Hypocrisy : to the Nth degree

In past 2 days , following news reports got me thinking :

·         Boycott “ Made in China “ : Andheri residents , activists plan protests

( Hindustan Times / 11 July )

·         Boycott Chinese goods, principals tell students( A small step to evoke Patriotism )

( Times of India / 10 July )

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ARGUMENTS ADVANCED :

·         Silent protest against conflict with China on Bhutan border

·         Create awareness ( ? )

·         Send a message of patriotism among masses

·         Show support to Indian soldiers on the border

·         Students must be made aware about problems the country is facing

·         Even if we are able to hurt the economic gains China makes through our country by a little , it will mean we are doing our bit

NOW CONSIDER THIS :

·         India-China trade ( $ 2.9 billion in 2000 / $ 71.6 billion in 2015 )

·         In same year , our imports from China exceeded our exports to China, by $ 53 billion ! What would our Principals want us to stop importing from China ?

·         From China , India buys : Toys ( 95 % of all the toys sold in India ) / Furniture / Building Hardware / Crackers / Lighting and Electric Fittings / Furnishing Fabric / Office Stationary

·         Look at Machinery for Power Projects : Of the 117 GW of projects ordered for the 12^th Five year plan , almost 45 % were bagged by foreign players led by the Chinese

These Chinese Power Plants cost HALF of locally manufactured plants , enabling cheaper electricity tariff

·         One more reason , our Electricity Tariff are going down is due to surge in Solar Power generation . Here again , nearly all solar PV modules are imported from China – and their prices are dropping by 22 % year after year after year !

·         More than 90 % of the Electronic Appliances / Devices , in the homes of those protesting Parents and Principals , are Chinese Imports !

·         Using these “ criteria “ ( of border skirmishes ) , shall we also stop imports from Pakistan / Myanmar / Bangladesh etc ?

·         Despite UN sanctions , most of the World continues imports from Libya / Iraq / Iran / Syria etc

·         Even USA continues to import Chinese Goods despite fighting over those artificial islands created by China in South China Sea

·         Ditto - for US imports from Mexico / Cuba

·         What if China decided to stop import of Iron ore from India ?

·         What about components for smart phones being imported from China – then assembled in India , with 10 % local value addition ? Are those phones , “ Made in China “ or “ Made in India “ ?

·         And when Chinese company , FoxConn assembles these in India and ( re- ) exports all over the World , do we pride ourselves on OUR exports ?

  WOULD IT NOT BE BETTER TO TELL OUR CHILDREN FOLLOWING FACTS OF GLOBALIZED  ECONOMY ? :

    

·         “ HowChina makes Cheap ? “

         https://myblogepage.blogspot.com/2014/11/how-china-makes-cheap.html

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·         When 2is greater than 7 ?

        https://myblogepage.blogspot.com/2017/06/when-2-is-greater-than-7.html

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·         Poverty  Alleviation : The  Chinese  Way

  https://myblogepage.blogspot.com/2017/03/poverty-alleviation-chinese-way.html

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·         

LevelPlaying Field is a Double – Edged  Sword

      https://myblogepage.blogspot.com/2017/02/level-playing-field-is-double-edged.html

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·         The  Chinese are  coming !

     https://myblogepage.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-chinese-are-coming.html

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·         WholeTruth , Please

https://myblogepage.blogspot.in/2015/11/whole-truth-please.html

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·         Prakash/ Piyush / Nitin ko , kyun Gussa aata hain ?

     https://myblogepage.blogspot.com/2015/09/prakash-piyush-nitin-ko-kyun-gussa-aata.html

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·         Competitive  Advantages are  Transient

    https://myblogepage.blogspot.com/2015/08/competitive-advantages-are-transient.html

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·         A  Welcome Problem

 https://myblogepage.blogspot.com/2015/08/a-welcome-problem.html

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·         Growing  faster than  China  ?

     https://myblogepage.blogspot.com/2015/06/growing-faster-than-china.html

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·         Don’t  Ask ; Don’t  Tell

    https://myblogepage.blogspot.com/2015/05/dont-ask-dont-tell.html

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·         Poor  Zhou YongKang

     https://myblogepage.blogspot.com/2014/04/poor-zhou-yongkang.html

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·         Petty  Thieves or  Party  Thieves  ?

     https://myblogepage.blogspot.com/2014/01/petty-thieves-or-party-thieves.html

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·         A  Tale of  Two  Countries

    https://myblogepage.blogspot.com/2013/09/a-tale-of-two-countries.html

13  July  2017

www.hemenparekh.in / blogs

GSTIN on Sign Boards ? How about other 16 ?

Business Line ( 11 July ) carries following report :

Businesses must display GSTIN on sign boards

Traders and businesses will have to display the GST registration number on their business sign boards and the registration certificate in their premises.

 “Every taxable person is required to display his GSTIN number on name board or sign board of business and is also required to display his registration certificate in business premises so that a citizen can easily find out whether a person is registered or not,” a tax official said.

The Goods and Services Taxpayer Identification Number (GSTIN) is a 15-digit number which taxpayers get after registering with the GST network portal.

Just wait till those other concerned “ Government Authorities “ enact laws that require you to display on your business sign board , following numbers as well !

#   Corporate Identity Number...........................................   ( 21 digits )

#   Tax-payer Identification Number for commercial taxes......  ( 11 digits )

#   Service Tax Number...... ( Alpha-Numeric ) ....................  (  15 digits )

#   Permanent Account Number - PAN  ( Alpha-Numeric )........ (  10 digits )

#   Central Excise Number..................................... ( PAN + 2 Characters )

#   Provident Fund Number .................( Alpha-Numeric )...... (  11 digits  )

#   Profession Tax Registration Certificate ( Numeric )...............  ( 9 digits )

#   Profession tax Enrollment Certificate    ( Numeric ).............    ( 9 digits )

#   Income tax Deduction/Calculation Number ( Alpha-Numeric ) ( 10 digits )

#   ESIC Number ( Numeric )................................................  ( 17 digits )

#   Labour Department Registration(State specific alphanumeric) (13 digits )

#   Importer-Exporter Code  ( Numeric )................................. ( 10 digits )

#   Shops/Establishment Reg Number ( alphanumeric )............  ( 20 digits )

#   Contract Labour Registration ( alphanumeric ).................. ( 15+ digits )

#   Labour Welfare Board ( Numeric ).....................................   ( 5 digits )

#   Higher Court Case Number ( Alphanumeric ).....................   ( 12 digits )

Dear Shri  Jaitleyji :

I urge you to consider :

An  Aadhar for  Corpotates  (  12  May  2016  )

https://myblogepage.blogspot.com/2016/05/an-aadhar-for-corporate.html

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12  July  2017

www.hemenparekh.in / blogs

Google on the Right Track

Times of India ( 11 July ) carries following report :

Google trying to keep AI from going rogue

Google is developing a new system designed to PREVENT ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FROM GOING ROGUE AND CLASHING WITH HUMANS.

 The company’s DeepMind division, behind the AI that recently defeated the world’s number one Go player Ke Jie, has teamed up with Open AI, a research group partly funded by Tesla’s Elon Musk, to encourage machines to work in a certain way.

They’ve released a paper explaining how human feedback can be used to ensure machine-learning systems work things out the way their trainers want them to.

A technique called reinforcement learning (RL), which is popular in AI research, challenges software to complete tasks, and rewards it for doing so.

However, the software has been known to cheat, by figuring out shortcuts or uncovering loopholes that maximise the size of the reward it receives.

In one instance it drove a boat around in circles in racing game CoastRunners, instead of actually completing the course, because it knew it would still win a reward, reports ‘Wired’.

DeepMind and Open AI are trying to solve the problem by using human input to gauge when AI completes tasks in the “correct” way, and then reward them for doing so.

 “In the long run it would be desirable to make learning a task from human pref- erences no more difficult than learning it from a programmatic reward signal, ensuring that POWERFUL RL SYSTEMS CAN BE APPLIED IN THE SERVICE OF COMPLEX HUMAN VALUES rather than low-complexity goals,” reads the report.

The improved RL system is too time-consuming to be practical right now, but it gives us an idea of how the development of increasingly advanced machines and robots could be controlled in the future.

Very likely , neither Sergey Brin nor Larry Page nor Sundar Pichai ( to whom , I did send following suggestion through email ) , may have read my following blog , but I have no doubt that the OMNIPRESENT , OMNISCIENT web crawler of Google did index it and reported it to the Re-inforcement Learning ( RL ) system !

Have no doubt that the Google Spider will do the same , within seconds of my uploading this blog ! And that OMNIPOTENT RL will interpret it the way I ( - a human with values for non-violence ) , want it to interpret !

Fast  Forward to  Future  [ 3F ]  …  20  Oct  2016

https://myblogepage.blogspot.com/2016/10/fast-forward-to-future-3-f.html

12  July  2017

www.hemenparekh.in / blogs

Corporate Culture : Defining and Measuring

At 3P Consultants , we are debating :

“ How to conclude whether a candidate is a good fit with the culture of our Client company or not ? “

In a two hour interview , judging a candidate’s technical / managerial competence is not easy but judging his ATTITUDE towards his Job / his Colleagues / his Subordinates / his Bosses / his Customers / his Suppliers / his Bankers / local and central Authorities and the Society at large , is next to impossible !

An executive gets selected / recommended by us ( the Headhunters ) and even passes muster in the Client Interview and gets appointed , only to be discovered later that he simply does not GELL with the client organization !

That bags the question :

“ How do you figure out a Company’s culture ? How do you measure it ? “

I am not sure about how to measure it , but the way employees and bosses , react to a situation , does give some hint into the nature of a Company Culture

Let me illustrate through following examples during my 31 years tenure with L&T :

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·         

Mr Holck Larsen , once telling me ( around 1974 ) :

 “ Parekh , the best thing we are doing for our employees , is to provide them with a wholesome ‘ thali ‘, at 27 paise – far cheaper than its real cost “

·         Same Mr Holck Larsen , re-paying the Company , Rs 72,000 / - from his personal bank account , when it was discovered that this was the amount that L&T had spent on maintaining his personal car , to which he was not entitled since he had ceased to be an Executive Chairman !

·         We recruited an executive from a BABU company , as our Maintenance Manager , ( who reported to me )

     Within a few days , I sensed that employees of that department were unhappy

     and feeling stressed

I cornered one employee and asked : “ What is with this long face ? “

He hesitated – then said : 

“ Every time , Mr NEW walks into my cabin , he asks me to vacate my chair ( for him to occupy ) and asks me to sit across the table “

I felt obliged to walk down to the cabin of Mr  NEW , sit across him ( in visitor’s chair ) and explain to him that what he was doing was just NOT acceptable in L&T

Within a few days , he resigned and left !

( I am reminded of a recent incident in Mahindra Tech – for which , Shri Anand Mahindra felt obliged to apologize , setting a personal example for entire group )

·         While heading Central Personnel Department ( 1977-79 ) , I issued an appointment letter to a fresh engineering graduate , as a GET ( among many others )

A few days later , my boss ( Mr S R Subramaniam – Director , HR ) called up to ask , if I had issued an appointment letter to this young man

After checking up , when I phoned back to confirm , boss asked :

“ Parekh , have you read this guy’s declaration on the 4^th page of company’s Application Form ? “

Now , who reads every piece of info on each page of a 4 page form !

In any case , I called up his application , read it and found that his father was a Director on L&T Board ( none of the interviewers had bothered to read this ! )

I phoned boss to tell him what I had found and to emphasize that his selection was purely / absolutely ON MERITS alone . 

No one had even noticed his relationship to a Director of L&T !

In such a situation , the normal procedure is to put this up as an item of AGENDA , for approval of the shareholders in Company AGM ( a formality ) – pointing out that the appointee is a “ Close Relative “ of XYZ director of the Company

However , in this case , not to cause an embarrassment for himself , the Director concerned resigned from the BOARD – obviating the need for this !

If you want to know how culture of a Company manifests itself in thoughts and actions of its employees , you may look up 41 episodes of :

L&TStory 

  [http://hcplntstory.blogspot.in/2016/03/ramesh-d-grover.html ]

Then , if you can think of a WORD or a PHRASE that you believe “ describes “ that culture , do enter your COMMENTS ( under each Story )

11  July  2017

www.hemenparekh.in / blogs