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Saturday, 24 August 2013

Microsoft and UPA

Share price of Microsoft went up by 10% after Ballmer announced  hanging his boot. In fact , he himself got richer by 1 billion dollar in a day.  Microsoft which has been doing so dull on wall street for last so many years has suddenly been rejuvenated.  It's time now for Manmohan to follow the suit. May be a lot of his party fellows along with him will become richer......BTw , resigning could never been so beneficial as it could be today. That is only way to stop the slide of Rupee and make the CAD positive. The fall is not economic, it is political. India story is similar to Microsoft. If Ballmer didn't let Microsoft to get into mobile technology and tap what Google  and Apple could easily do, India also not able to catch the growth engines. Microsoft relied on license cost, India also could not get out of the complex tax laws and FMs thought that is the only way to control fiscal deficit. If Microsoft didn't promote innovation, We also never thought of skill development and expanding the manufacturing base. Microsoft thought no one can match their PC programmes and India thought no matter what they do, FDI. will keep coming and India shining story will continue to sell. Dear UPA team, it's high time pl follow what Ballmer has done , Google ( NaMo) is catching up too quickly and at the same time stakeholder (India common man) is loosing too much of market valuation. By issuing bonus shares and dividends ( food bill) , you are not doing good to the capital and creating more fiscal deficit. It's time for new thinking , the stakeholder is getting anxious to get rid of you.

Sunday, 18 August 2013

Sports and Coach

whenever I see a young child having some prodigious talent in Sport, I start dreaming to see him or her  donning the national cap or Jercy. But unfortunately, I am yet to see anyone close by reaching to that level....why it happens so often. Recently, I saw a boy with a strong ball control abilities and he was dribbling the football awesomely. I thought he could become a fantastic midfielder and as usual advised him to take the game seriously. After a few days, When I saw him again, it was the not the foot ball but the cricket bat in the hand. This is the irony of our country that eventually everyone gets glamorized by this sport which in first place doesn't even deserve to be called sport. Anyway, I was surprised to find him belting the ball with stupendous ease. Seems, hand eye coordination was in his genes.  Being a free speaking mentor cum coach on every topic ,Once again, I went up to him and typically gave some tips ...keep your elbow straight, play close to the body, don't play the balls which you can't reach..etc..etc...I thought this guy has potential to reach at least state level if not national level. But to my surprise ( should nt call it surprise rather routine) , after a few days when I again saw him playing , he had become even worse player and my dream of seeing him at state level got shattered. ....I always wondered , what happens to the promising talent and what is required to take them where they actually belongs to.....till a couple of weeks back ,on one of the lovely Sunday, I went to watch the movie " Bhag Milkha Bhag" with the family. There has been already a large number of reviews written on the technicality of the movie but to me, this had a lot of answers to my question. Milkha was a prodigy from beginning, he was capable of outsmarting his fellow friends from village with his natural running abilities , had to go through many difficult phases in life before landing up with a job in army. The legend would not have been created if during a training session, Milkha were not spotted by his trainer Gurdev Singh  who discovered the athlete in him. And with him was made the success story of the legendary Milkha Singh aka the Flying Sikh. His skills were latter honed by the national coach after he failed in the Melbourne. But there were two prime factors apart from his natural talent. First was his own motivation of becoming a famous athlete ( the scenes of running for milk and egg, pride of the Indian blazer, asking coach to write the world record on the paper napkin were some of the most beautifully   depicted incidences ) and second was getting the right coaches and hence the right environment to groom the abilities. Ability and motivation can take to a level but a right technical training gives the edge to become a champion.  They not only develop but does many roles including assessor, instructor, mentor, friend, chauffeur, facilitator, adviser, demonstrator, fact finder, supporter, planner, organizer and motivator. 

Last week, we saw another world class player coming up in Badminton. Suddenly, in last few years we  are witnessing a large number of champions evolving in badminton. We were never sort of talent, then why all on a sudden this sea change. The only reason is the devout called P. Gopichand. Any accolades will be too little for this gentleman who himself was a extraordinary player. 

There are some more like him , Gagan Narang for e.g is doing an excellent job at his training academy. Some old style gurus in akharah like satpal singh. 

There are no dearth of talent in this country, what they lack is right motivation, direction and facility. Individuals like Gopichand can do a lot but to have lasting impact and to make this structured we need more number of financially strong corporates to come up and give these champion makers to function properly. We could end up with many Saina and sandhus in all sports. And not all talents will get lost in absence of right direction.