Before 1991 - Travel in Foreign Countries

The following is an excerpt from the book, "A Better India: A Better World" by N.R.Narayana Murthy.

If I wished to travel abroad even for a day, I had to make an application to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and wait for ten to twelve days. It was not always certain that I would get a positive response. I also had to submit a report on my trip abroad after I came back. A friend of mine was to travel to meet a few business prospects - a couple of them in Paris and one in Frankfurt. He obtained approval from the RBI for two days' stay in Paris and a one-day stay in Frankfurt. When he reached Paris, his second prospect asked him to meet him in Frankfurt since he had to leave for an urgent meeting there. The result was that my friend spent two days in Frankfurt and one day in Paris while the approval was for the reverse. When he returned to India and submitted his tour report to the RBI, he was issued a 'show cause' notice as to why he should not be prosecuted for violating foreign exchange regulations! It is unimaginable that we have moved from that era to the present one, when it has become extremely easy for Indian companies to do business overseas.

Before 1991 - The procedure to import a computer

The following is an excerpt from the book, "A Better India: A Better World" by N.R.Narayana Murthy.

We founded Infosys in 1981 to provide bespoke software development capability to customers in developed nations. To do so, our business required import of state-of-the-art hardware and software platforms from abroad, easy and hassle-free travel abroad to our customer sites by our staff, opening of overseas sales offices, and availability of a data communications infrastructure. Even though this industry was likely to provide India's large pool of technical talent good jobs with high disposable incomes, convincing the government that this was a godsend was easier said than done. Prior to 1991, one needed a licence to import computers. The process of obtaining a licence to import a computer was lengthy, arbitrary, expensive and sometimes corruption-prone. Generally, it took about three years and fifty visits to Delhi to obtain one. Assuming that the cost of each trip was about $1,000, it meant that importer had already paid a duty of at least 50 percent of the price of an imported computer (roughly $100,000) even before the computer had been ordered! This was not all. Since it took three years to obtain the licence, at least five to ten new models of every component of the system we were to import were likely to be released in the US market during the same period. But, changing the model number of even one component in the licence usually took at least nine to ten months! Thus, thanks to our bureaucracy, computer users in India remained at least two generations behind in any technology.

Conversation Between Two Babies in the Womb

In a mother's womb, there were two babies.

One asked the other: "Do you believe in the life after delivery?"

The other replies, "Why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later."

"Nonsense," says the other. "There is no life after delivery. What would that life be?"

"I don't know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths."

The other says, "This is absurd! Walking is impossible. And eat with our mouths? Ridiculous. The umbilical cord supplies nutrition. Life after delivery is to be excluded. The umbilical cord is too short."

"I think there is something and maybe it's different than it is here."

"No one has ever come back from there. Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery it is nothing but darkness and anxiety and it takes us nowhere."

"Well, I don't know, but certainly we will see mother and she will take care of us."

"Mother?? You believe in mother? Where is she now?"

"She is all around us. It is in her that we live. Without her there would not be this world."

"I don't see her, so it's only logical that she doesn't exist."

To which the other replied, "sometimes when you're in silence you can hear her, you can perceive her. I believe there is a reality after delivery and we are here to prepare ourselves for that reality."

Online Voting in the Elections

Many technical people want to vote in the elections online, so that, they don't need to go to their home town to vote, and they can save some time (Eventhough, it is three times in five years).

If online voting is introduced, then the election would boil down to a public auction of the constituencies.

If online voting is introduced, then all the voters would register for online. If anybody is not interested, then they would be given incentives to register for online voting. On the election day, all the candidates would offer money to the voters, if (and only if) they are going to vote for them infront of them. Since, whoever is going to pay is guaranteed to get the vote, it becomes like an auction of the vote. Finally, whoever buys maximum no.of votes will win in the election.

I am not surprised that the most developed countries in the world are not using EVMs and are still having paper based voting.

No Good Candidates in Elections - No Good Movies to Watch

If the three candidates from the top three political parties are bad, then let us declare that, there are no good candidates in the elections to vote.

If the six movies from the sons of the yesteryear heroes are not good, then let us declare that, there are no good movies to watch.

Let us close our eyes, and declare that, there is no light in the world.

Watched Kalavaramaye Madhilo, a nice movie.