Four Eyes and Two Lenses

“Moody’s cuts India’s GDP growth outlook in 2020 to 2.5% amid coronavirus outbreak.” This news came after a few days when India went under a 21-day lockdown, which began on March 25, to contain the spread of coronavirus. Rating agencies saw this as a potential brake on the economic activity that would adversely affect the growth of the country, which is already on a downward trajectory for the past few quarters. Although the move, for a lockdown, from the government was necessary in order to safeguard public health and protect the economy from getting worse from this pandemic. The lockdown, categorically, will put several liquidity constraints on the business environment and will affect the overall growth across sectors. The impact will be seen more in the first quarter of the financial year 2021, which began on April 1. Anticipating this, Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, announced a 23$ billion package aimed at cushioning the disruption coronavirus outbreak mi...

A few days back I was challenged to assess the Mahashivratri festival and write about it in terms of its Marketing significance. On first thought, it looks like a bizarre combo and a headline, but on second thought one can actually realize that marketing is such a domain to which one can relate to everything. Marketing, itself, is a broader term that holds several concepts and thoughts at different walks of life of a human. Be it awareness, or consideration, or be it choice, marketing influences everything. So is religion. For many, religion is one such area that is untouched by what I am trying to put my words here, i.e. marketing. But if we closely look, from time immemorial, religion or spirituality has always gone through, what we know today as, the Marketing Funnel (Awareness-Interest-Evaluation-Trial-Adoption) . On another note, we can also see that marketing and religion both serve the same purpose of fulfilling the needs of a person. Though the needs can sometimes ...

Chennai has always been close to my heart. It has given me 6 years of memories, countless experiences, 2 educational degrees, and some very good friends for life. I remember the time when I stepped down at Chennai Central from Sanghmitra Express on a ‘not so very’ hot day in 2010. I was excited to jump into the Bay of Bengal at Marina Beach. At the same time, I was afraid of the language barrier that I might face in a city where I am coming for the very first time. Having a mixed feeling in my mind I moved forward to explore the city offerings. onn, rend, moon, naal, annj, aar became my new numerals. Idli-Vada-Dosa-Sambhar became my new staples. ‘ippdi irka?’, ‘saptiya?’, ‘inge vaa’, ‘evlo?’ , became my new daily phrases. It was fun exploring and experiencing the south-Indian culture. T.Nagar, Broadway, Spencer Plaza Mall were some of the places I frequently visited. 19B, 570 became my favorite bus numbers. Being a food lover, I got adjusted to the southern cuisine like a fish adju...

I remember the time when he used to draw snowcapped mountains, sun, birds, clouds, a river flowing out of it, a small hut with a tree beside it. The small kid wished to visit such a place someday. Little did he know that going to such a place would be a wish for him even after 20 years. He is now engulfed in city traffic. He now covers his face to get away from air pollution, puts on earphones to beat the noise pollution. Mere a sight of birds going back to their nests in the evening transports him back to his childhood. He gets sad when he remembers how plastic pollution is killing these beautiful birds. Pollution kills Dreams. Pollution kills Life.

Below was my response to a LinkedIn post where the author was asking people to pay $15 as an upfront cost to access the course only to get it refunded at the end of the course (If they cover at least 80% of the course). The author had an intention to get full participation from the ones who are accessing the course and not to leave the course in between. Though this strategy would certainly clear the junk participation unless the content is good, the strategy might backfire in the future. Below is my response. "1. Those who are interested in doing the course will only be applying for it. The junk will be out. (Though there is no guarantee of 100% participation) 2. Looking back at the earlier scenario, people must have their reasons for leaving the course midway. (The quality, of course, can be one among them.) 3. Now, even if those who are interested in the course, give $15, access the course but realize that the course is not worth investing the time, would lose $15. 4. So, ...

Lessons learned during Elections 2019* > KG students are better behaved than our politicians. > Politicians complaint more to EC than the KG student to CR. > The life of actor-turned-politicians outside their home is equal to the number of the election campaign days. > India is not a poor country. Thanks to the billionaire politicians. > The amount of money in your bank account has nothing to do with your educational/entrepreneurial qualifications (actually, it is inversely proportional). > We can see a lot of jumping jacks during election time. Jitendra (Bollywood actor) is not the only Jumping Jack. > Unpronounceable (and obviously uncountable) figures of money can be seen in this season as well. (after GATE season) > Criminals can be found using TikTok inside the jail to spread their love for the country (and for the people, of course). > News channel anchors grow a new pair of ears to listen to everyone politely proving his/her point during the...

It was one of those days when he came back to his office after a very long tiring day, visiting several constituencies, talking to the people in charge, and taking the status of several ongoing government schemes. He was trying very hard to make these government schemes reach the bottom of the society, to every single citizen of the country, and in doing so, he had also faced the brunt of the people. The government was criticized for poor planning and implementation of a few policies, due to which citizens suffered a lot. Though the clear and huge mandate by the people had given him an extra responsibility to do something better for the country and to improve the lives of his fellow countrymen, thoughts on not performing well in the coming Lok Sabha election often came to his mind. He rushed into his office only to find his friend sitting and patiently waiting for him. He received him with a hug and started to talk. Parmendra Modi : Mota Bhai! This time it is going to be tou...

Till the start of a New Journey Her mother put a full tablespoon of sweetened curd in her mouth. Priyanka thought of rejecting her mother’s wish (and order at the same time) but could not able to or rather was not ready to start a fight (which she never won earlier) on this auspicious morning. “ Beta, Dahi-Chini kha lo, interview accha jaega ”, said her mother. [“ Daughter, have some sweetened curd, your interview will go well ”] Priyanka was appearing for the interview of a reputed management institution for which she was dreaming for the past year. For her, it was never easy to manage the day job with late-night preparation for the management studies, but with her determination and her mother’s support, she was able to crack all the elementary rounds and qualified herself for the last interview round. Gulping down the curd, Priyanka hurried towards the Ola cab driver, who was waiting patiently and was watching all the drama until now. “ Chalo Bhaiya ”, Priyanka asked the dri...

“New Life New Beginnings” – this was the status I put across on my social media profiles when I got placed and started to work at Infosys almost 5 years back (2014). I was thrilled and excited to work in the corporates. Saying goodbye to my college life, I went ahead to create new experiences at Infosys. Mysore welcomed me with a jaw-dropping look on my face and stepped in to enjoy the second golden period of my life. Life at Infosys was very different from what it used to be in college. Apart from learning different programming languages, I learned people management, as in I learned whom to approach, when to approach, and how to approach. Basically, Infosys gave me the training to survive in the corporate world. Being the first employer, Infosys will always remain very close to my heart. Years passed, and it was time for me to say goodbye to Infosys. My colleagues at Infosys flocked together and gave me well wishes for my future and I walked ahead making friends...

A state once called the land of intellectuals, is now the talk of the town and being shamed across the country because few students were caught copying in the examination. It certainly goes into the national newspapers and thus the reputation of the state deteriorates. These incidents not only bring shame to the identity of the individuals of Bihar but also possess a great barrier in the development of the state. Before the NDA government came to power Bihar was led by Mr. Lalu Prasad Yadav. Under his governance, the state went into negative development. Corruption, kidnapping, murder, scams, injustice, unemployment, low economic growth were norms. NDA government came to power with a basket full of negligence from the previous government. Although they took several initiatives to curb the slow growth of the state, several factors that are still prevalent today came as a hurdle to the development process. Corruption, poverty, flood, tax collection, lack of infrastructure for co...

“To start an article with a quote looks quite cool” Indeed! The mantra to make a reader stick to the article is to start your article with some catchy phrase and build a story on it. Although this may sound unreal, readers do follow the catchy phrase. This style of practicing your forte is not limited to the field of writing; businesses have used it to make an early impact on the minds of their customers. Athletes use this to get an initial edge over their competitors. Racers use the acceleration of their cars to jump off a little over their competitors. A famous quote also says, “An early impact is half work done”. And after that, it is your vigor that plays the card for you. Enthusiasm and dedication have always been the driving factors to achieve any goal. Reliance Jio started off with their free service. This was their catchy phrase. They made the impact initially and now they are on par with their competitors, leaving behind a few as well. When Jio came into the market...

"Me vs Everyone" While reading one of the articles, I came across this question put up by a student to one of the business leaders. The latter aptly answered the question giving various inputs on introspection, skill-building, and prioritizing one’s goals, to the former. One thing that he said that perfectly summed up the answer was: “It is the fear of being judged and fear of failure that holds one back from trying out new things and going out of the box.” Though the student’s question looks simple in terms of one’s urge to compete in this sharp-edged competitive world, it puts light on the behavioral attitude of the millennials that psychologists term as ‘FOMO’. Fear of missing out or FOMO is a tendency where one constantly compares oneself with others and wants to be everywhere with a fear that he/she might miss something important, and thus make him/her feel left out from the rest. Although this attitude is good to some extent, if kept for long, would neg...

Advancement in AI- a Business Perspective Back in the 1800s, when the industrial revolution happened, many speculated of losing their jobs due to automation, that is, the assembly line. Yes, many lost their jobs but eventually, many more jobs came up. And it certainly gave businesses a chance to flourish under this new bandwagon and so did our society. Fast forward to the 1900s, when the computer revolution happened, people again feared losing their jobs because of the ease of computational work a computer could do . What happened then was we saw a whole new world of opportunities where everyone contributed as per his/her capabilities and thus we see a connected world today. Again businesses, using this shift, helped to better our society. Advancement in AI (Artificial Intelligence), in the present world, has got the similar properties to what the industrial revolution and computer revolution had back then. People have already made a notion that their jobs are under threat due to...

There are tourists and then there are travelers  Conversation of two tourists: Pre-trip Amit : Hey bro, wassup. Devank : Wasssup bro. Long time, huh! Amit : Yeah man. How have you been? Devank : M good dude. How about you? Amit : Same here bro. Listen, I have been planning to go to Kasol in the month of July for a two-day trip. Do you want to catch up? Devank : Yeah sure bud. How many of you are going and are you done up with all the planning, like where to stay and what are the places to go, etc? Amit : We are four in number including you. And I am done with all the prep work and have already listed out few 3 star hotels giving a good deal even in this peak season. I was just waiting for your nod to book the hotels. I think we are going to have a great time over there. Devank : Great man, I am sure we would. I will also google out and make a list of places to visit as we are having only two days and a lot of places to catch up. Amit : Yeah man, ...