Thought Garage

Thanks to ‘the way’ everything works in India and grandeur vision and strategies of us, the people and our leaders, this is that time of the year to reap some special benefits. Yes, I am talking about so called ‘scheduled’ power outages. Technically they are scheduled as we all know there must be outages, though the schedules change everyday and will be revealed only on the following day.

On 1st of March, we had a 14 hour power cut, first day of this year to mark the record. We thought we were quite well prepared this time, with installing an inverter and batteries enough to supply essentials for about 6 hours in a stretch. But, we were wrong. Power cuts are happening in such a haphazard frequency that these systems could barely charge and bailing out with crying beeps within a couple of hours.

We thought 14 hours will be our worst day and things would improve. But defying our naive optimism, we had a 17 hour power cut on 2nd of March. Now, we officially lost all hope that inverters could offer any help, if this continues. For today, our last minute preparations included firing a small diesel run generator. Hope, it will work out.

For those of you reading this blog from a place, where a power ‘outage’ is really news, note that my parents and all neighbors here are asking me to clarify that this is anything but normal at this time of the year and not at all a reason to be surprised or shocked.

This is the state of ‘power’ affairs in my place in Andhra, India, officially marked as a rural area. Though, most of us proudly say Agriculture as the backbone of India’s economy and praise farmers as their demi ‘food’ angels, they are the least tended to when it comes to distributing power, (most things for that matter).  They are not a sizeable market for most and considered next best to the poorest in terms purchasing power. Of course, no powerful politician or official lives in rural places anymore, so there is no reason to consider for a ‘fair’ distribution of anything if its not the time of elections.

And also its now official, that Industries in Andhra will be forced to take a one-day-a-week vacation as State run electricity boards will not be able to supply power for a full week. That also means, workers will be forced out of jobs for one day a week, obviously without pay.

I love the way Paddy Hirsch explains complex market place dynamics in the simplest way possible that even I can get a glimpse of how it works. In this week, he explains how banks are making money without practically lending to people or small businesses that desperately need it.

How the big banks make the big bucks from Marketplace on Vimeo.

This is almost like a scam. How can this be all legal and allowed? Why do Government allow these banks to buy Treasury Bonds with money given by Federal Reserve for lending activities. Wouldn’t buying treasury bonds considered as an investment?

About 50% of Indian population is not yet eligible to vote (paraphrased) : Nandan Nilekani, Imagining India

Google unveiled a labs feature called ‘Living Stories’ that organizes news related to a topic in a format that best fits the online reader and present all relevant information at one place.

I love this new format. Online news should have been this way in the first place, but I am glad it is headed in this direction.

Watch this YouTube video for a short demo of the new feature from Google Labs.

Check out some of the hot topics of the day…

• Google Living Pages : Executive Compensation Page 
• Google Living Pages : The Politics of Global Warming

Few days back I read an article breaking the news that lots of Indians are going back to India, causing what is called as ‘reverse brain drain’. Its not the first time I heard this, and certainly it won’t be the last time. Every time going gets tougher in US, I hear this story. This is not a surprise to hear the story in 2009, the worst of times we have seen in recent years. 

Whatever reason many attribute to their intention to return to India, it won’t be any easier just to get back. So many things that are taken for granted in US are a rarity or a luxury in India like electricity and roads.  And another significant aspect pointed (in an NY Times Article ) by Raju Narisetty, “Some very simple practices that you often take for granted, such as being ethical in day to day situations, or believing in the rule of law in everyday behavior, are surprisingly absent in many situations”. 

Some get upset. Some get used to it, for its not an alien thing to anybody. But some hate it so much that they are returning to US, causing a reverse-reverse-brain drain or just brain drain.