Sujavna 1:27

Giri at 1630 hrs on 28^th August 2011

The idea of a time-machine is neither new nor technologically incongruous. But what about a series of innovation-machines? Machines that churn out social-innovations, economic innovations, business innovations, marketing innovations, communication innovations, cultural innovations, entertainment innovations and a medley of other innovations?

Machines imply greater productivity – so what basic input-output factors will drive the scalability and sustainability of such machines? Will such innovation-machines ultimately become recursively innovative?  Is this a scary Frankenstinean thought or will this facilitate and guide human societies to choose and adopt the right mix of utilitarian innovations?

So what will an innovation-machine look like? I intend to research on this a bit more, but in my current ignorant mind, I would think of such a machine to be a funnel that gets switched on by an orbit-shifting environment that processes breakthrough strategies, breakthrough ideas and breakthrough skills to produce the innovated environment that negates any challenges to the continued success of the entity. 

So what do you think about such innovation-machines? I intend to understand how far such machines have been used so far in human existence. So until next Sunday, wishing you a very great time.

Sujavna 1:26

Giri at 1630 hrs on 21^st  August 2011

Why is it important for a civil rights protest to be carried out only from a certain place and for a certain time period? Will the protest lose its power otherwise? These are some of the questions that have been tormenting me (and I am sure a few others, including the organisers of the protest against corruption and the law-enforcing bodies) since August 16^th, when Indian urban middle-class started rallying together for the second time in the last six months, behind Mr Anna Hazare.

And I am not going to fall prey to answering these questions. But what I would like to think about are the following scenarios:

(a)   Mr Anna Hazare and the organisers of the India Against Corruption movement celebrated Independence Day by hoisting the tricolour at Indira Point in Kanyakumari (far away from New Delhi) and exhorting all sympathisers to their cause (and supporters of the Jan Lokpal bill) to send exactly Rs. 1/= by cheque or by mobile payment to the Prime Ministers’ Relief Fund and an SMS to them with cheque /mobile payment reference details before end of August. They could have used viral social media networks to spread the message. This could have been the best Gandhian way to let the government and Parliament realize the extent of support their cause has. Oh, by the way, does the PM’s Relief Fund accept mobile payments?

(b)   The India against Corruption organisation commissions a reality show on prime TV called “Indians are Not Corrupt”. The reality show could be themed around three converging series of events – the first is series of debates for 13-19 year olds on what aspects on India’s constitutional, legal, judicial and administrative systems (in their current forms) tend to facilitate corruption – the second is a hunt for examples around the country (in each of the debate themes of the first part) wherein there is exemplary evidence of how citizens have not only fought corruption but have followed up with attempts to change systems that facilitated long-entrenched corrupt practices – and the third will be a debate between the leaders of the first stage along with the “hunted” exemplars of non-corrupt individuals on the one side and senior representative spokespersons of India’s current constitutional, legal. Judicial and administrative systems. The finale of the third stage could be in front of an invited audience of all parliamentarians. Sponsorship for the show could come out of the CSR budgets of India’s corporate houses and from all national political parties.

Sujavna 1:25

Giri at 1700 hrs on 14^th August 2011

Tomorrow will be the 64^th birthday of a wonderful nation called India; a nation that I am a citizen of, a nation that I am simultaneously proud of and ashamed of – proud that several of its leaders in politics, business and the various professions, as well as many ordinary people have constantly strived and succeeded in creating environments where economic and social growth and development have seen progress, proud of the stability of its institutions (not necessarily their vibrancy!)  – ashamed when I see that many of my fellow-citizens are habitually rude in public behaviour or in social settings, ashamed to know that cleanliness is an alien concept in most of urban India, ashamed that corruption continues to gnaw the sinews of the nation and ashamed that I am still struggling to make sense of how I can make my country proud.

I guess one option will be to move forward to implement a couple of ideas that have been discussed in earlier columns of Sujavna. I do know that the idea of logging these ideas is a necessary first step, which I have been sincerely doing. Has the time for putting some of these ideas to action come? How and when do I take the next steps?

Hope you all are having a good weekend. Wishing you a great week ahead.

Sujavna 1:24

Giri at 1615 hrs on 7^th August 2011

 “An idea whose time has come” is something that we constantly hear about, but do ideas really have a right time (and perhaps a right place)? As a corollary, do ideas always become outdated, as is normally thought so? Three reports in the Indian print media have actually triggered my grey cells into working overtime during this weekend in contemplating on these posers.

The first of these reports, pertains to the downgrading by S&P, of the sovereign rating of the USA. Why does the financial world tremble at the idea that economic superpowers such as the USA can also have a public debt to GDP ratio that is in excess of 100% and that their macro-economic management can also be as grossly mismanaged as a banana republic?  So the idea that economic superpowers will remain so, seems outdated; and the idea that they also are governed by the vicissitudes of economic modelling inconsistencies and institutional arrogance (or greed) seem to be more relevant in understanding and predicting their rise and fall.

The second is a review, of a book titled World 3.0 written by renowned economist Pankaj Ghemavat, which attempts to debunk Thomas Friedman’s belief that the world has become flat (owing to high levels of globalisation that economies of achieved in recent decades). Using very interesting data and analysis, Pankaj propounds the theory that the world (World 2.0 is his version of the current world) is still in a nascent state of globalisation where much activity is domestically-driven (with 90% of all fixed investment still being domestic, 18% of all internet traffic only is international and 90% of the worlds’ population has never left the country in which they were born). The moot point then, is when does the world become truly flat? And why should it become flat? Can it become flat by   focussing as much on services trade as it should on merchandise trade (if not more!)? What are the welfare gains for economies to embracing a flat world? What are the environmental costs to transition to a truly flat world? So where does the idea of a truly flat world start and where does it end? 

The last report is Mumbai-centric and refers to the recent incident of an abandoned ship MV Rak that ran aground and sunk Mumbai’s Juhu beach. Various theories have been suggested to explain why such incidents are increasingly happening on Mumbai’s coastline. The breach of coastal security and imminent terrorist threats that such incidents can lead to have, are also becoming subjects of debate in Mumbai. And, after all the terror plots that they have been continuously been succumbing to in the past 17 years (the latest one just 3 weeks back), the one all-encompassing idea that all citizens of Mumbai want to see implemented immediately is  A Safe Mumbai. There is no right time or place for this idea to begin – the right time is NOW and ALWAYS and the right place is HERE and EVEYWHERE.

Hope your weekend is turning out to be an enjoyable one and the week ahead has lots of positive and enriching experiences for you. So until 14^th Augsust.....