Education

There should be two sufficient requirements to study any course. 

1. I should have completed and passed the qualifying course required for admission to this course.

2. I should be able to pay the necessary fee, so that, the institute that offers the course does not end up in losses. 

(Second condition may not be necessary. Government or any other sponsors may offset the cost, based on their own criteria.)

If I satisfy the above two points, and if I am still unable to do the course that I want, then that is a problem, and that needs to be fixed. Everybody should fight to fix that issue. 

Just because, somebody has studied harder, should not mean, I should not study the course. [I have passed the qualifying course, and I have all the knowledge to understand this course.]

Just because, somebody can pay a lot more than me, should not mean, I should not study the course. [I am ready to pay full expenditure that the institute is going to spend on me.]

I want to study the course, and providing employment is not your problem. 

Around 30 years back, Engineering education used to have this problem. Now, to an extent, it is resolved, eventhough, it is not completely resolved. But, for Medicine, this problem is still there, and nobody seems to bother about it. 

Prompt Engineering in ChatGPT

At the beginning of my career, once I had an issue. I asked another expert in the team for fixing the issue. He also did not know how to resolve it, and he did Google Search. He got the results and fixed the issue.

After he left, I thought, I also did google search, but could not get the correct results. Maybe, I need to learn how to do google search correctly. I have also read a few articles about searching in a better way in google, but did not make much difference. (Back then courses for each and every topic were not that much popular.)

It took me quite some time to understand that, there was nothing to learn in  "Google Search", but, I need to learn the domain.

Whenever I see Prompt Engineering courses for ChatGPT, I exactly feel the same thing.

Eventhough both the expert and myself did not know the answer to the issue, but, we both were not at the same level. He knew everything around the issue except the issue, and I did not know anything. 

When somebody knows everything around the issue, many times they just need the approach to go in the right direction to solve it. Sometimes, even a hint is enough for them. But, for those who do not know anything, those steps are not enough. 

The way an expert ask the question is a lot different from a novice user. Novice user's question would be very generic, and the expert's question would be very specific. Even if both ask the exact same question, the way both would process the same results would be a lot different. As soon as the expert gets a hint or approach, he/she would start working on that. But, a hint/approach is not enough for a novice user.

Whenever I asked any question in the domain which I have decent knowledge, I could use ChatGPT's reply easily and could solve the problem soon.

For any questions for which I did not have any domain knowledge, it was pretty horrible experience. For a few problems, it has taken me a few months to get the optimum solution. [In those months, I was learning the domain.]

In general, I do not have much good opinion on Prompt Engineering courses. But, if I were to give an opinion on that, I would say, treat ChatGPT like a very senior engineer in your organization. When I was a fresher, my then organization gave a session to all the freshers on how to get help and how to ask questions etc. 

If you are going to send a mail to a senior employee (probably in another timezone) asking for help, and sending just a message like "That code is not working" is not correct. 

One should give full context on the problem. What is the issue? In which cases, it occurs, and in which cases, it does not occur? What are the steps you tried? What was the change in the behavior when you tried those steps?

If one does not give full details, it would be difficult for anyone to respond. If anyone asks me for any help without providing any details, I generally ask them all the questions to get the context, and then I help.

Unfortunately, as of today, ChatGPT does not ask the questions back to get the clarity. It would either assumes a few things (and may lead to incorrect solution), or may give solution for all the assumptions (which would be overwhelming).

Also, if we ask ChatGPT multiple independent questions in a single prompt, it does not give efficient answer when compared to asking them separately. Of course, if the questions are related, they should be asked together to give better context. 

If you have absolutely zero knowledge on some domain, and if you are not able to get the correct solution from ChatGPT, I don't think, you can get the solution by doing those prompt courses. But, you can get the solution, when you start understanding the domain (which you can learn from ChatGPT itself). 

Life in Xome

In my previous company (Global Scholar/Harland Clarke), one fine day, I was asked to come for a meeting, where the HR director Gayathri Chandrasekharan was present along with the Engineering Director and my manager. The summary was, I need to leave the company in some time. The same HR director signed the offer letter of Xome. 

Irrespective of who signed the offer letter, the job was given by Manikandan Sundaram, who was a in a way responsible for my job for almost 15 years.

Kiran Kumar SN was the only manager in the last 18 years, who gave me salary raise more than the inflation without taking anyone's help. 

Srikrish Subramanian was one of the few managers who talk very clearly to the point, which makes a lot of difference during sensitive discussions. He also tried to give higher salary raise than the inflation by taking help from Narendra Modi and Arun Jaitley (who in turn took help from the reduction of Oil prices). Later they also could not help.

Whenever anyone asked me about CTO, I used to tell about Jaganmohan Vangal Thulasidass. 

When you and your manager's work profiles are a lot different, it is not that easy to understand the value provided by your manager. Life in Xome was very smooth mainly because of the support of Ram Krishnaswamy.

It is not that easy to find a transparent manager like Raman Srinivasan.

For any issue Jocelyn Gaw used to bypass everyone and everything, and provided whatever I asked. In India, Pradeep Kumar Kanagarajan used to give me everything that I asked till he was handling IT. 

As a Senior Developer Ramya Prasad helped me in debugging the code, and as a VP, she provided the work that I asked, and a lot in between.

If one gives the exact same update for many days, not every manager would be happy. But, Poomaran Shanmuganathan did not mind getting the same update, "Migrating Project X from .Net Framework to .Net 6" for many months with a variation in X. When Wazidshareef Mohammad presented an award for that, I was like, why an award for my role? Later when I talked to Kavin Franco, I realized that, it can be considered as the recognition of the complexity of the work. 

Randy Croy always supported any new initiatives and never said no for anything. 

I did not realize how valuable a project manager can be, till I started working with Pooja Patel. Any issue/blocker that we raised at night, would have been resolved by morning. She is the only project manager that I have seen, who stuck to the agenda of a standup (in a standup) and nothing else.  

When we took a few issues to a senior leader, he suggested to be like Robin Secours, who does not allow anyone in her territory. 

Eric Beck brought many new technological initiatives, some of which I could take forward.

Till Kannan Subramanian was in India, we used to have frequent communication, and I used to have a special ringtone for his number (Kannanule from Bombay movie). Once during an issue at mid-night, he tried to call me repeatedly multiple times, and that ring tone could not wake me up. Only when someone else called, I woke up (due to normal ringtone).

Vinoth Kumar Ganapathy had taken all non-technical challenges from me, and saved me a lot of time to concentrate on technical challenges. Later Santhosh N did the same. 

Professionally, it should have been embarrassing for me, when Vamsidhara Reddy told more about my work (in my previous company) in his interview than myself in my interview for Xome. 

I used to think, I pay lot of income tax than many others (proportionate to the income). Later, I realized that, Sateesh Naramsetti pays much more. I pay only the tax, and he pays tax along with interest and fine. 

All the discussions (everything under the sky) I used to have with Jeevanram Kasiviswanathan years before joining Xome, continued even in Xome.

Except one, all other people who sat facing me did not stay for more than 6 months (after sitting at that place), whether it was Ravinder Kumar, Vinoth Kumar Sambath, Siva Shanmugam Umapthy or Sukumar Nataraj.

No one conducted the games better than Karthick Paul Ramachandran aka KP, whether it was TT or chess. 

When one person asked in what all projects I had atleast some contribution, I said, almost all the projects except the ones that are handled by Mohanakrishnan Gopalakrishnan. Then, she commented that, then we both (Mohan and myself) could manage the entire company. 

Whenever someone raises a bug in the code, the first response that would come from me (and many people) is, "It cannot happen". But, the typical response from Ashwin Ramesh is, "Yeah. I did not test that", even if the issue is a race condition, which cannot be tested in the normal flow.  

Whatever little help that I have done for Balaji Srinivasan, he never lets me forget it.

The interactions with Phaneendra Raju Mudunuri was more after he left Xome than while he was in Xome.

Working with people like Immanuel Prathap, Sriram Parthasarathy, Venkata Kiran Mutha, Gadi Lingappa Kuruva, Vishnu Priya S and Florence made me like, I was a part of DevOps.

She mocks at a Senior Software Engineer, ignores a Team Lead, gets work done from Senior Architect, interviews 10 years experienced person casually. When I was supposed to go to US the next day, she got her work done from me, and in the evening, she gave me permission to go to US. What would be her designation and experience. She was Kowsalya Devi Palani, and this happened after she completed one year in her career.

Whenever I needed a voice over in a video, the only person that I used to call was Pooja Govindarajan.

With very brief interaction with Anjana Sherin Thangadurei, I got two ideas for hackathon with one win. 

The small things that Rekha Dhinagaran did, made me smile or feel happier.

I have never met a better host than Melissa Fernandes. Her attention to detail was excellent. 

Rikia Kosaka is very helpful and fast responsive. There was one time and only time, where we disagreed on one thing, and finding the root cause was one of the challenging things that I have done, which I cannot forget even after 7 years.

After taking an interview for Suneetha Chunduru, many people told me that, "Others" were interested in knowing the result. Nobody said, he was interested in knowing the result. 

Whenever Mounika Sure asked what food I had, my response used to be either I was fasting or had only fruits and vegetables (During the peak of Corona). 

Uma Maheswari is the only HR who scheduled interviews for me in three different companies either as an interviewer or interviewee or both. 

When HR Shanthi asked me whom do I look up to in Chennai office, I was like, I was the senior most person who was still coding, whom do I have to look up to? 

When Sharanya Suresh and Rajaraman Swaminathan were talking and said, I do everything that is asked, I wondered whether it was a sarcastic comment or real, because, I did whatever Rajaraman asked only after multiple follow-ups. 

Preethi Chandrasekharan would have felt, it was easier to manage a school kid than me. [I said no for almost everything that she asked].

Sindhuja V uses the terminology of heaven for time. Her call for a moment lasts only an hour. 

Being in Technical Role requires constant competing with young people. It was good to compete with Sai Charan Gondrala and Suvathy G who were born around the time I started learning programming. Of course, it was even more interesting to compete with Rammprasath K, who was born around the time I started working. 

S Venkata Mohith Reddy introduced me to many new technologies, and helped me in improving my development.

PrasannaKumar Balashanmugam and Saminathan Nagarajan provided me challenges in different domains. I used to feel bad for not efficiently solving the problems of Veronica and Subhashini. I would have been more happy, if I had got chance to modernize things in their domain.

When Dinesh Palanisamy informed me that, I was shortlisted for the annual award (which was presented to me by Jay Bray), I was like why are they wasting an award by giving it to me. Instead they should have given it to another person who would get motivated by the award. I would have been much more happy, had Naveen Palanisamy or Sabaribalan R received that award. [One left the previous year and other just joined and was not eligible for the award.]. The consolation was, Naveenkumar M got rookie award in an annual event. 

There were a few instances when I felt the compliment was better than any award. During a monthly meet, when Shyam Royal talked about me, I felt that was better than any other award.

Even for very insignificant help, Vinithra L used to thank me in public. 

The most exaggerated compliment was, when Shawn Brown introduced me to Rich Lull as Scott Boston of Chennai.

How to get the postman collection data of others?

Create a postman collection that is of some interest to other users. 

Invite them to your postman collection. 

Once they accept your invitation, remove them from your team, and while removing, select the option to copy their private workspace to your account.

Voila..  You got full access to their private workspaces, variables and many others. 

At this point, they would lose access to all their workspaces. If you want to appear to be nice, add them back immediately after copying their collections, and grant them access to their workspaces. If they do not pay much attention, they may think that there was some glitch in between and it got resolved automatically. But, in between, you would have got full access to all their collections.

Like the spam mails that are sent, if an invitation mail is sent to all the software engineers, definitely a few of them would click accept and you would get access to all their postman collections.

Typically many people who use postman extensively would keep the passwords, api keys and many other confidential information in their private workspace, assuming nobody could access. If you could tempt them to join your team, you can get all the confidential information. 

However, this would work, only if that person has not yet joined any team. If that person has joined any team, the owner of the first team to which he/she joins, would get the access to that workspace. 

Serious Security Issues in Postman

I have been using Postman for many many years.

A couple of years back, I joined a team. 

Yesterday, they removed me from the team. 

They got full access to all my private workspaces that I have created before I joined the team, and I lost access to those workspaces.

It is definitely one of the biggest security issues that I have seen recently. 

End of Buy back shares?

Recently, you bought shares of a company for Rs.100. The company is ready to buy it for Rs.120. A random person in the market is ready to buy for Rs.106. Whom do you want to sell to maximize your returns?

You would be more profitable, if you sell for Rs.106 to a random person than selling for Rs.120 to the company. 

Starting with this financial year, the returns in the buy back shares are taxed in the hands of the recipient as Dividend. 

If you are selling the share to the company for Rs.120, and if you are in the highest tax bracket, then you have to pay a tax of Rs.36+Cess. 

Of course, you can claim a capital loss of Rs.100 for the purchase price, which can be offset with other capital gains that you may have. [It cannot be offset with your Salary, Savings/FD interest or any other income other than capital gains.]

Let's assume, you have a short term capital gain somewhere else and you are offsetting that loss with that. The tax benefit that you get by that is Rs.20 [20% is the short term capital gains from 2024-25 FY].

The net tax that you would be paying is Rs.36-Rs.20=Rs.16.

For the profit of Rs.20, you would be paying tax of Rs.16 [In case of short term capital gains].

Let's say, you bought this share more than a year back, and you want to offset with the long term capital gains. The tax benefit that you get from the capital loss is Rs.12.5 [Assuming, your long term capital gains is more than Rs.1.25 Lakh + purchase price of these shares].

The net tax that you would be paying is Rs.36-Rs.12.5 = Rs.23.5

For the profit of Rs.20, you would be paying tax of Rs.23.5

Hats off to Nirmal Sitharaman for bringing such a simplified tax system.

Electoral Bonds

I am a little disappointed with the judgement of the Supreme Court on the Electoral Bonds.

One of the most important aspects of a democracy is Confidentiality. One should be able to support a political party without disclosing to which party one is supporting. It has two aspects. First one is voting inside a polling booth, and second one is supporting outside the polling booth. Voting inside a polling booth is confidential and others do not have any way of knowing. But, supporting a political party outside the polling booth confidentially has many roadblocks.

Except for the businesses of politicians, no business person would like to align with any political party publicly. They always wanted to be seen as neutral to everyone. They try to tell all the political parties that they are with them. They do not want to disclose any support that they do to any political party. If they are seen as aligned to one political party, they will face many problems when that party is not in power. 

If one does not appreciate the fact that there are few people/companies that want to support the political parties secretly, they need to learn many things in democracy and politics.

Before electoral bonds, if a company wanted to donate to a political party secretly, it was a lot of work for them. They cannot write a cheque in the name of the political party, as that would be reported in the company books, and it would be disclosed. What they used to do was, they manipulate the accounts and take some money out of the company (by not so legal way), and give that cash to the political party. 

Electoral bonds was trying to fix the issue of the anonymousness. A company can buy an electoral bond through the company's money from the bank by paying money either digitally or through a cheque. The electoral bond can be physically given to any political party that the company wishes, and the political party can redeem and get the money in its bank account. 

By this, the company does not need to manipulate the accounts. Manipulating the accounts comes with a cost, as the people who supported with fake bills/accounts/companies would need some percentage of commission for their work. Also, companies won't get any tax benefits from donations to the political parties when they donate that way. With Electoral Bonds, companies would not need to manipulate the accounts and would save money from there. Also, they would get tax exemptions when they donate through Electoral Bonds. 

Even for political parties, it is not so easy to manage a lot of cash. When there is a lot of cash, it is possible that the lower level leaders would siphon some money. It would be hard for the top leaders in the political party to manage huge cash. If the money is in the bank account, then the top leaders in the political parties have control on the money.

Arun Jaitley was a treasurer of BJP for a long time. He faced all the problems, and he wanted to make it simple for both the companies and the political parties, and brought Electoral Bonds. 

Next Version of ChatGPT

Previously, people used to comment about me that, if anyone asks me one question, I ask them back 10 questions before answering their question. 

Even if I get a simple question like, "How to go to Guindy Bus stop" from anyone at Guindy Railway Station, I do not answer without asking a question to that person. 

The reason I ask questions for any question is, I would prefer to give an efficient answer or solution for their problem. A question may have multiple solutions, but, we have to pick one good solution based on the circumstances and others. If I know all the related things about that question, then I can pinpoint one accurate solution that is most suited for that situation.

I would like, if ChatGPT can do the same way. If I ask an abstract question, it assumes many things and tries to give some solution. But, it should ask questions about that problem to get the exact situation, and based on the detailed problem, it should give appropriate solution. 

[Guindy is a pretty big area in Chennai. It has three bus stops on three sides of the railway station. If anyone asks "How to go to Guindy Bus stop", one should ask their next destination from Guindy Bus Stop, and redirect to the appropriate bus stop out of the three. If anyone points them to a random bus stop, and if that is not the correct bus stop, one may have to walk half a kilometer to the other bus stop. There were a few times when I got irritated with others, when they interrupted my questions, and gave a random answer to the people.]

[Nowadays, people are not commenting me much, may be due to either Respect or Fear or both. But, my attitude of asking questions did not change.]

Giving Money for voting NOTA

If I have power, I would change the elections where voters would get money, if they choose NOTA. 

In the new system, we will remove the NOTA option from the main polling ballot box, and put a separate exclusive small box for it, with only a button (So that, it is easily distinguishable). When anyone presses that button, it would be considered as voting for NOTA, and a printed paper with a QR code would come. The voter can take that paper (preferably without others noticing, and hide it in pocket or somewhere). 

After two days, they can use one of their UPI apps like Paytm, Google Pay, Phone Pe etc., and scan that QR code. Once they scan, they would get some money in their bank account linked with the corresponding UPI. The QR code would expire after a month after the election results are announced, and they have to scan it before that to get the money.

How does it work behind the scenes?

Once the election notification is issued, the Election commission would invite donations to distribute to the people who have voted for NOTA. The donations can be at the level of Country, State, Parliamentary/Assembly constituency or even at the polling booth level. The money that anyone donates for a particular level is distributed among all the voters of NOTA at that level. The donations are accepted till 2 days before the election, and the donation details at all levels (along with the total number of voters at that level) are published a day before the election. 

Let's say, I donated Rs.1 lakh to a polling booth in one particular assembly constituency that has 1000 voters. In that polling booth, if 100 people vote for NOTA, then this Rs.1 lakh would be distributed among all the 100 people, and everyone would get Rs.1000 each from the money that I donated. 

Along with that, if someone else had donated Rs.1 crore in that assembly constituency of 2 Lakh voters, and if there were 20,000 NOTA votes, then each voter in that assembly constituency would get Rs.500. 

The voters in the above polling booth would get Rs.1000 at the polling booth level and Rs.500 at the assembly constituency level, and in total they would get Rs.1500.

Once the election is completed, and the presiding officer signs off saying that there were no issues in the polling and it does not need any re-poll, the NOTA box would be separated, and the corresponding QR codes would be activated. Once the QR codes are activated, anyone who got the QR code slip can scan from any UPI app and get the money.

Reason for giving money to NOTA voters

Many people do not know the value of the vote. If they have to choose between voting for a particular person or Rs.500, many of them would choose money. In an ideal democracy, the person who wins in the election should be liked by the majority of the people who care for the democracy. The people who do not care about the democracy should be neutral. In the present system, people who do not care about the democracy are voting for random people, and the elected people are not the representatives of the people who care for the democracy. 

Anonymous voting

As long as the voter takes the QR code slip without others noticing, the anonymousness is not lost. Once the QR code is activated, that can be scanned from any UPI app of any person, and it does not need to be from the account of that particular voter. 

Announcement of NOTA votes before the election results

The count of NOTA votes are announced 2 days after the polling and there is no harm in that. If people get the money immediately, then it would give some idea to the voters about NOTA in the next phase of that election. 

Funding for the distribution

In the elections where the political parties are already spending a lot of money, there won't be any issue in the funding. Political parties want people to vote for them. Along with that, many parties try to stop people from voting for the other parties, and they try to do many things like splitting their vote bank by bringing another candidate who is from the same background (like their party's rebel candidate, or if there is caste feeling, then same caste person etc.). 

With this, they do not need to spend a lot of effort on those things. If the political party feels that voters in a particular polling booth would vote for their main opposition party, then they can donate a lot of money to that particular booth, and people in that booth would choose NOTA, by depriving the votes for the other party. 

Of course, the same thing would be done by the opposition party in the polling booths where they have more support. 

Trends of the Money

In this approach, the money that people would get is going to be significant. In selected polling booths of Pulivendula, Kuppam, Mangalagiri and Bhimavaram constituencies (Constituencies where Y.S.Jagan Mohan Reddy, Nara Chandra babu Naidu, Nara Lokesh and Pawan Kalyan contested), the money may even cross Rs.10,000 per NOTA vote. 

But, after an election or two, the money may come down drastically, if people do not change. If people prefer Rs.500 higher than voting for a candidate, then political parties may just give enough funding for them to select for NOTA, and there is no need for them to give a lot of money for NOTA.

[Unless people become too intelligent, where they threaten the main political parties to give higher amount for NOTA, or otherwise, they would vote for the independents.]

Future of the elections - Taking the ideology to the public

Once the people who do not care about democracy are going to be neutral, the next thing that any political party has to do is, taking their party's ideology to the public. They have to convince people that their ideology is the best, and that is more valuable than Rs.10,000. 

The politics have to be done like many religious institutions, where their only goal is taking their ideology to the people. If one looks at any serious follower of any major religious institution (including ISKCON, Art of Living, Isha Foundation etc.), if they are given an option of choosing money vs their organization, they would choose their organization. 

Politics also would change that way, where each political party's goal is taking their ideology to the public and convincing them about that (and in the words of non-supporters, it is brainwashing). 

And, that is the ideal democracy.

Meesala Saibaba, Loksatta Party

 

Meesala Saibaba garu is a low profile leader who contested in 6 elections for Corporator, MLA, MLC and MP from Loksatta party and as an Independent. He worked for Loksatta party initially, and after Loksatta Party stopped contesting in the elections, he contested in the elections as an Independent by taking Loksatta Party symbol (Whistle).

When I met him first time, I never thought that he would go on contesting in that many elections. 

He always used to say that, he does small small things. He never did any big things like other leaders. Because of that, I never expected him to contest in any election. But, he showed how does one achieve bigger goals by taking baby steps. 

Sadly, he left us too early. 

Idiotic Decision by Modi

Introducing 33% reservations for women is the most idiotic decision by Modi.

Already, our democracy was in bad shape. With these kinds of policies, democracy is on its deathbed.

Already, local elections in many states have become a mockery of democracy. Once the reservations are finalized, in many villages, there will be only a handful of people who can even contest in the elections. Among those few, some may choose to contest, and people will have to vote for one of them. Our ineffective leaders will present this as democracy, similar to how China and North Korea do.

In North Korea and China also, people vote, but the voting process is different. In North Korea, there is only one candidate, and people have to vote for that candidate, who is then elected.

I fear we are heading in that direction.

Modi often criticizes Nehru for many things. Even though Nehru did not develop the economy, he built the institutions, especially democracy, which is why India is still united and hasn't fragmented.

Modi's behavior seems like temporary development and permanent destruction.

Husband Like Rama or Krishna

This post is NOT for spiritual interpretation.

Many people say, they would prefer husband like Rama and not like Krishna.

Rama has married only one woman. 

After Sita was captured by Ravana, Rama accepted her back only after she entered into fire. 

When one citizen of his kingdom talked bad about Rama, he sent Sita to forest, when she was pregnant.

Krishna married 16,108 women.

16,100 women were initially captured by Narakasura. After killing Narakasura, Krishna married all of them.

He gave equal importance to all his wives and has taken 16,108 forms to take care of them.

Krishna never left anyone who has surrendered to him.

If a woman wants a person who can take care of her well, then she should ask for someone like Krishna. 

If a woman wants a person who does not look at other women, even if he does not take care her well, then she should ask for someone like Rama. 

The reason why Rama has done like that has many reasons behind. This post is not for interpretation in those lines.

Astrology - Basic Criteria for the Predictions

Once an astrologer said, there is going to be a big fire in the next few days. 

After a few days, he said, there was a big fire in Pakistan, and he claimed his predictions were correct.

This made me think of the evaluation of a prediction. 

What I feel is, for a prediction to be of some sense, by following the prediction, we should be able to take some decision or change a decision or atleast give more or less confidence in the decision that we are already taking. If it does not give any of them, then that prediction is useless. 

Once I went to Mumbai and it rained a lot. All the trains and flights got cancelled, and there was a lot of water on the road and travelling even by the road was not possible. I faced a lot of difficulties, cancelled all my plans, and it costed me a lot. If someone had predicted that I would face difficulties if I go to Mumbai, I would have saved a lot of money. 

That prediction does not need to be from an astrologer who looks at Horoscope charts or palm. It can be somebody who can look at the weather report of Mumbai, and who knows that, whenever there is a lot of rain, Mumbai would be flooded and the trains would be cancelled. 

It does not matter how I get the predictions. By that prediction, I should be able to take a decision or change the decision or should change the confidence level of the decision that I was taking. 

Is it Scientifically Proven?

If someone claims that they found a cure for a disease in any method other than allopathy, immediately, many people will start questioning the scientific validity of that. Many times, they go to any length to unpopular them.

Many people miss to ask a very basic question. What is the side-effect, if one uses that? 

Many many years back, one of my friends suggested to drink water in the morning before eating/drinking anything else. Do I have to consult doctors whether it is scientifically proven or not? Do I have to wait till scientists research on that and publish a paper proving or disproving that? If they disprove that, should I stop drinking water in the morning? 

How do all those things matter to me? I did not see any harm in doing that, and I drank for a few days. I saw significant improvement in that, and since then I have been drinking water in the morning before taking anything else. I have been continuing that for many many years and planning to continue life long. 

If someone is having a fever, then what I suggest to them is, don't eat anything, drink a lot of honey water, and sleep a lot. If someone is having a fever, they won't feel like eating anything. If I am saying, if you are not feeling like eating, don't eat. But, to get energy, drink honey water. What is that person going to lose by following that? Does it require an approval from some scientist in Harvard University?

When someone suggests something, before even asking whether it is scientifically proven or not, one should ask, What would I lose if I do that? 

Let's say, someone suggested you do something which would take one hour of your time and costs Rs.100 and no other loss. If you have some respect for the person and are ready to spend one hour of your time and Rs.100 for that person, then you can do it for the sake of that person, if not for the advantages that were proposed.

If someone is asking you to take a tablet that is made up of chemicals, then we won't know what can happen by taking that, and we can ask whether it is scientifically proven or not. But, if someone is asking you to prepare something by using the materials that are available in your kitchen (Which you bought for your consumption in different food items), and asks you to prepare in some way to recover from a specific disease, what is the harm in trying it? Why do you need scientific proof?

Unfair Practices of Amazon, Swiggy, Zomato. What about Banks?

I went to More Supermarket to buy Dabur honey. Dabur honey was put above the topmost rack and I could not take it myself, eventhough, I was not a short person. I called an employee of More to get the Dabur honey, and she took it by using a ladder. I could find the honey of More Brand in the lower racks and I could take it without asking anyone for help. 

Few days later, I went again to More. Now, I don't find Dabur honey, even in the top most rack. But, I could see More honey in the lower racks. When I asked them, they said, Dabur honey was not available and it would take a week or so to get it. 

If the Indian Government holds a grudge on Aditya Birla Group (The parent company of More Supermarket), then I can take this case to the Competition Commission of India on two issues. First one is, More deliberately gave more preference to its brand product than its competitors' products. Second one is, its competitors' products were not available at times, but its own products were available all the time. 

In this specific case, eventhough, there won't be any penalty/action against More, if the Government wants to irritate them, it can do so easily. But, if the target is big (instead of a single More Supermarket), then it can easily impose a significant penalty or take action. 

It is a hypothetical example and I have twisted the facts in my own way. 

I could take anything from the top most racks myself and there was no need for me to call any staff to get anything. Dabur Honey is in a glass bottle, whereas More brand honey and a few other brands are made of plastic. If a plastic bottle falls, then it may not break, whereas if the glass bottle falls, most probably it would break. For that reason, they might have put it in the top most rack, so that people would intentionally take it and it won't fall by mistake. 

During the first wave of corona, I used to fast a lot. For the fast, I was buying honey a lot. My first preference was Dabur Honey. My consumption of Honey was more than what More was procuring. As soon as I found a kg or half kg Dabur Honey, I used to buy it. So, for almost 1.5 months, other customers of More could not have found Dabur Honey of Kg or Half kg bottles (all because of me).

The Indian Government through different arms is accusing Amazon, Swiggy, Zomato and other marketplace sites for its unfair practices just like this example. 

Their rule is, the companies should not bring their related businesses and influence the customer. 

Every business tries to sell more products that give better margin to them and gives less importance to the products that give less margin. It is unethical to interfere in one's business. 

There is no one stopping in setting up another business like Amazon, Swiggy or Zomato. 

But, there is one sector, where not only a common man, even a big industrialist or a very rich person also cannot start a business easily. In those sectors, the Government should make sure that the business is operating fairly and giving importance to one and not to other. That sector is the Banking sector. 

You go to any bank and ask for a locker. Most of the time, they would ask you to take some insurance policy from them to open the locker. Without insurance, they won't give you the locker. In many cases, the insurance is not provided by the bank, but its sister organization. 

A Bank's business is to manage my money and provide additional services like lockers etc. Most of the banks are not in the business of Insurance. Why are they forcing the consumers to take insurance (from their sister organization) to give locker. Is it not unfair practice? 

I had a very bad experience with ICICI on this when I went for a locker. They did not say anything about taking insurance. They took all the forms, deducted money for the locker deposit, opened an FD against the locker, and then I was told that I need to take insurance to open the locker. Without insurance, they were not ready to give me the locker. If they had told me before deducting the money for the locker, I would have simply walked away saying, I did not need the locker. Finally, I settled with investing in ICICI Mutual Funds for the locker. 

When a person who is not aware of anything except FD/RD goes to any bank, there are very high chances that they would be misled.

When the consumer asks to open FD/RD, they would recommend them to invest in Insurance or Mutual Funds, and say that those would give better returns. 

Insurance is the biggest fraud that most of the banks are doing. When a not so financially literate person hears about the insurance, they would be seriously misled. The consumer would not be told about the insurance charges, the risk of the stock market etc. Many of them would be thinking that the bank is guaranteeing 12% interest in addition to the insurance. When they check the balance a year or two years later, they would realize that they are not getting even the amount they have invested. Especially when old people take the insurance, they would lose significant money from their principal. 

For someone who has never heard of Mutual Funds, it is highly possible that they might be thinking that the returns they are telling (verbally) is guaranteed. In the long run, Mutual Funds may catch up with all other types of investments. But, in the short run, it is possible that they may go down significantly. At that time, those who invested in the Mutual Funds would lose.

Government should go behind the businesses which cannot be started by anyone, like the Banking Sector, Financial Sector etc., rather than going behind online food and grocery stores. 

I Feel Pity for the President and Vice President

As per the protocol, if the President is invited for a function, he should be the one who is inaugurating it. He should not be a spectator when someone else is inaugurating. Vice-President is the second in the line of the protocol. If the President is not attending the event, then he should be the one who is inaugurating. He cannot be a spectator when someone who is less in the protocol is inaugurating.

Since, Modi wants to inaugurate, he did not invite the President or Vice-President.

I feel pity for the President and the Vice President for multiple reasons. 

Ex-President Ramnath Kovindh and Ex-Prime Minister Deve Gowda got the invitation and they attended. But, the present President and Vice-President did not get the invite and they could not attend, eventhough it is one of the biggest events of the Government.

A person sends a message to be read by someone else, when they are unable to attend. If the event is too small for their stature, they may just send a message and not actually attend the event. Or if they are too busy with something else, or they are ill and could not come out, then also they may send a message. In this case, neither the President nor the Vice-President had any of those issues, still they sent their messages to be read by the Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, only because they were not invited to the inauguration to give their message directly.

Personally, it is insulting for me, if someone says, "We are conducting an event. You do not come to the event. But, give me your message for the event." 

Since, Parliament consists of Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha, Lok Sabha speaker is given prominent importance and he is there at the main inauguration. But, the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha is not there. Because, the Vice-President is the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha. If he is invited, then he should do the inauguration and not the Prime Minister, since, Vice-President is above in the protocol to the Prime Minister. So, the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha was also sidelined, and the Deputy Chairman was invited in his place. 

I head a house, but I am not invited to the inauguration of the house that I head. But, my deputy is invited and he is given prominent importance to sit on the podium. 

Since Nehru's time, there have been a lot of differences between the Prime Ministers and Presidents. But, I am not sure whether any other President or Vice-President were insulted this way. 

Buying Vegetables at High Price

After a long long time, I looked at the price tag in a vegetable shop and decided whether to buy or not based on the price.

Many years back, I read the following quote.

When do you realize you are rich?

When you buy without looking at the price tag.

Later I realized that I was rich, because I was not looking at the price tag while I was buying vegetables. [Of course, it is not the case when I go to any other store other than vegetable shops.]

In recent times, there were a couple of instances when I felt like I should have looked at the price before buying. If I had looked at the price before buying, I would not have bought those. First instance was during the lockdown in the first wave of Corona, and the second instance was before the lockdown during the second wave of Corona. At that time, the prices of a few vegetables were very high, and if I had known the prices before, I would not have bought those. 

Sometime back, when there were floods, I consciously looked at the price of the vegetables, and did not buy a few vegetables (or bought less quantity) at a higher price. That was almost the first instance in many many years, when I decided to reduce the consumption of vegetables in the food because of the higher price.

It is not because I am having financial problems. It is because I did not want my consumption to affect the prices. 

Most of the time, the prices are decided by the demand and supply. When there is more demand and less supply, the prices would increase. When there is less demand and more supply, the prices would decrease.

If the price is increasing, it means there is more demand and less supply. Now, if I go and buy everything that I need without worrying about the price, the supply would reduce further, and the mismatch between demand and supply would increase even further causing the prices to increase further. 

I did not want to increase the prices because of my consumption. So, whenever there is a sudden rise in prices of something, I am trying to reduce the consumption of that. 

Finding the people who did not vote for his party

Eventhough, there were many things that I do not like about Y.S.Jagan Mohan Reddy, I could not stop appreciating his technical skills.

In the recent MLC elections in the MLAs quota, YSRCP found the people who did not vote for them. 

In India, all the elections are conducted in secret. When a person is voting, he/she is not supposed to show the vote to anyone. In the recent MLC elections, the MLAs did not show their vote to anyone. Still, YSRCP found their MLAs who did not vote for them.

Unlike regular elections that are conducted for the general public, in the elections for the upper house and president, one has to give the ranking of the candidates. The candidates would be selected by proportional representation. 

In this particular case, since there was only one extra candidate than the no.of seats, in general, only the first and second choices of each vote would have impact, and other choices would not have any impact.

What YSRCP did was, it gave unique choices to each of their MLAs for all the options. Each MLA is supposed to vote exactly by the rankings that were given to him/her. 

Eventhough, the MLA is not going to show the vote during the counting, the counting agent can view the ballot paper and they have noted down the rankings for each ballet paper. They got all the rankings of all the ballot papers, matched with the expected rankings of their MLAs, and checked which ones were missing. From that, they found the MLAs who did not vote for their party and they were expelled from the party. 

Subsidies vs Incentives

In Jan 2016, Modi questioned, why benefits given to poor people are called subsidies, and why benefits given to rich, like exemption on dividends and long term capital gains are called as incentives?

When something is given from the treasury of the government, that is called subsidy. 

When something may or may not come to the treasury, and the Government decides to not take it, it is called incentive. 

When the government removes subsidies, the government will save the equivalent money in their treasury. 

But, when the government removes incentives, they may not save the equivalent money. Some businesses or transactions might be running only because of that incentive. Once the incentive is gone, they may not do that business or transaction. The resultant money that the government would get after removing an incentive is always less than the incentive amount that the government projects. 

Exemption on dividends and long term capital gains were not at all incentives. It is just that they were taxed in a different way. 

Companies pay tax on their profits. After paying the tax, they used to pay dividend distribution tax again, and then they distribute the dividend. Once the dividend comes to the investor, the investor does not need to pay any tax on that [It was already taxed twice.] Modi called it an incentive, because you are not paying the tax third time [For the exact same amount which is already taxed twice].

Couple of years back, Modi's government removed the dividend distribution tax and made the dividend as taxable for the investor. Dividend is coming out of the profit that the company made. Company already paid the tax on the profit that it got. You are paying the tax a second time, because it changed hands. 

Before 2004, Long term capital gains in equity were not exempted from income tax. After Chidambaram became finance minister, he exempted tax on the long term capital gains in equity, and introduced securities transaction tax. 

Modi removed the exemption on the long term capital gains in equity and kept the securities transaction tax. [Again double taxation]. 

Public vs Government Organizations

In a private organization, a vision is set for the organization. To achieve the vision, the organization would employ people with appropriate terms and conditions.

In a government organization, the employees would set a personal vision for themselves. The employees would expect the organization to work towards achieving the personal vision of the employees. In case the organization does not do that, the employees and/or prospective employees may fight and even destroy the public properties.