Sign of changing time

Have been noticing sine quite some time – off let more regularly – the warning sign in aeroplanes changing from “No Smoking” to “Switch off your electronic devices”. Is mankind switching over to a new addiction? The more I notice my co-passengers not switching off their mobile hand sets during the flight, to my horror, the more I tend to believe this.
I am not too sure, how much an operational handset interferes with the avionics, but my latest experience made me little nervous – in the middle of the landing process, the middle-aged person sitting next to me received the call on his mobile and said the person on the other side that the plane is landing and he will be reaching soon. I was wondering, what if this person’s phone call made the plane to meet with a serious accident – he might never meet the person on the other side of the call!It was an ATR flying to Bangalore from Coimbatore in one Friday morning…and we all were lucky!

Corporate theory, realized in Bangalore traffic - #1

After spending quite some time in industry and many evenings in Bangalore traffic, I seem to see a simile –

Progress made (Career growth achieved) in a given time depends on the ability of the vehicle (person) in front of you rather than your vehicle’s (own) ability.

To give an example, an Auto Rickshaw behind a Mercedes has a greater chance to realize its potential compared to a Mercedes behind an Auto Rickshaw.

Interestingly, the solution is also in Bangalore traffic –

If the vehicle (person) in front of you is not giving you way despite of you honking & giving signals (giving feedback in reviews), it may be its (his) lack of power/maneuverability (capability/flexibility). In that case you need to take risk, based on your vehicle’s ability (own capability), to change lane (discipline/department/company) and overtake.

Dublin Airport and a couple of impressive Ad campaigns

Last year September, when I landed in Dublin airport, I was welcomed by a series of impressive visuals with a catchy phrase –

“It’s who stands behind you that counts”

It was a campaign by a telecom company supporting Ireland’s dream on the eve of Rugby world cup.

This year same time, when I landed in the same airport, I was surprised to see the transformation. And welcomed by another impressive advertisement campaign –

A picture of a tiny frog with a caption below – “Prince en route”

In the same campaign, there are other visuals – “Swan en route” and “Butterfly en route”

This campaign is to highlight the expansion and modernization project the airport is going thru’.

These nice visuals definitely reduced my agony while waiting for the luggage.

Bangalore Traffic management – another ‘solution’?

Recently there are Sign Boards erected along the ORR (and may be in other roads also) – Prohibiting Heavy Vehicles on the right lane. It is a bi-lingual sign with pictorial representation – nicely done, I should say.

There has never been dearth of ideas – the problem remains in implementation and enforcing (by this time, it is proven that only enforcement works in our country). I could see series of heavy trucks on the right lane all along my 20KM daily journey from house of office. My simple question is – what happens if the trucks are found on the right lane?

I would also like to ask what happened to plans launched earlier (needless to say, with lot of hypes) –

> Blackberry to the Police
> Cheetah squad
> No headlight in M G Road
> Cameras in traffic junctions
> No bus stands on the junction
> The solutions given by the experts – good road, working signals and decent footpaths
> Etc. etc.

Along my route to office, there are ten odd bus stands; all are spot-on the junction. It is not difficult to imagine the havoc they create. Is it so difficult to relocate them with proper bus-bays? We all know that the main culprits are the BMTC buses. Are they not been regulated by the same government?

Jalahalli circle, a nightmare to all, is a classic example of government’s apathy – one can see all problems at one place and its impact on daily commuters – a perfect candidate for conducting case studies. The stretch of Subrata Mukherjee road, between Ayyappa Temple and Jalahalli circle is out of this planet – ISRO can conduct Lunar Vehicles testing there.

I would like to highlight another issue I have been affected by – broken down vehicles – of all size and shape. Every day in last 1 ½ year (yes, every day), I have seen traffic pile up caused by broken down vehicle. I do not know, what to blame – bad roads or horrendous traffic – but the onus of clearing the mess remains with the traffic department.

At the last, let me come back to the mother of all questions – where the Tax Payers’ money going? We all pay hefty tax while buying vehicles and fuel. We are also paying cess, income tax, sales tax, property tax, betterment fees etc. It is the time to make the authorities responsible – monsoon comes and goes, the pain of daily commuters worsens.

A comparison of GDP

In all our discussions and reporting, we always highlight our country’s high rank in the Global GDP (& PPP) list. Yes, the attached table gives the statistics – we are in the twelfth position in the globe.

The other half of the table gives another perspective – how we manage our resources in comparison with USA and other emerging countries. The scene is not as pleasant as we normally tend to believe –
- For the size of our nation, our GDP is better than Brazil and Russia, almost equal to China BUT way below USA
- For the size of our population, we have the lowest GDP – another indication of our low productivity levels. The nearest contender China is 2.5 times of ours and USA is nearly 50 times!
- As far as the environmental impact goes, we do better than China. It will be interesting to look at Brazil’s figure – they are probably the best in the world

I leave the inference to the readers…

Farming on City Roads!!

Every time I see a tractor on our city roads, I wonder – what this is doing here? How stupid I am, answer is very simple – it is carrying / pulling something. Yes, it carries all sorts of living and non-living things in the trailer it tugs.

But is it fit to be driven on city roads? It is a specially designed machine for a specific application. Any tractor would have limited acceleration, speed, breaking and agility. With the trailer, it becomes much more unpredictable on city roads. It is another reason for traffic congestion. The worst thing is none of the trailers has the Tail Lamps!

What does our City Traffic Department say about this?

‘Who Dare Wins’

“Future belongs to those who dare” - these were the words written on a poster framed in my Divisional Head’s office wall. I observed it in one of the early visits, more than a decade ago. I was attracted to the poster because of two reasons –

> The sketch of two galloping horses was very dynamic
> The caption caught my eyes

I am sure; many of my colleagues would have seen that poster and some of them should be able recollect even today.

After reading the caption, I kept on thinking about the relevance of the caption. The question in my mind was “dare to do what?” May be to think or act differently – I was answering myself. But the bigger question was whether our society and corporate world accepts any “daring” move.

Since my childhood, I have always been preached to not to take paths less traveled. In middle class families of that time, “How dare you?” was very common. It was very true in organizations also. Even thinking (forget about Acting) ‘out of the box’ was not encouraged. At times it used to be misinterpreted to be disrespect to the prevailing norms (to be read as ‘people’).

Today, after many years, I keep thinking - have we changed? From Indian perspective, the whole thing is moving in circles. As a nation, we are confused – whether to stick to the tried and tested, old philosophy or to embrace some of the newer ideas. As we are deciding, time is passing by. We need to break free – earlier the better.