frauds. If technology can be built to underwrite and manage risk real time it will be a great success and help limit credit and operational losses. It is indeed a very interesting space at the moment. Lets keep an eye on it.

[asimpadhi]

Call Drop

Telecom is the sector which has been the backbone of the successes of the reforms of 1991. There are not many people who recognize this but I do and see a very long and close correlation. This new found success of telecom sector and the golden eggs it was laying, led people at all levels become greedy and ultimately it has not only brought down a country (Governments represent the country irrespective of which party in power) to its knees today. India is looking to remove the retrospective tax laws which was enacted in 2012. Today is also the day when the telecom sector is in the brink of collapse. What happened to this sector.

The reforms in 1991 resolved to remove License Raj but every telecom company has to take a license for operation and pay a license fee. It has to buy spectrum in auction through a very competitive bidding (uptill now) and then pay spectrum fees as well. Now to remove complications it was decided to charge a fee on the annual gross revenue and link the payment in relation to the revenues that telecom companies generate. If this was not enough, a retrospective tax was brought in looking at the tax that can be collected from a telecom sector M&A. This is the level of greed at the government level. I am not done yet and will return to the same topic a little later.

Then comes individual greed and wrongdoings in 2G spectrum sale. There were reports of huge losses to the government and then it became notional losses. There was huge noise and everybody wanted justice to be done. The highest justice giving authority in the country declared there is indeed wrongdoing and hence licenses of 8 companies running into thousands of crores were cancelled and no money was refunded. I sometimes wonder is it not wrongdoing. I do agree that both parties in corruption are equally culpable and hence companies were penalized monetarily then where are the other side culprits. Why no court takes suo moto cognizance of this injustice. This is again a case of individual and company greed and misuse of power at various levels.

Then comes the phase when companies in their endeavor to kill competition and be a large player (greed again) reduce prices to such levels that it becomes unsustainable for various companies and the competition withers away.

If the above is not enough, government brings in a tax law to get some additional juice out through taxing M&A activities retrospectively. Final blow comes in through AGR dues calculation. I sometimes wonder how is that sale of handsets, rent from real estate or interest is part of AGR. The AGR revenue sharing is towards spectrum and license fees and hence only be chargeable on activities which are related to spectrum usage and telephony services. There is no revenue sharing for companies who are selling handsets or renting their space or earning interest, then why should telecom companies bear this brunt.

There are some telecom companies which are facing bankruptcy due to the factors mentioned above. The government will not allow them to be sold unless outstanding dues are paid. The situation is such that if the dues are to be paid then there is no sale and no recovery for bank loans, large part of it is with PSU Banks. Ultimately there will be no spectrum or AGR dues collected and PSU banks to be recapitalized with taxpayer money.

Ultimately all this has les to 3 private sector and one insignificant PSU player in the fray. Of these one private player and the PSU are sick and the private player has thrown in the towel today. The government either have to nationalize the private player or face a duopoly. The vibrant sector and the golden goose has been killed by the master himself. The prices will rise, services will worsen and spectrums will be sold cheap. 5G services becomes a distant dream as there is only one player who can do that kind of investment. So much for Digital India!

[asimpadhi]

Education in a Mess

Education as a sector has been in a state of flux for last 18 months. I had elaborated this in much detail in my blog https://anythingunderthesunandbeyond.blogspot.com/ on 2nd June 2021 titled " Examination - Cancellation and Saga of Online education. However the point of argument here is different. This is about content of education and the multiplicity of boards. The mess that is there in terms of who controls what education and what is the need of so many different organizations/boards/councils etc.

Education starts with schools which means KG to 10th or 12th. There is no formal board affiliation for KG students while it starts from 1-10. There are boards like CBSE which are kind of government controlled to those like CISCE, IB, IGCSE and all different state boards. There is lot of variation in the study material, methods of teaching in all these boards. My question is in these formative years and in one country what is the need of these many education boards. The least we can do is to make one board (lets say CBSE) and remove all state boards. We can continue with vernacular languages as medium of teaching. When we are looking at starting vernacular medium in technical education, this is the least we can do. However the fact remains that up until class 8 schools in different states should have portions of local history and geography and may be local language as a third language

Now lets move to the 11th and 12th standard as called in school and junior college in some places and +2 in some places. This is the level which kind of gives direction to kids for their future but is in a complete state of flux. There are CBSE, CISCE etc but not all schools have classes post 10th. These kids then have to look for junior/+2 colleges under various state boards. Please remember state boards for class 11-12 are different from 10th boards in some states. Then the streams of Science, Commerce etc. further adds to the confusion. Here also there is a need move to one board system as mentioned above with some local flavors based on the need of the same. Also this level either have to come under school or move to colleges. NEP 2020 intends to do some work in this direction though but there is no timeline.

Higher education is a complete mess with UGC controlling university education, AICTE handling technical education with multiple boards under it handling different forms of technical education like engineering, pharma, architecture etc. Who controls universities which are completely technical in nature? Furthermore there are accreditation bodies like NAAC under UGC who rank colleges based on certain criteria and weightages which are far from being transparent.

What I have mentioned here are only on the governance structure. The actual implementation is far from adequate and leaves a lot wanting. NEP 2020 may be a good intention but there are certain things like boards systems as I mentioned above still remains untouched and chaotic and there is nothing on ground for implementation of the NEP2020. There is no fixed timeline for changeover to the new policy and states and institutions implementing them at their own time frame will create a lot of confusion with students and parents and even the industry which eventually employs them.

It is critical that the sector improves rapidly in this country for us to grow socially and economically with the pace that we are looking for. I do not have enough vocabulary to express how strongly I feel about this and what this pandemic has done to these children.

[asimpadhi]

Creativity and Me

(Those who find this long, can read the first 2 and the last paragraphs)

When I was a child, there have been quite a few instances of me being creative. I had written poems in my mother tongue describing the tallest tree in my neighborhood and its surroundings. I tried to design new board games with my own rules (though inspired from a board game called business). I would make up stories as if they happened to me and tell my mom. I would give speeches mimicking some tallest leaders of the country at that time. While I was proud of myself when I did those activities but kind of embarrassed when people recalled them later when I was all grown up.

It is my intention to describe about Creativity and Myself in this personal essay. Therefore I consider it necessary to start with my earliest memories of dabbling in creative pursuit. However it is true that I did not know that I was being creative at that time. Those instances were more of ways to deal with boredom, lack of access to partners for playing any games. We may call them as necessity leading to creativity. These were all my pursuits when I was not yet at school or just about started.

As life went on and school hours increased and I found friends to play with such creative pursuits were almost non-existent. I do not remember any activity bordering on creativity in my school days up until I reached college. I really do not know whether the rigors of life in terms of attending school, doing home-work and assignment took the steam out or the education system did not allow lateral thinking. I lost touch with my ability to make stories and give speeches and I somehow hated the idea of participating in debates. I preferred writing essays and attending quiz competitions. My achievements in terms of awards and prizes will testify this. Drawing or Sketching of any kind was the most hated activity. As luck would have it, the girl I liked did the best drawing/sketching in the whole school. I was so bad that there have been instances my and her drawing were shown as being in the two extremes of the spectrum. That probably killed any kind of inclination to drawing. I took help my elder brother to deal with any kind of drawing necessary to complete my school work.

As I reached college and entered hostel life, things did take some positive turn. There was no censoring of speech and I could take the help of new found freedom to have fun. I became known for famous one liners and cracking jokes. I also learnt that jokes are always at the cost of somebody living or dead and hence it is better to crack it on one self. However I was too shy to go on stage and showcase my abilities. Essays had given way to technical reports and hence I spent my energy in reading, more specifically towards magazines and non-fiction. There have been instances where I have tried my luck with skits and small acts in college functions.

Post education, my involvement in creative acts has been limited to some small acts here and there. There has been a very brief attempt to learn to play guitar. Corporate work and extensive travelling did take its toll on the energy left. It is a 21 years of hiatus from any kind of creativity. I would have used some creative energy in business but those do not give that kind of ecstasy. They are part of doing a job.

While I have said I have been in a break from creativity but I have remained closely associated with creative energies of my kids. I have tried to push them to better at any kind of fine arts or other creative energy they showed. I have tried blogging but has been irregular to say the least. Those moments have kept my creative juices flowing.

I have again started to take keen interest creative activities. My inner energies pushing me to sketching/painting, photography and graphic design. I am inclined to write and have just started writing a blog from past one week. I intend to continue it this time and give it a structure. I have taken up paid subscription in online skill development platforms. I am spending some time in learning and practicing those skills. These time and money investment and the consequent involvement is providing a lot of joy and stress free environment. I am quite hopeful that I will be a better in drawing/sketching this time around and I will be good enough not to be embarrassed. I will be probably that good to show case my work to the world in whatever mode possible. It is my intention to make my craft commercial whether in writing or in drawing or graphic design. I believe it will take lot of effort to find time and put things into practice so that I get proficient on these creative endeavors of mine. Wish me luck.

Please do leave your comments and feedback on the blog page. It will help me in my creative pursuits