We are what we are !!

புலமைக்கு  ஒருஅணி பாரதியார்;     புதுமைக்கு   ஒருமுடி பாரதியார்; புவியினிலே  அவனோர் கவியரசன்;      புரட்சியிலே அவனோர்  மெய்வீரன் ! ஊறும் மணற்கேணியன்றிவர் பாட்டு!       பாற் கேணியாமவர் தம் கூற்று! ஏறின் பீடுநடை தெறிக்கும் கருத்து!       வீறு கொண்டேழுப்பும் செயலுக்கு! தேனின்ப மட்டுமன்று தமிழ்ச் செவிக்கு!         மேனியுள்ளமெங்கும் பரவு அமிழ்து! ஊனுயிர் ஊட்டும் அவரின் செப்புமொழி!          வானமெங்கும் பாடும் குயில் மொழி! அச்சமில்லை என்றே முழங்கினான் அவன்;          ஆணுக்கு சமானம் புதுமைப் பெண் என்றான் ; இச்சகத்து உளோரெல்லாம் எதிர்த்து நின்றிடினும்,          இனியொரு விதிசெய்வோம் தனியே என்றான்! காவெனக் கத்திடும் காக்கையை அழைப்பான்;            கானக அரசன் சிங்கமாய் கர்ஜிப்பான்; பாரினில்  ஒருவனுக்கு உணவில்லை என்றால்             பாரையே அழி...

Pl. see the below page from the Central Govt published data. link Regular IT assessments done by Dept is yielding only 7 to 8% of total Gross Direct tax collected where as Adv. Tax, TDS and SA Tax is 92% i.e the voluntary compliance . Is there not a strong case for abolishing Assts for atleast individuals who have good track record of say 10 continuous years and have limited scrutiny assessments only for Corporates/Companies with incentives for exemption from assessments if they remit Tax at least 15% more year on year.This will take care of tax buoyancy ratio and reduce assessment costs drastically. Mr.Sunil Jain of FE recently sent a tweet to FM saying that IT dept is following up with him on some assessment notice despite complying with it and paying tax. Everyone of us have similar experiences on IT assessments despite computerisation. Straightaway all these scrutiny assessments can be called " IT Harassments "-no euphemism. But it sho...

துளித்துளியாய் வீழ்கின்ற வேகம், களியின்பம் ஊட்டுகின்ற ராகம்! வெட்டுகின்ற  ஒளிக்கீற்று பறக்க, கொட்டுகின்ற  மழைநீரும் ஒலிக்க, விண்ணுலக  மடைதிறந்து பொழிந்து, மண்ணுலகப் பச்சையுடன் கலந்து, ஏங்குகின்ற  பயிரனைத்தும்  அணைத்து, தாங்குகின்ற  காட்சிதனைப்  பார்த்தால், அழுகின்ற குழந்தையின் பசியாற்ற சுரக்கின்ற  தாய்ப்பால் போலத்தானோ!!

The other day somebody told me that Abraham Lincoln after winning the elections , formed his first cabinet with three of the people who were his rivals for Republican nomination. Lincoln had a logic- Cabinet should represent diverse views and perspectives and also fiercely independent. Should a Corporate Board reflect such diversity and independence? Every director in the Board brings with him or her wisdom for running the business and board diversity ensures that several new windows are opened and explored, new doors are found and hidden doors are unhinged. One of the tasks for Boards is to form Committees like Audit Committee,NRC, Independent Directors' Committee etc. Now with rapid  and disrupting changes happening around you,the importance of forming Risk Management Committee, Technology Adaptation Committee, Business Strategy Committee etc. has gained quite a bit of traction. Invariably for effective functioning of these Committees, Boards must have requisite reservoir ...

நல்லதொரு பெண்ணே! உன் மேலுடையின் பொலிவு மட்டுமே உன்னை அழகுபடுத்தவில்லை! உன் உள் பக்கங்களை படிக்க படிக்க அர்த்தமுள்ளதாகக் காண்கிறேன்! உன்னை ஒவ்வொருமுறை படிக்கும்போதும் புத்தம்புதிய பதவுரைகளை என் உள்ளத்தில் முத்தமிட்டு பதிய வைக்கிறாய்! உன்னைக் கைப்பிடித்த நாள் முதலாய் வற்றாத ஊற்றாய் நீ பலவிதப் பார்வையில் ஆயிரம் அர்த்தங்களை அள்ளித் தெளிக்கிறாய்! உனக்கு என்மேல் அவ்வளவு அன்பா?!

"Putting fruit at the eye level" is a Nudge. Nudge proposes positive reinforcements  to influence the behaviour and decision making at individual level and at a societal level. Richard Thaler   and Cass Sunstein in their book  Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happines s have written on Nudges as the key method for influencing the human behaviour which has huge ramifications for the economic and political spheres of every country. Thaler won Nobel Prize for this path-breaking behavioural economics concept. The theory itself was built on the heuristic human behaviour concept of Daniel Kahnemann-Tversky model.Daniel Kahnemann in his book Thinking: Fast and Slow mentions System 1 and System 2 of human thinking process in which System 1 is quick, fast, hunch-based,heuristic and System 2 based on some primitive level analysis to arrive at prefered choice or option. When people have to contend with many choices/constraints or facing time constraint, S...

கரை ஓரமெல்லாம் பூஞ்சோலை; சோலை ஓரமெல்லாம் நீரோடை; ஓடை ஓரமெல்லாம் வயல்வரப்பு; வரப்பு  ஓரமெல்லாம் பச்சைப்பயிர்; பயிர் ஓரமெல்லாம் பூரிப்பு; பூரிப்பு  ஓரமெல்லாம் நல்லழகு; அழகு ஓரமெல்லாம் கனவு; கனவின் ஓரமெல்லாம் மகிழ்ச்சி; மகிழ்வின் ஓரமெல்லாம் நினைப்பு; நினைவின் ஓரமெல்லாம் நீ; உன் பாதை ஓரமெல்லாம் நதிக்கரை!!

Antikythera mechanism and modern computer. Many scientists who have worked on studying Greek's antikythera mechanism which was found in a shipwreck in early twentieth century, to be precise 1901, is considered as the world's first analogue computer.. This was used to predict the astronomical events, transits, eclipses and other planetary positions well ahead of their occurences and used for astrological purposes even decades in advance. There are some confusions as to whether it used Greek astronomy, Egypt astronomy or Rhodes' astronomy where Archimedes lived. The twelve months given in that machine carry the Greek names but has equivalent Egyptian names also. The research on this first computer has not yet concluded, even though the machine itself has disintegrated over a period of time from the time it was discovered under the sea. But in India from time immemorial , astronomy has been studied by great sages and used for astrological purposes. The Hindu priest cla...

காந்திஜிக்கு  சமர்ப்பணம்  எங்கனையோ மூலையில சின்னவலி எங்கிட்டு வந்தது இந்தயிடி? கீளவிழ அடித்த அந்தக்கோளைகள் கீறிவிட்ட மனசில இந்தவலியோ? கூறுகெட்ட மனுசங்க எந்நெஞ்சை  கூறுபோட நினைச்சாத்தான் முடியுமா ? பாதையில  கல்லுமுள்ளு  போட்டாநானு  பாதைக்கு பயந்து ஓடுவனா? கைவிளக்கை ஒடச்சி எறிஞ்சிட்டா  பைய எம் மனசும் இருளுமா ? அடக்கி முடக்கி உதைச்சா அடங்கிப் போயி அழுவனா? குரல்வளைய  மிதிச்சாநானு குரலெழுப்ப மறப்பனா? கால முறிச்சி போட்டாநானு  கோல ஊனி போகமாட்டன் ? என்னயவிட எங்குருதிய விட நான் போகும் பாட்டை பெரிசுல்ல ? when the whole world is raising slogans on BLM( Black Lives Matter) , I rededicate my above poem once again to the ideals of Gandhiji who famously said "Means justify the Ends".Difficult for us to digest this and follow in our lives, it is based on the universal rule of Dharma.According to him All Lives Matter!!

ஒரு கவிதை!- நீ  - நான்- பிரதிபலிப்பு ! நீ                                                                          நான் என்னைப்                                                             உன்னைப் பார்க்கும் பார்வையில்                                         பார்க்கும் பார்வையில் உன்னை                                                               நான் நீயே       ...

The four states of Consciousness or is it five states really: 1) Jagrat- when we are fully awake and when all our 5 senses are active and mind and the body work in tandem. What we do in this state of wakefulness has been described in all our philosophies and Katho Upanishad's story of Nachiketa's dialogue with Yama gives a glimpse. When the young boy Nachiketa asks Yama for the third boon asking him to explain the mystery of what happens after death, Yama after showing reluctance initially ,answers and blesses Nachiketa for his steadfastness .Yama says the Self/Soul is the lord of the chariot, the body is the chariot, the intellect is the charioteer, the mind is the reins, and the five senses are the horses leading the chariot wallowing through the desires of life. The same is also told by Bhagawan Krishna in Chapter 3 verse 43 indirectly when he said "jahi Shatrum kama roopam dhurasatham" -that for slaying the lust and desires, one should control the senses thro...

The great Tamil writer  சுஜாதா(Sujatha) once wrote that our lives are one of Progressive Compromises of unfulfilled wishes and wants. When we are born, Sigmund Freud said ,that we are born with Id, Ego and Alterego-the three states of our subconscious existence and the interplay between these three manifests in our personality and reflect in our behavioural traits. Eric Berne wrote a famous book "Games People Play:The Psychology of Human Relationships" where he described how Child,Adult and Parent ego states play and he described it in terms Transactional Analysis for interpreting all the social interactions.He also went on to say that people also play mind games with hidden motives,desires etc. and described such negative behaviours in terms of the ego states dominating the individuals. For solving the life's problems Thomas Harris wrote a practical guide "I'm Ok, You are OK" by doing  the Transactional Analysis of the behavioural pattern of individu...

I had the privilege and honour of attending "Art of Living" sessions for 4 consecutive days. the sessions were very informative, opening many doors for me even though known to me. There were exercises for the conscious, subconscious and superconscious levels. One of the tasks given to us was to do 5 random acts of Kindness by each one of the participants. This was thought-provoking for me ,since I wanted to continue with it every day. Feeding a dog, crow, helping your wife in household chores(Is it an act of kindness!!), making a small donation, etc. But sustaining this on a day to day basis every day is highly demanding. So I have reduced it to at least 2 acts of kindness per day!! There are a few important powerful messages I received: 1)Opposite values are complementary- day/night, ugly/beautiful, good/bad- one cannot exist without the other. Somebody said Opposites merge in Oneness like Seshnag and Garuda exist in one abode with Bhagwan. Thiruvalluvar said "...

Humans are students of life with the ability to help others in every possible way, however small may it be, day in and day out and go up in the ladder of evolvement of their individual souls. In this process they realise that they are preprogrammed machines with same set of Operating Systems  of mind and senses ,but with a discerning intellect guided by the Paramatman from deep inside. Some may agree that the "inner voice" of conscience, as Gandhiji would put it,  is God speaking to you or through you and many may disagree with this. Let us not digress into that.Let us keep it aside as this is a black box about which discussion can go on endlessly. But the elephant in the room is that we have limited cognition of both our external  universe i.e physical outer world as well as, of the inner mind space world. We are only tuned into certain frequencies or preset softwares, for the purpose of our existence in this earth. We are daily shaped by our observations cum exp...

In 1896, Ernest Hanbury Hankin, a British Bacteriologist, Chemist, came out with a fi nding that the Indian rivers, Ganges and Jamuna could actually restrict the outbreak of cholera a nd in fact the waters could destroy the Cholera bacteria. He was the first to detect the bacteriophage activity and its presence in the river waters of Ganges and Jamuna. A startling discovery when the whole world was saying the river waters of Ganges were the most polluted. link . In his own words "It is seen that the unboiled water of the Ganges kills the cholera germ in less than 3 hours. The same water, when boiled, does not have the same effect. On the other hand, well water is a good medium for this microbe, whether boiled or filtered." This was mentioned even by Mark Twain in his More Tramps Abroad. Recently microbiology researchers from Chandigarh's I n stitute of Microbial Technology (IMTECH), studied the healing properties of Ganges water at its upper reaches and found bacter...

When coming out of a pandemic will the world view change? I recently read that Ms.Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, has inducted more Virologists, Epidemiologists and Sociologists etc. into her team for the purpose of decision making in these challenging times of the pandemic.Of course there are Economists also in the policy making. Leaders around the world either leading a country or leading a corporation have started listening to the Health Experts for formulating new Age policies across the continents. The Health policy to dovetail into Economic Policy of the country. So far countries have been juggling only with Monetary Policy and Fiscal Policy but now the "New Normal" has emerged, where economic policy making is incumbent upon Health Policy direction, speed and spread. The following graph will illustrate how Economic well being and growth of a country is going to hinge on its Health Policy and Infra in the coming years. As Risk Management Experts view th...

"Buy land, they're not making it anymore"-Mark Twain Govt. is in the process of identifying land parcels for attracting industries moving out of China for want of safe haven. If big land parcels can be earmarked for setting up Industrial parks and industrial clusters, it will give a huge fillip for Make in India campaign. As PM said India has the Intent, it paves way for Inclusion,  provides Infrastructure. attracts Investment and enables  Innovation. But what is stopping it from leap frogging. It is redtapism in land acquisition ,lackadaisical Court procedures and the greed of politicians that put paid to ambitions of growth in Make in India. Even smaller countries like Vietnam, Indonesia are able to attract industries moving out of China in a big way but the sleeping giant like India falters. Despite improving the ranking in Ease of Doing Business has the economy really energised itself to become an aspiring industrial giant. There are green shoots here and there...

Kubler-Ross Change Curve This Curve theory explains the process as to how people cope up with significant upheaval or life-changing or threatening situations. link The process explains that people undergo five/six stages: the first stage is that of Shock, then going into Denial, then to Anger, moving into Depression. Up to this stage the performance of the individual or group of people will continue to deteriorate as time progresses. Once the inevitability of the Change dawns, then the people move to Acceptance and finally into Integration when the performance will again start regaining the original position or sometimes exceeding it if there are supporting enablers or incentives. This is true for individuals as well as for a country or economy. Since the nation received the pandemic shock in March middle, you may recount we have seen at least the first four stages. We start denying that this pandemic will affect us and once we realised that it is spreading we showed ...

RBI consumer confidence survey was done in May 2020, which came out a few days back paints a dark picture of consumer confidence. It has hit rock bottom so far. link . Whether it will hit another bottom is a moot point. According to RBI Consumer confidence collapsed in May with the Current Situation Index (CSI) touching a historic low of 63.7 dipping from 85.6 in March 20. One year ahead Future Expectations Index entered the zone of pessimism at 97.9 for the first time after Modi govt. took charge, falling from 115.2 just two months ago. These are all negative news, but as expected. However these are lag news and therefore markets looking for lead indicators ignored this. We all now know that Covid 19 has wreaked havoc on our economic health more than what it could do to people health. But there are several silver linings like not many people do not expect price levels to go up. If we discount the "recency bias" in their opinions and perceptions,I still find 14.4 % peo...