Apology for late posts

I must apologize to all my friends and well wisher who regularly visit my blogs for being so inconsistent and irregular in posting blogs on time. I have been traveling off late so the whole schedule goes haywire.
Some interesting developments have happened so will post about them very soon. It's been a busy week.

I realized if a person wants to really follow a schedule then he must fall in absolute love with it and need to protect it fiercely against all the social expectations and work obligations. It's not always easy because somewhere we develop this "chalta hai" attitude which results in compromising our schedule.

Anyway, I read a Dhoni quote, "When you die, you just die. There is no one better way than other". My hairs are dying a slow death so now I have decided to get rid of them in one go. So off to work now. Will post something interesting and substantial next time.

A visit to Hospital

India has become a hub of medical tourism in the recent years. People from all over the world but most notably countries like UK, USA and Australia come to India for having a cheap bypass surgery or hiring a Indian surrogate mother. The bypass surgery which costs $140,000 in USA could be done here in meagre $7000. Nearly 12 lakh people visit India every year for medical purpose. Quite reasonably, this has also changed the face of medical facilities and we witness a facelift in the tertiery medical hospitals.

A model of complete care has taken roots which is considered more professional, hygienic and standardised vis-a-vis model of family-based care. In Complete care, hospital deploys their own nursing staff which looks after the patient 24*7 at the hospital. In this, family members and relatives need not stay by the side of patient during his stay at hospital. A team of doctors, nurses and housekeeping staff will ensure that patient regain his original shape in due time. This goes to the extent that when patient is lying in ICU then his family members would not be allowed to meet him. And this is where I feel preplexed.

This model is perfect for a country with individualistic culture where no one is going to baby sit for the patient or care 24*7 for the patient because everyone has their own lives to live. However, a country like India, we are primarily collectivistic society. Even though the trend of nuclear family has taken roots in recent years but we remain functionally jointed and structurally nucleus in familial setup.

It means even today when we have a marriage ceremony, then decisions are taken by the senior members of extended family. When some one gets admitted to hospital, Senior members assumes the responsibility of being a key decision maker to be present in the hospital to take crucial decisions. When a pooja is performed, it is the elderly who steer the process. So, a typical Indian may be liberated to choose his drink, his political affiliations, or his car but as far as important things like marriage, healthcare, career are concerened, the final decision escalate up the ladder to the senior members of the extended family. Why do we do so? Many psychologist have explained it in different ways but let's not get into that. But one thing is sure. If we do not find our elderly and loved ones around, this will certainly give rise to some nervousness and anxious moments.

In the context, This essentially means that western model of medical care may be good for physical well being, protection from infection, maintaining hygiene but it is not well suited for mental well-being of the patient. When he is not allowed to meet family members, in a way his total emotional social support system is withdrawn. Thus any recovery will be slow and prone to relapse or depression.

Instead, some research could be done in architectural design of ICU wards. One can draw from knowledge of hospital care, psychology and architectural sciences and technology to design ward in such a manner which allows patient to see his relatives, kids, family members from time to time whenever he wishes and keep the ward clean and hugienic. For example, a video camera could be installed on his bed and a handheld device may be provided to family members so that he can see his family members and family members can monitor his progress. A simple smile on his face can boost his confidence and recovery growth. Similarly, the wards may have some glass window from where pateints can get glimpse of family members and vice-versa. This also serves the same purpose as camera but it requires design changes in ICU wards.


Anyway, Visit to any hospital as a visitor has dual effect. On one hand, we feel the gratitude towards God for "keeping us healthy and saving us from the situation" while on the other hand, seeing so many desolate, depressed faces makes person sad and depressed himself. It reminds me of the reality and inevitability of death. It tells us "how short and unpredictable is our life and it takes not more than a fraction of second before everything goes down in the drain"? So live life every second. Do what you really wish to do. and Enjoy life.

Marriage compatibility test

Last night I had an intense discussion with my friends on the subject of marriage. I realized how ironic is the behavior that decision on something which matters us most for our remaining life is taking in few seconds while a decision on what to wear is taken after hours and days of shopping.

Most of the Indian (the arranged marriage brigade) knows that marriage is pure luck. You get a closed gift box. One can decide what is the gift article he wants inside the box. She has the option of rejecting the gift as well. But for most of us, the desire to open and unwrap the gift oozes so strongly that we open the gift at the very first instance enamored by its outer aesthetic and superficial characteristics. No one enquires about the utility of the gift. And if one goes about doing that inquiry then often the chorus from family members and friends alike is "with this attitude, you are gone psycho"? Years later into the marriage when the whole craze of exploring each other's physiological makeup is nearly over, people realize how incompatible they are?

In general, marriage in India is about groom's purse, girl's face and socio-economic similarities between the two families. Most of the marriage survive and thrive on these premises. But if one really knows herself, then it makes sense to have answers to few questions before diving deep into the pleasures of it. From a psychological point of view, I designed an interview test to evaluate the marriage compatibility. A word of caution before going into it. It is unscientific, unstandardised and hypothetical. It is not made for those who do not know themselves. There is no scoring. The idea is to merely introspect yourself. Ultimately, marriage be it, love, arranged or whatever is about compromises, forgiveness, adjustments, and luck. The purpose of this test is not to undo this pillars of marriage. Rather, it is about reducing the need of these pillars so that marriage can levitate in the air and couples can fly in the air holding each other's hand and carrying a smile on their face.

And again, these questions are not for your partner. Instead, these are for you to know about yourself. Once you know yourself, you can always extract bits and pieces of this information from your partner and know about your compatibility. and my apologies if it contains some element of deception.

Day-to-day attitudinal similarity
Q. What are your likes and dislikes in life?
Q. What do you hate most in the life?
Q. What are the things you can not withstand?

General orientation of "what is good life"
Q. If you are given rs. 1 lakh then what will you prefer to do with it?
Q. If you have some one week holiday then how would you like to spend it?
Q. How much money do you need on monthly basis to live materially satisfied?

Activities related similarity
Q. How often do you wish to go out?
Q. How often do you wish to shop out?
Q. Priority: sleep, travel, cooking, shopping, reading [you can have your own five activity areas. Make sure to choose two of them which you love to do and at least one which you don't like to do at all]
Q. If you ever go out then what places would you like to visit:
Shopping, Historic places, Nature trails/Trecking, Temples, Prefer to rest [tailor it as per who you are. Put two things you love/like to do and at least one which desists you]
Q. If ever you get time to watch TV, which channel would you like to see:
K-series sitcoms, Comedy like Raju Srivastava/Tarak Mehta, RSTV/documentary/News, Movies, Horror shows, Sports
Q. Rate on the scale of 1 to 5:
Shopping interest [1-5], Travelling interest [1-5], Reading interest [1-5], Work interest [1-5], Sports interest [1-5], Cooking interest[1-5]

Career related compatibility
Q. What are your professional aspirations?
Q. What are some of the unfulfilled dreams of your life?
Q. What is the purpose of your life?

Wisdom of life
Q. What is happiness for you?
Q. What is the best way to celebrate happiness?

Conflict
Q. What is the best way for husband and wife to reconcile a difference?
Q. arrange in the order of preference: Work, family, money, friends and so on.

Family
Q. What kind of family setup do you prefer?
Living with parents, Living nuclear, Settling abroad

The list can be tailored as per the personality of the subject. But remember, these questions are to be asked to yourself. One should not even think of extracting this information from another person if she does not know himself. There is some element of naive psychology in each of these. Anyway enough of gyan for the day.

Weak basics of Start Up India

Modi Ji has launched the grand vision of "Startup India" to boost the entrepreneurship behaviour in India. However, the program suffers from weak basics and lack of direction from the government.

Firstly, The investors have a pure "baniya" mindset where they wish to see the revenue model on day one before investing. Precisely for this reason, most of the Indian startup are services based model instead of product and innovation oriented models. As someone explained, startups are different from small businesses. Startups are about diving into uncertain where nobody except the passion of the core team would decide the success or failure of the product.

Secondly, People who start the companies suffer from poor work ethics. For instance, It is alleged that food Panda owners tweaked with their revenue model to siphon off a huge sum of money. Similarly, Flipkart is also accused of siphoning off investors money by creating vendors who themselves became customers. This led to setting up of a vicious leaky cycle of money flow where the same person who sold an item to Flipkart for money X bought the item back at a discounted rate.

From the above point emerges the third point. Most of the startup are discount based or subsidy based. They are burning large sum of money on a daily basis thus adding to the fragility of the system. The discount regime is leading to some behavior change but it does not change the mass user behavior. Some of them like Ola and Uber were able to make some inroads but on the whole, startups have not been able to change the user behavior.

Fourthly, the mindset of Indian masses. Most of us are still the first generation learners. The magic spell of societal expectations, collective culture, and settled lifestyle is discouraging people from venturing into unknown territories. People fear becoming bankrupt or being called a failure. In general, I find Indian people lack the quotient of passion, madness, and weird lifestyles.

Fifthly, Government is launching policies but no one knows the procedure to avail the benefits. Therefore, single window clearances are necessary. Moreover, a government has the policy of maximum governance and minimum government. This is somewhat ironic. Why is government cutting back on government vacancies when the surveys show that existing employees are overburdened and a number of institutions which can act as necessary support to "Start Up India" program are missing? For example, the government can hire a great many contracts, target-driven employees who can handhold literate and illiterate people alike in the task of availing the benefits of any government scheme. We need to have dedicated government call center to help people out 24*7 from these difficulties.

Sixth, We are blindly copying the American model of innovation and technology. What India needs is not entirely a labour-displacing technology. Instead, we need technologies which can generate a large number of jobs. We are a labor intensive country. We need to invest in the sectors which can generate a maximum number of jobs.

Adam Smith in his Wealth of Nations advocated for the division of labor, productivity, and a free market. The theory of Comparative Advantage built over this and proposed that developing nations should focus on agricultural production because being agrarian, their primary advantage lies in investing their energies in an agricultural sector. While, Developed nations should focus on white goods, technology, manufacturing secondary sectors. However this theory suffered from the flaw of marginal utility. The consumption elasticity for an agricultural product is limited in comparison to consumption elasticity for manufacturing goods. For example, if a person gets a bonus of 1000 rs. then his additional expenditure in the edible items would be fractional. If he was eating 1 kg sugar previously then now also he will continue eating one kg sugar only. Thus, his expenditure on edible items will see a limited increase. However, his need for TV, fridge or other items will increase proportionately in an unending manner.

The same concept applies to use of western technology-driven job generation in developing economies. Technology develops job. There is no doubt about it. But the net gains are generally negative. If it generates job equivalent of 20 skilled workers then, on the other hand, it automates the quantum of work which was earlier done by 100 people. so the net gain is -80. Therefore, the elasticity of job generation of high-end technology is relatively low. Thus, as an over-populated and unskilled country, we need to ensure that as a short-term measure, we only import those technologies which do not result in heavy job loss. And this is where we are faltering.

Anyway, not deviating much from the topic, seventh flaw is government is not targeting the right sectors for promoting Startup India.
As per planning commission document, a rs. 10 lakh investment in tourism will generate 78 jobs. The same in manufacturing will generate 45 jobs while the corresponding figures are relatively low for other high-end automation sectors. Therefore, we should ensure that any plan of "Start-up India" should emphasize on these labor-intensive sectors. What has been happening till date is quite opposite. We have allowed the heavy textile machinery in yarn and handicrafts. Due to this, our whole handicraft sector has been ruined. Government has launched policy measures to automate handicraft sector but poor policy rules have resulted into usurping of benefit by unscrupulous players.

Most importantly, agricultural start ups are not taking off and most of the start ups are limited to services based model and targeting rich neo middle class and upper class section. For example food tech or taxi aggregators are working on these lines only. Thus, India eagerly waits for some dynamic startups which innovate as per India's geographical and socio-economic configuration. We need to move fast in manufacturing as well.

Government has made some course correction when it made easy financing facilities for small entrepreneur. The myth of grand sized private sector monopolies driven growth is turning myth. This may increase our GDP figures in certain situations but it comes with a cost of creating inequalities in the society, and disempowering the masses at the cost of few.

Let us hope programs like Startup India, Stand Up India, Make in India, and Skilled India will fit well together to provide buyouncy force to our nation otherwise all I see is a abysmal hopeless swamp from where there is no escaping.

Ban on Diesel Vehicles

At last, Supreme court took a decisive step and banned all the diesel vehicles in Delhi. The case was being postponed for a long time and this was considered imminent by experts. However, the people have reacted in a mixed manner. Some call it a matter of judicial overreach and unnecessary flexing of muscles by the Supreme court. Others consider it another landmark judgement in the environmental history of the country.

The argument of judicial overreach seems correct in the wake of lack of judicial impact assessment of its judgement by the judiciary. As soon as the verdict was out, nearly 27000 taxis went off the road out of near 60000 registered in Delhi. This came in the backdrop of Odd-even which fortunately ended the same day on which this judgement came into the force. However, this was concomitant with near forty plus temperature in the city. As a result, public faced difficulty in getting a cab to locomote them in the different part of the city. Further, nearly 27000 families went jobless as a result of offloading of diesel taxis. This too amid the jobless growth which India is witnessing. The last quarter of 2015 even saw job losses instead of new jobs creation. Therefore, to no one's surprise, taxi drivers started protesting against the verdict. And this is where Judiciary failed to assess the impact of its verdict.


In a city with broken and inadequate public transport system and no new jobs, throwing out so many people out of a job in one blow is a clear case of lack of application of judicial insight. In the past also, when Judiciary had added cases of cheque bounce as a non-compoundable offence, nearly 25 lakh cases were added within a fortnight in the pending list of judiciary. Thus, the chorus of judicial overreach gained substance. However, what else could judiciary have done in this situation?

City's pollution is breaching all the limits that even athletes are finding Delhi a tough place to practice. Just think about the numerous children, women and old-age people. How difficult would it be for them to survive in a situation where even at night 3'o clock, the city is shrouded in a layer of haze, dust and gases. The Court had correctly described Delhi as an open chamber of toxic gases. Ideally, the action should have come from the executive. But as often the case, executive dereliction and legislative ill-policy or no-policy/no-law create a vacuum which forces the judiciary to wear the hat of judicial activism.

The phasing out of diesel vehicle was on cards for last one year and supreme court kept postponing the deadlines on the pretext of earlier written arguments. However, somewhere it needed to stop and the doomsday came earlier than many thought. Let's ponder over What could have been a possible course of action or what are the lesson learnt from this crisis?

Firstly, If we analyze the root cause of the problem i.e. why the proliferation of so many diesel vehicles, it lies in our mismanaged subsidy policy on diesel fuel. What was intended for agricultural sector was fully leveraged by automobile sector. Therefore, we need to frame our policies in a correct manner. Every such subsidy regime should come with possible use-case scenarios and sunset clause which should be enforced with ferocity.

Secondly, Executive and Judiciary should have a coordination mechanism. Though they operate under the vision of article 50 i.e. theory of separation of power. But this does not mean one would go east and other will pull to the west. There has to be some sort of synchronization in judiciary-executive-legislature. This would have allowed Delhi government to take necessary steps for arranging cheap or subsidized conversion of diesel to petrol vehicle or sprucing public transport or creating avenues for easy transition from diesel free regime on the roads.

Thirdly, Judges should conduct the enforceability test and impact test on their judgement. It does not require Socratic wisdom to see if something could be enforced with understaffed police and overburdened judiciary. Some time back, the judiciary has given a verdict on restriction on entry of more than fifteen-year-old vehicles on Delhi roads. But nothing happened on the ground. This not only compromises judiciary's image and authenticity but also creates confusion in the society. In such situation, a law-abiding person feels the most disappointed and discouraged.

Fourthly, to the government "Create jobs". All talks of skill India, Standup India, Startup India, would prove cow dung if jobs are not getting added in the economy.

Anyway, for now, the executive needs to act fast and make sure a smooth transition happens from diesel to petrol vehicle at whatever cost possible. This would ensure that public has enough options for commuting, people do not end up losing jobs, a poor policy is phased out, our children can breathe easily and judiciary's face would be saved.

How to: Summary of the summary technique

UPSC is not just about 3 R's. First is reading. Reading wide and deep. The second R is about remembering what you read. There is no point if you can not remember key points of what you have read. And the third R about reproducing. If I read a load of books but I am not able to recall anything then it is virtually useless. Therefore, the art of remembering and reproducing becomes very crucial in such a competitive framework.

For this reason, we discussed the five-point approach of making a summary of articles or issues. However, even this gets very bulky by the time we complete one or two years in the process. Therefore, it is advisable to use the summary of the summary approach for this purpose. This would help a person in remembering the maximum amount of information and reproducing it quickly in the exam. It is particularly helpful when we are reading some optional content or bulky book chapter from history or polity.

In this, on your first reading, make a summary of any chapter. For your second or third reading, refer to this summary instead of jumping into notes. If a person is not able to recall the original content then he should refer to original notes. Once this summary is covered 2 to 3 times, then you should keep aside this summary and a separate summary sheet should be compiled where you can only list various headings, abstracting out details and putting diagrams and specifically things which you are finding difficult to remember.

In this way, one should go on minimizing the bulkiness of file of summary sheets. Eventually, the whole book would be compressed in few pages which one can skim over before the exam in few hours and appear in the exam with full confidence. This approach is specifically useful for people who appear repetitively in the exam. And if they are not aware, then unconsciously they will end up doing this only.

How To:The fading memory, How to remember

Despite the changes in recent years, UPSC remains a content heavy examination. Though it focuses more on conceptual understanding and critical thinking and less on trivia but all the concepts and thinking boils down to content at the end. Without content, there is no analysis. Therefore, memory skills of a person play very strong role in selection and non-selection.

Some people have very sharp photographic memory. They have the inherent advantage in the exam but generally very few such individuals appear in the race. Therefore, for most of us, it is about the manner and frequency of reading and revision which creates all the difference.

The problem is mere reading is not sufficient for the purpose of examination. Most of the aspirants belong to young age group where mind tend to waver heavily at the slightest sight of any beautiful girl. Thus, attention span is limited. Moreover, WhatsAppp and Facebook do the remaining damage. Thus, a person requires multiple reading of the same content to master it fully. From my own efforts, I devised a simple seven step rule of commanding content. According to this,
First reading = no reading
Second reading = one reading
Third reading = two reading
Fourth reading = prelims
Fifth reading = Prelims+
Sixth reading = Mains
Seventh reading = Interview

It means a person should read a content four times so that he can cover any question which can arise in this from prelims perspective. Similarly, for mains, a person should read the content at least 6 times so that he would be able to reproduce and write the content at sufficient speed. Finally, the last reading for mastering the content to the extent where he can speak impromptu on the subject.

Apart from this, a person should develop deep enough understanding of her memory skills to consolidate the content. For this purpose, research of psychologist Herman Ebbinghaus may prove very handy. According to his findings, a person has the steepest curve of forgetting in first 20 minutes. Most of the forgetting occurs in the first hour of reading the content. near 70% of the content is lost within the first hour itself. In a way, if you had mugged 10 points then after an hour you will remember only 3 points. And don't get surprised, if you have revised in last 24 hours of a fresh reading then you may not be able to recall more than 3% of the content i.e. nearly half a point from the list of 10 points.

Therefore, one should train his mind to constantly revise and consolidate important points during initial few hours of reading the subject. This way consolidation would be maximum and hence, the reproduction would also be maximum.

There are few other techniques of mnemonics which I will list in some other detailed post. For now, absorb this thought.