THE MOST IMPORTANT BIT ON THIS BLOG IS AT THE BOTTOM – DON’T FORGET TO READ IT.
I’m starting to write a new column on a popular website called India Incorporated (www.indiaincorporated.com) where I hope to interview high profile business leaders, professionals, and other such people on their views on their charitable interests and giving.
When researching and writing my book on Indian entrepreneurship, I was positively flabbergasted with the level of personal involvement that high profile people invest in giving back to good causes, which I found refreshing and inspiring. But, I wondered why we’d never read about such acts of kindness and generosity in our media. I know I’d be interested.
Was it because they felt that this was “private” i.e should not be spoken about? Well, no.
If you opened the Annual Report (which is a marketing document) of their businesses, you’d find sections on how they were making a social impact by leveraging their resources effectively – so my assumption that their charity was “private” proved to be wrong.
So, why is it that we don’t read about their views on the subject of ‘Giving’?
It’s this I hope to contribute.
What I need your help on is to compile a generic list of questions you’d like answered from business leaders on charitable giving. If you’d like to contribute, then please leave a comment at the end of this blogpost.
Thanks.
Vikas
Do Londoner’s care?
Have to congratulate Mayor Boris Johnson for launching the Team London initiative today with Samantha Cameron, Peter Andre, and Barbara Windsor in attendance today.
Whilst trying to model it on what Mike Bloomberg has done in New York, I’d like to encourage him to take a closer look at home for examples of success like Sewa Day (www.sewaday.org), which I’m totally supportive of.
Also, not really sure that they’ve set an ambitious target. If in year one Sewa Day managed to recruit 5,000 volunteers (of which the bulk were in London), I don’t see why the Team London team can’t stretch beyond the 10,000 target they’ve set. After all, BoJo’s volunteering czar – in her opening remarks outlined that volunteering seems to be in London’s DNA as 75% of all Londoners volunteered for good causes. If so, why just 10,000?
One of the good ideas that’s emerged is the recognition on ‘stars’ who go above & beyond the call of duty by pouring their time and resources to create a significant impact to a cause. I know there are many such awards, but you just can’t have enough of these – in such hard times, we need positive role models and inspiration to contribute to our local communities. For this reason, well done.
My only advice for the Team Londoners is to ensure this turns into a real, wide ranging, initiative that reaches out to all marginalised communities & utilises its best resources – it’s people.
Londoners do care. Wish you the very best.
Earlier today, it was announced that KV Kamath would become Chairman of Infosys – a major Indian and international IT services company that’s based in Bangalore.
In my book titled ‘India’s Inc – How India’s Top 10 Entrepreneurs Are Winning Globally’, I interviewed and included Kamath – although he wasn’t an entrepreneur per se – simply because he’d taken a boring, old world, finance institution and made it globally competitive – displaying all the traits that successful entrepreneurs display while building their businesses. In the book, I called him ‘India’s banker’ as ICICI had truly become a force in India. Their retail operations were slick, their corporate and investment bank delivered exceptional returns etc. The thing that truly marked him out, though, was his fascination with technology. He could have easily been the Chief Technology Officer for ICICI, such was his grasp of the potential technology held to provide a well deserved boost to his company.
For this reason, it came as no surprise that KVK, on retirement as CEO of ICICI, was asked to serve in Infy’s Board. So in many respects, this announcement also doesn’t come as a major surprise to the markets.
Interestingly, Narayana Murthy, founder and soon to retire Chairman of Infosys, also features in my book. Murthy’s known for many things but what stuck out was his commitment to retiring from Infosys as per the governance of the company. In many cases, such words are seen as niceties as it’s widely expected that their next generation will take over, so for this reason its important to mention and celebrate an entrepreneur who’s kept to his word on this – not that anyone has ever doubted it.
Recently, I’ve also read some of the media coverage around succession at Infosys in particular, which despite being interesting to ponder, is in fact a sign of things to come. Mr Murthy and his band of founders will retire soon. Whilst they claim that Infosys will thrive without them, Kamath’s appointment is a litmus test on their faith in the company that they’ve built.
It’ll be worth keeping an eye on Infosys, that’s for sure.
Interestingly, David Cameron’s visiting Pakistan to re-set relations with them. There was a time when political leaders would say one thing to India and an altogether different story to the Pakistani establishment, which, thankfully, has become increasingly difficult to do as a result of the birth of organisations like Wikileaks, and with the growth in citizen journalism.
If Cameron wants to start afresh with Pakistan, he may be advised that in addition to talking about security, terrorism, aid, and trade, he ought to offer our help in capacity building initiatives that strengthen their civic institutions – much like a certain other former British Prime Minister is doing in Palestine.
Most Pakistani people, at least the ones I know, are no different to you & me, who I suspect constitute the majority. We should invest wisely in giving them a voice. By doing so, you stand to expose the duplicity of the leadership provided by various quarters in a country that is incredibly important and central to our safety & prosperity back in the UK.
Let’s not forget they fought for us
Jemima Khan, former wife of Pakistani cricketer turned politician – Imran Khan – captured my attention today, maybe, for the first time. Perhaps, it was to do with where I was stood whilst reading my Twitter timeline, which included her musings. Let me explain. Her tweets read:
“Helping my boy with his GCSE choices- Sciences (Biology, physics, chemistry) are obligatory. History and geography are not.”
“Ofsted found that England is the only country in Europe where children can stop studying history at the age of 13. #harrumph”
“Last year more than 100 state schools did not enter a single candidate for GCSE history.”
I was reading this whilst stood in the spring sun at the top of Constitution Hill, near Buckingham Palace, where the Commonwealth Memorial Gates were erected nine years ago to pay tribute to the sacrifices of volunteer soldiers from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh and other Commonwealth countries.
Having lived in London for many years, I had walked and driven past these Memorial Gates many times, but never once had I stopped to take a closer look. Baroness Flather, who worked tirelessly in making sure this memorial was erected explained:
“It took over fifty years after World War Two ended to build a lasting memorial to honour the five million men and women from the Commonwealth nations who volunteered as part of the British Empire in both world wars.
As someone who’s clear about his identity being British, a sense of sadness swept across my face when I heard the Gurkha bugler play the Last Post whilst reading Jemima Khan’s tweets on the uptake of the History GCSE.
I’d like my kids to learn, along with the oft-narrated stories about the Great Wars to learn about the sacrifices made by my ancestors, without which we may not be enjoying the lives we lead today, which leads to the larger point that if children don’t understand any history, how can they comprehend the world?
Please make a point of visiting the Memorial Gates on your next visit to London. You can find out more here: http://www.mgtrust.org/
I, like almost everyone I talk to, am bothered about the state of affairs regarding education & skills. I’m not referring to the political agenda in England revolving around free schools, the promotion of academy status for schools, the education maintenance allowance, university fees or any such subject that’s being debated in our political media; rather I’m referring to the injustice of the 60million or so children who’ve never set their eyes on a school building. More so, I get even more vexed when I hear about the millions of children who do attend a school, but leave without learning anything! How comes that never comes up in our media?
The reason I mention this, is recently, I was fortunate to have met with Madhav Chavan, who in the mid-90s founded a NGO in India called Pratham. Later that evening, I attended a dinner hosted by their UK chapter where he laid out the challenge.
His argument was simple. One of the main reasons children fail in the Indian schooling system is because they lack basic literacy skills – they can’t read or write. As a result of this realization, Pratham’s dedicated itself to reaching the absolute bottom (of the famous Indian) pyramid to equip those children (and now adults) with these skills.
To assist their work, one the most valuable things that Pratham instituted and conducts with rigour is a national survey, called ASER, which has now become the de-facto study on education in India, as approx 720,000 people in 16,000 villages across the sub-continent are surveyed.
Chavan highlighted some of the following statistics, which made me sit up and think (read: pull my hair out):
• 97% of children in India are enrolled in a school – emphasis is on enrolled. They don’t necessarily attend or sit exams.
• After four years of learning, in class 5, between 40 – 50% of children can’t read or can’t write.
• In rural India (which is the majority of India), after four years of schooling, in class 5, 60% of children fail to solve a simple division sum.
If this is the case, regardless of where we live, we all need to worry.
If a quarter of the world’s work force is expected to reside in India within the next 15 years, where are all the skilled workers going to come from? Yes, India has a large, and young population that could be a massive advantage in its ascendancy to super-power status, but there’s simply no hiding from these facts.
Right now, it’d be quite easy to take a pot-shot at the role of government, but as Chavan explained, India is a very complex country, where there is a long term commitment in fixing this problem. I assume the challenge comes in dealing with the situation here & now – which if you’ve ever visited India is a challenge in most spheres of life.
As is so true, he explained that where good leadership exists, you find change. For example, some progressive state governments do recognise the huge hurdle that exists and are doing something about this. Bihar is a good example. It has 10 million illiterate adults, and to institute a programme to equip them with “employment ready” skills will require an army of volunteers, which Pratham is trying to marshal with the support of Nitish Kumar, their Chief Minister.
Similarly, Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of Gujarat, realizes as a result of ASER data on his state that in order to translate his success in attracting massive investment commitments he needs a skilled and educated workforce. He’s now mandated his Ministerial team to visit schools to assess for themselves the problems in their system.
If you read my first post in January 2011, you’ll see that I took my kids to a Pratham school in Mumbai. The thing that struck me was that Pratham’s model works because it’s so simple. Because it’s low-cost. Because they’re at ground level. But more importantly, because they can prove their method works.
At the dinner later that day, surrounded by ultra successful entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and city professionals, Chavan conveyed his message with great effectiveness. His audience were positively agitated and somewhat pissed off at the situation in their beloved motherland. In typical fashion, wanting to put the world right several suggestions were offered by those assembled, but Chavan put it all in perspective, at least for me. He explained: in a country where almost 75% of the population defecates in the open, you need solutions that take into cognizance the reality of India, here and now, and build on them rather than building clouds in the sky.
He’s right. You & I know it. By offering our support to the likes of Pratham, we’ll be doing something about the challenges facing our future generations.
Indian Budget 2011 – what’s going on?
It’s that time of year, again!
Finance Minister, Pranab Mukherjee met with Congress insiders to begin unveiling his thinking on this year’s Budget, which is expected later this month. His headaches include inflation, a current account deficit, high import duties, and importantly how best to increase government revenues.
So, before the big day, I’m asking all of you what to expect in this year’s Budget?
People keep on talking about India’s demographic dividend; will the septuagenarian Finance Minister understand what’s required to ensure that the future is prosperous for this massively important population bracket. A budget for the young, perhaps?
Will he use the opportunity to guarantee market reforms that enable foreign firms get a larger piece of the action? Will India Inc exert its influence to ensure home company advantage?
What policies is he going to put in place that will help India break the 10% GDP growth rate, that India desires? Education, Employability, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship are critical drivers to achieve this. What’s he thinking on these?
If you have any idea on the above, or on the forthcoming budget, leave your comments below.
Twitter journalism in India
Turn on your TV, open a broadsheet newspaper, tune in to a radio station, and you’ll inevitably find journalists passing stories off as originals when in fact they’re not. Much of India’s journalism, in my view, doesn’t stack up. it just isn’t good enough. Maybe its because of the massive explosion in the Indian media sector – where every journalist and organisation has to work even harder for stories that they in fact start passing off trivial stuff as being news-worthy.
All you have to look at is the huge dependence of Indian journos on Twitter. Over the past week since I’ve been on vacation in India, all the newspapers have written stories for their main sections based on 140 characters tweeted by x or y Indian celeb! I’m not saying that India is the only place it happens, as I also read stories in the UK that are sourced from Twitter, but I see a much larger number of these tweets written up as bigger articles in India.
Editors ought to realize that they risk strangling the goose that laid the golden egg if they don’t improve the standards of journalism. Twitter, and social media tools are valuable sources of information, but ultimately a call needs to be made as to whether a story on x celeb stating they’re no longer entertaining their followers on Twitter, or they’re endorsing a new skin whitening cream really needs to take up 300 words in the main section of a “quality” newspaper.
I’m a big fan of the Indian media sector. They’ve entertained, explained, exposed, and generally done a fab job over the years, but my recently concluded visit has stirred me enough to write this blog-post.
There’s nothing wrong with gossip and tittle-tattle, I enjoy it as much as the next person, but they do a great disservice by passing of such trivia as genuine news.
There’s cows on the roads!
Ever since my kids were born, I’ve wanted to take them to India – the land of my ancestors. Partly, as I wanted them to connect at an early age with their heritage, and partly as I think they’ll be better equipped for the future if they start understanding the nuances of India – a country that everyone’s accepted as being central to global prosperity in the future.
In their lifetimes, they’ll see massive change. The centre of gravity will shift from Europe & North America to India & China. Given their obvious link to one of these future superpowers, our purpose was to introduce them to the sights, smells, and joys of our motherland.
So, we took them to Mumbai – home to the Indian film industry, commercial capital of India, and a bustling metropolis that is, arguably, the most outward looking of all Indian cities where their eyes came alight with – not the razzle dazzle of neon lights – but by seeing cows, goats, and pigs sharing the roads with the human race and by witnessing the sheer number of people on the streets of Mumbai.
Although I say it in light jest, it’s an important lesson that they realize that a civilization as ancient as it is, respects & shares with others, and that the concept of private space is (a luxury, and) perhaps, unique to the western hemisphere.
Along with the (rather, costly) saree shopping we had to endure on this visit; on New Years Day, we took the opportunity to visit a community school run by a NGO called Pratham in a Mumbai slum. I’d heard and read a lot about their stellar work, but visiting projects such as the ones we did reminded us that India may be a wonderfully colourful, vibrant, and hip place to be but there’s absolutely no escaping the fact that India is still home to a third of the world’s poor.
Cars, scooters, and rickshaws not only share roads with cows and other animals, you also visibly see the increasingly affluent sharing their immediate vicinity with some of the poorest people on the face of our planet.
My kids visited a crammer class of 20 students aged 7, who all sat cross-legged on the floor in a one room building with a teacher who used a blackboard to coach them on how they could attain a 80% pass rate for an exam, which if they did would provide them with 750 rupee (just over £10) scholarship to study further.
We worked our way through the slum – with open sewers, noisy workshops, and a dhobi ghat, to visit a room that also doubled up as a community library, which had fewer books than, not our local school library, but the books on the shelves in my children’s bedrooms! It may have been woefully inadequately resourced, but what came through was the immense pleasure of the children’s faces from being able to read the few books that they had at their disposal. With every page they turned, you could see their minds working overtime to grasp and understand what the author intended.
Lastly, we visited another home, where 20 children aged 2 – 6, who had never gone to school, were able to say the days of the week, read an early stage book, and respond in English to us.
All of this served to bring to the fore not only that we’re materially better off and have comforts that so many don’t, but the fact that there’s an entire generation that’s young and hungry to succeed. They’re going to take every opportunity that comes their way to improve their lives.
Economic forecasts show that as a result of various factors, primarily due its very young population, almost 25% of the world’s workforce will reside in India, not in 50 years, but in the next 15 years – in our lifetimes!
The basic message that we want our kids to recognise is that they have an inbuilt advantage, which they would be wise to embrace given the strides that India’s going to be making. Their economic well being in London, will in some shape or form, be dependent on how they understand and interact with India.
As parents, my wife & I committed to doing everything at our means to ensure our children run faster than we did, have larger dreams that we had, and in all are able to stand strong, not on their own, but realizing they belong to an increasingly interdependent and connected ecosystem – on in which they understand that their actions can have a major impact on someone else’s prosperity and vice-versa.
Whilst, I’ve focused on the material benefits of a relationship with the Indian subcontinent in this post, I don’t want to leave you with the impression that that’s all India offers for the future. It was Mark Twain who aptly described India as “India is, the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great grand mother of tradition. Our most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India only”, meaning that her ancient traditions, religious practices, philosophical outlook could perhaps address and teach us how to be better people and, just perhaps, answer the mother of all our questions – “what is the meaning of life”.
My daughters are way too young to grasp such issues, but, I hope that as a result of the connection they made in their 2010 Christmas break, they’re able to run that little bit further, climb a bit higher, and dream a bigger dream.
Seldom do I use this blog to register my dismay about things, but I wanted to let you know about the recent Kingfisher flight that I took for my family vacation to India from London.
No one can fault them for the severe snowfall we had in London in the week preceding Christmas, however they need to (a) sharpen up their communications, (b) be more honest & transparent with their customers, and (c) provide an agreeable standard of customer service.
Let me cite some examples:
On the day of the snow, all newsreports said that Heathrow was shut down, however the Kingfisher website showed the flight as being scheduled. So, after hanging on the phone for over an hour to their call-centre, we made our way to Heathrow as instructed by their operator. On arrival, I was totally dumbstruck with the mass of people in Terminal 4. Literally, there wasn’t an inch of floor space that you could occupy.
Having witnessed the scene, it was obvious to me that the airport would need to be closed, but just to check, I spoke with the Kingfisher representative at the check-in zone, who after being surrounded with the chaos around them for the whole day, suggested we check in as there was a “good chance” of us leaving, despite the fact that the plane meant to be taking us to Mumbai had been diverted to Brussels and in all probabilities wouldn’t land or take off from Heathrow that night!
Anyone in their sane mind could see what was going on around them. So, I quizzed another representative who admitted that their instructions were to encourage passengers to check in, despite knowing that they’d be nowhere for them to go. Pushing a lie is simply not acceptable or honourable.
Thankfully, we didn’t check in and made the decision to return home as in my view no flights would make it out that day. When I got back home, I learnt that Heathrow had since closed, and was therefore relieved that I didn’t follow the reps advice to check in and proceed as normal through immigration, else I would’ve been stuck without my luggage or transport with two kids and four suitcases in tow.
Over the next few days, I tried to rebook our tickets, and managed to confirm some seats for travel on Christmas Day, which I was happy to do as I had come off lightly from the experience so far. Rebooking the seats was burdensome, as for the first two days, they were unable to confirm which date they could accommodate us.
I tried contacting them (Kingfisher and Vijay Mallya – the guy who owns the airline) using all methods, including Twitter. But they seemed intent on ignoring me. I was irritated, frustrated, and felt I was wasting time.
What’s the point of getting onto a platform like Twitter if all you intend on doing is pushing your sales messages to customers. Everyone knows Twitter is about engagement and interaction. Customers hate it when companies push their marketing down their throats, and even more so when the tweets are simply irrelevant. Next time I want to know about Bollywood films, I’ll check your Twitter feed instead of Stardust magazine! What a total joke!
So, as I was traveling with my young kids, I specified their dietary preferences and booked kids meals for them, to find that they weren’t available on either leg of my flight! The vegetarian food they had onboard was far too spicy for a child and they didn’t have any alternatives. So, my kids went hungry.
The only hope I had was that the in-flight entertainment system would keep them occupied, but to find that it kept on freezing – not just for me but for many others – on both legs of the flight. I almost felt sorry for the staff on the plane, as they had to continuously push a lie to passengers who complained by saying that this was a one-off – as was confirmed by their stewardess who said “we’ve been instructed to say these faults are a one off”. Again, we unearth instructions from management for their frontline staff to push a blatant lie.
I booked Kingfisher on the recommendation of a few friends who often travel in Business Class, thinking that those of us in Economy would prevail of some of the luxuries, such as good food and a good entertainment system that would keep my kids occupied for the duration. Sadly, this wasn’t the case. We were let down, despite our tickets being more expensive than other airlines like Jet were offering, who I’ve always been perfectly happy with. I was suckered by Kingfisher’s marketing in thinking they were going to be better.
To rub it in, at the beginning of the journey, Vijay Mallya delivers a welcome message on the in-flight system saying that he’s instructed his staff to treat customers like his personal guests. If that’s the case, Mr Mallya, I dread your hospitality at home.
It’s known that Airlines make their money in Business & First Class compartments, but it’s sickening that Kingfisher takes “guests” in economy, literally, for a ride.
Going to India, for many, is a phenomenal, lifetime experience. They associate India with great hospitality. If you’re going to claim to be a flag bearer for India, please stop. You’re doing her a great disservice.
Kingfisher fails on so many levels. All hype, no substance. A definite thumbs down from us and from the sound of it, from fellow passengers on our flight.
