DO YOUR JOB WELL AND YOU WON'T FEEL HURT

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By Kamlesh Tripathi

    On his first day in office, as President, when Abraham Lincoln entered to give his inaugural address. One man stood up. He was a rich aristocrat. He said, “Mr. Lincoln, you should not forget that your father used to make shoes for my family.” And the whole Senate laughed. They thought they had made a fool of Lincoln.

    But certain people are made of a totally different mettle and Lincoln was one of them. He looked at the man directly in the eye and said, ‘Sir, I know that my father used to make shoes for your family, and there will be many others here, who too wear shoes made by him. Because, he made shoes, the way nobody else could, as he was a creator. His shoes were not just shoes. He poured his whole soul into them. I want to ask you, have you any complaint? Because, I know, how to make shoes myself. If you have any complaint I can make you another pair of shoes. But as far as I know, nobody has ever complained about my father’s shoes. He was a genius, a great creator and I am proud of my father”.

    The whole Senate was struck dumb. They could not understand what kind of man Abraham Lincoln was. He was proud because his father did his job so well that not even a single complaint had ever been heard.

    Remember: ‘No one can hurt you without your consent.’
‘It is not what happens to us that hurts us. It is our response that hurts us. Be excellent at your work no matter what work you do and happiness will always be yours.’

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HAPPENING WORLD--FACTS AND PROJECTIONS

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By Kamlesh Tripathi

By some accounts the Pakistani army chief bears a personal grudge against India—his uncle was killed in the 1965 war and his brother in the 1971

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India is known for producing CEOs of Google, Microsoft, Pepsico, Mastercard, Deutsche Bank, etc. And Pakistan? For hoisting heads of Al-qaida, Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Muhammed, Haqqani group etc.

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Gandhi arrived in South Africa in 1893 at the age of 23. Within a week he collided head on with racism. His immediate response was to flee the country that so degraded people of colour, but then his inner resilience overpowered him with a sense of mission, and he stayed to redeem the dignity of the racially exploited, to pave the way for the liberation of the colonised the world over and to develop a blueprint for a new social order. He left 21 years later, a near Mahatma (great soul).

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Valmiki gave up life as a robber and meditated for years in penance before he went up to compose the epic Ramayana. He is now revered as the ‘Adi Kavi,’ or the first poet, as he is said to have invented the ‘Shloka,’ the first verse, which defined the form of Sanskrit poetry.

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The trade unions represent 15% of the workforce in the organised sector. 85% represents the unorganised sector.

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Cities are our engines of growth and contribute around 63% of India’s GDP.

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Chikungunya was discovered in 1952, in Tanganyika. Indian dengue was first recorded in Madras in 1780, but the first proven epidemic was in west Bengal, 1963-64, also proving its first chief minister, BC Roy’s claim: ‘What Calcutta does today, the rest of India does tomorrow.’

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Total incidents of violent crime in UP fell dramatically from 1999 to 2003 at the rate of 16% per annum. This period coincided with the time when BJP was in power in the state. However, since 2003 when either BSP or SP have been in power, violent crimes in UP have increased significantly at the rate of over 7%. In comparison Bihar which is the closest to UP in its record of crimes, registered increase in violent crimes at 3% per annum.

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In 2014, violent crime in UP was 25% more than in Bihar.

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India’s direct tax payers form part of a narrow base which contributes more than 50% of the Centre’s total tax revenue.

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In 2012-13, tax department’s data showed that 28.9 million individuals filed tax returns, of whom only about 1.6 million people claimed income above Rs 1 million. When this number is juxtaposed with the 2.6 million cars sold the same year.

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India’s income tax base is unnaturally narrow. It spends less than a rupee to collect Rs 100 of direct tax.

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Indian railways continues to be the lifeline of the nation with over 800 crore trips annually

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Air travel in India is likely to continue to grow quickly for the next 10-12 years. To support this growth, investment in airports is expected to be upwards of Rs 2.5 lakh crore. Around 700 planes could be added to our current fleet of around 450 planes totalling an investment of Rs 3 lakh crores.

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Currently the aviation sector is estimated to directly employ 2 lakh people and 12 lakh people across various parts of the value chain, a multiple of 5.8x. in the next decade the sector could employ more than 5 lakh people directly and 30 lakh overall.

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From more than 90% of aspirants failing the central Teacher’s eligibility test year after year, to teacher absenteeism touching as high as 40% in the poorest states, to the prevalence of English Teachers who just can’t speak English. All around there are signs that teacher recruitment in India is in a bad shape.

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Environment: while the Montreal Protocal is now ratified by 197 countries, the Paris agreement has been ratified by 63 countries representing 52.11% of global greenhouse emissions

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The world bank/IMF estimates the size of Indian economy in 2016 at 2.28 trillion $ making it the world’s 7^th largest. At $270 billion in 2015, Pakistan is the world’s 38^th largest. India’s export of merchandise has powered past 300$ billion and is closing on $500 billion, if you count services, despite a slowdown in 2016. Pakistan’s exports are straining to get past #30 billion. India’s foreign exchange reserves stand at $367 billion; Pakistan is at $20 billion.

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Pakistan is one fourth of India’s size. Has a sixth of its population and poses an equal. Yet India cannot rid itself of Pakistani pestilence.

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Pakistan’s ministry of Overseas told the country’s legislature this week that Saudi Arabia and UAE together hosted nearly 90% of the total Pakistani workforce of 9,48,000 sent overseas last year. Jobs provided to Pakistani by some other counties: Germany 44, Turkey 57, Singapore 68, Japan 84, UK 261 and USA 350.

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STORY: WASHERMAN AND THE DONKEY

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By Kamlesh Tripathi

    There was once a lazy and a wicked dhobi (washerman) by the name of Nankau. He had an obedient and a long serving donkey at home. Whom, he used for transporting all the dirty clothes to the bank of the nearby river for washing in the morning. During the day he handed over the donkey to his friend who was a contractor on rent for transporting sand from the river to his construction site. And in the evening the listless and obedient animal used to return with is master with bundles of washed clothes on his back. Apart from making the donkey do all the work without any rest, Nankau even whipped him for small mistakes and at times he even starved him. But, he never complimented him for any good work. Rather considered him as the villain of his life that always brought him ill luck.

    One day Gopal a friend of the dhobi came to stay with him for a few days. During that time he noticed. How Nankau for no rhyme or reason used to whip the donkey and even cursed him loud and clear and that too off and on.

    One day Gopal asked Nankau. ‘My dear friend, what on earth is the matter with you? As I always find you quite irritable. And you often whip this poor soul, and that too in anger for no fault of his. Why do you do this? Especially, when he is so obedient and does all your work?’

    Nankau painfully replied, ‘Arrey yaar! This donkey has been very inauspicious for me. Ever since it walked into my life, I have been facing some problem or the other. Enough is enough. Somehow, I now want to get rid of him. I even tried selling him but no one seemed interested. Maybe, because, I’ve cursed and criticized him so much in front of people that no one is ready to touch him even with a barge pole.’

    During his stay, Gopal could assess the worth of the donkey. He told his friend, ‘Brother, just in case you are not happy with him. You could sell him off to me, and instead buy another one for yourself.’

     Nankau didn’t want the opportunity to lapse. He readily agreed to the offer and sold his donkey to Gopal. Who happened to be a kind master, and thereon, he looked after the animal quite well.

    In the meanwhile, Nankau, this time bought a mule. Thinking it will do more work than the previous animal he had. And, he could never forget that God forsaken donkey that he had and always cursed him, for all the misfortunes of his life. But now with the mule around, he was hoping his luck will improve and he will be a happy man.

    By now he had spent a few months with the newly acquired mule. As compared to the donkey the mule looked tougher, but refused to do, as much work as the donkey used to do. And in the changed scenario, Nankau didn’t have his donkey to curse and blame for his failures, each time things went wrong in his life—so the villain was missing. For the donkey was now someone else’s property. And the mule was too new to be held responsible for any ill luck. So, in other words he had no villain in his life whom he could curse for his misfortunes. And he didn’t have the audacity to blame and curse himself for his mistakes and this started worrying him beyond compare.

    One day when the mule was transporting sand from the river to the contractor’s site. The rear leg of the mule got stuck in the muddy waters of the river and as a result it could not move. Soon it slipped and fell down and fractured its leg, and within a few days the wound turned into gangrene and he died.

    Nankau was shell shocked at the mishap. He now had no means to transport the clothes meant for washing, and was now constrained to do it on his back. But he had limitations, as he couldn’t carry to many clothes. So he started losing business. And since the mule was now dead he was also deprived of the daily rent that he was getting from the contractor. So overall, he was at a loss of a lifetime.

    Suddenly, he realized, he had no one to curse for his misfortunes. Because, the ultimate villain of his life—the donkey, was sold off, by he himself, and so it was not influencing his life anymore. So, the big question, now in front of him was who was influencing his life if not the donkey?

    He decided to visit his learned friend Gopal for answers. Where, in his house he found his villain of life in a healthy and happy state as Gopal was taking good care of him. Nankau narrated the sequence of events to him.

    Gopal, first gave him a patient hearing and then said, ‘Dear Nankau, when I visited you last time. I knew you were a victim of your own circumstances. But you always wanted to play the victim card for every misfortune that you came across in your life. For which you always wanted a villain whom you could blame and where this speechless donkey came in handy.

    But the real solution to life is to look for the hidden donkey within you, before you start cursing any other donkey. And above all you are just a human being, who is bound to make mistakes. So, if at all, you want to blame someone for your own mistakes, blame the villain within you. And, for that, keep the villain in you alive, so that you don’t have to look for a villain outside, like this donkey.

    Nankau had got the message of life. He patted the donkey and returned home.

*****

HIDDEN FACTS

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By Kamlesh Tripathi

HIDDEN FACTS

A survey shows around 70% of Indians are non-vegetarian these days.

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There is a huge amount of debate about GM crops these days. It has tremendous potential to impact on yields if used with appropriate safeguards. Without GM we need another 175-222 million hectares of farmland to feed our population.

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China on demand side, is trying to nudge its population towards a more vegetarian diet.

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One estimate pegs the economic loss because of Bengaluru traffic congestion at Rs 3,700 crore a year; including a whopping 50 crore litres of annual fuel losses. Extrapolate these figures to Delhi, Mumbai and other Indian cities and we have a full-blown economic crisis on hand.

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Traffic jams: I can easily do 5 or more meetings in a day even if they are spread across Singapore or any European city. In Delhi or Bengaluru, I can never plan more than 2 or maximum 3.”—Rishi Seth—A PR and marketing start-up person.

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Gadkari’s ministry measures its performance in kilometres of new roads built per year. What good are these new roads, or the existing roads for that matter, when they are rank incapable of moving people and goods quickly—Rishi Seth, PR and marketing startup professional.

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India has the worst record of road accident deaths in the world; every four minutes a person dies on our roads.

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India is held at ranson by some of the most corrupt and incompetent civic bodies.

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WHO’s report on Road Safety 2015 gave India a rating of 3 or 4 out of 10 for enforcement of laws on speed limits, drunk driving or wearing helmets on two wheelers.

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Tata sons is into over 100 lines of business.

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In 2016 air passengers in India grew by an impressive 23.17%

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Nearly 4% of New Zealand’s population is of Indian origin and Hindi is the third most widely spoken language in Auckland.

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India is New Zealand’s largest source of skilled migrants and 29,000 Indian students are currently enrolled at our academic institutions making them the 2^nd largest overseas student population studying in New Zealand.

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India’s GDP is valued today at $2 trillion. Amitabh Kant, chief executive of Niti Aayog says if all goes well it could touch $10 trillion by 2032. A shorter term assessment would have it reaching $ 5 trillion in the next decade, by 2025-26.

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India is now the fastest growing major aviation market—the number of air passengers has been growing more than 20% year-on-year. In the past 12 months, more than 9 crore passengers flew and another 5 crores  or so flew internationally. In the next few years India will become the 3^rd largest aviation market in the world after the US and China.

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INTERESTING FACTS

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By Kamlesh Tripathi

The Chinese economy is five times bigger than India’s.

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The Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) reserved for India just 19.48% of the total waters of the six-river Indus system.

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India is selling 25 million smart phones per quarter and the anticipation is 700 million smart phones in hand by 2020. Internet penetration is growing with 332 million internet users in India. Is now second largest international market, ahead of the US.

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Aadhar is the only billion-user platform outside the US and the only government one.

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India is the largest young country in an ageing world and will continue to have a young population for the next 25 years, whereas China has started ageing.

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Thailand has 25 million international visitors per year while India has only 8 million.

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The International monetary fund estimates that Indian percapita income more than tripled from about $550 in 1991 to $ 1800 last year.

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In 1991, the world’s most populous country accounted for a scant 3.6% of global gross domestic product. By 2015 this had nearly doubled to 7%.

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WHO estimates that the average Indian lives 10 years longer today (68 years) than a quarter century ago. But he has yet to catch up with the average Indonesian (69 years), and continues to lag behind the average Chinese (76 years).

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Between 1991 and 2015, India slashed infant mortality by more than half- from 86 deaths to 38 deaths per 1000 births.

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The international Telecommunications Union estimates that mobile subscriptions in India reached 79% of population last year, up from 62% just five years earlier. That sounds awfully impressive until you realise that in China the mobile penetration is 93% and in Indonesia it’s a stratospheric 132%.

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Back in 1950s and 1960s, US steelworks and auto workers were by far most productive in the world, and could demand high, rising wages. But today the workers in developing countries have acquired skills that are almost as good.

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Before the industrial revolution, China and India accounted for over half of world GDP, but their share fell to barely 7% in the 20^th century.

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In the 20^th century Europe was twice devastated by World Wars, letting the US forge ahead. US hegemony followed in the second half of the 20^th century. Even US workers without college degrees had skills that were globally scarce, and so attracted high pay.

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The world Bank says the number of poor people globally more than halved from 1.75 billion in 1990 to just 702 million in 2015; the proportion of people in extreme poverty fell from 37% to 9.6%; and the world Gini coefficient (which measures inequality) fell from 75% to 62%.

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The US is indeed a great country, but for completely different reasons. It has been the most welcoming country for immigrants in history. Half the start-ups in Silicon Valley are by people of Chinese or Indian origin. Many Nobel Prizes have been won by first or second generation immigrants.

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What a lie: Out of the 6753 candidates of the 2009 Lok Sabha elections that were scrutinized, only four admitted that they had exceeded the limit of election spending as prescribed by ECI while 30 said they had spent 90%. The rest claimed that they had spent 52-55%.

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The telecom industry saw only 40% of the spectrum on offer being sold in 2016. In particular, the complete absence of any bids in the 700 MHz and 900 MHz bands came as a rude shock.

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Recently, interesting though intriguing data from 70-80 countries show that anxiety levels increase when there is less work (James Tozer in the Economist, citing a study done by the World Bank, in 2015).

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Economic liberalisation in China and India are commonly thought to have started in 1978 and 1991 respectively.

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BOLLYWOOD, CRICKET & LOC

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By Kamlesh Tripathi

  

At times it appears the Indian Army Jawan, who fights terrorism at the Line of Control is only fighting to save his own house, but in reality he is fighting for all of us. But the tragedy with Indians is that they show no solidarity with him. Our Prime Minister preaches so much about terrorism in all international forums. But back home India is a divided and selfish lot. People from all professions are only self-centered about themselves and their professions. We don’t realise by behaving in this insensitive manner tomorrow, people may desist from fighting for the country. What will happen then? There is indeed a greater need to feel for our brave jawans and we must perennially keep their morale high. Colonel Anil Chawla puts it quite beautifully.

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Col Anil Chawla, a serving soldier of the INDIAN ARMY wrote this:

    Will sending Pakistani artists back, stopping cricket and business with Pakistan actually end terror from Pakistan?

    No, it most certainly will not.

    BUT there is an emotion called solidarity.

    YOU CANNOT MAKE FILMS, PLAY CRICKET, AND DO BUSINESS AS IF EVERYTHING IS FINE, BECAUSE IT IS NOT.

    It makes the soldier wonder aloud, “Why should I alone bear the weight of conflict?”

    This conflict between India and Pakistan is not the soldier’s personal war. He is dying and killing for you and me. Imagine a situation in which the soldier felt, and behaved, like Salman Khan, Karan Johar and Mahesh Bhatt? Imagine if a soldier walked up to his superior and said, “Sir, while I am dying on the Line of Control, these people are going about as if everything is absolutely fine between the two countries.”

    Why should he alone sacrifice for India, when others were making merry?

    Patriotism and sacrifice is not the sole responsibility of the soldier.

    The United States boycotted the Moscow Olympics in 1980, and the Russians did likewise when they boycotted the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984. This is what happens when national interest is held paramount. And this is what must happen now.

    18 families have been shattered like glass … But the pain of Fawad Khan’s departure is too much to bear, it seems …”

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Film Stars have nothing to do with terrorism…

Singers have nothing to do with terrorism ….

Writers have nothing to do with terrorism …

Directors have nothing to do with terrorism …

Performers have nothing to do with terrorism …

Journalists have nothing to do with terrorism …

Activists have nothing to do with terrorism …

Cricketers have nothing to do with terrorism …

Politicians have nothing to do with terrorism …

Businessmen have nothing to do with terrorism …

Professionals have nothing to do with terrorism …

Lawyers have nothing to do with terrorism …

Then for whom are the Jawans sacrificing their lives for?

Jai Hind.

*****

POEM: THE VILLAIN OF MY LIFE

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By Kamlesh Tripathi

THE VILLAIN OF MY LIFE

For every triumph I praised myself,

For each success I hailed myself,

But for each failure,

I never nailed myself.

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Failures were hard to ingest,

And they were hard to digest,

And, therefore, for all my failures,

I created a villain in my life.

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Whom I blamed fair and square,

Whom I condemned in all my nightmares,

And cursed each time I was in despair,

For all the failures that I couldn’t repair,

 

And this became a habit of distress.

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Until one day,

In utter rage,

I killed that villain with my own umbrage,

Fearing I had created a Frankenstein,

That might return some day.

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For, I thought, forever, my failures are over,

And my debacles are forestalled,

So villain is no more required,

But success is still awaited,

Where my final victory is only round the corner.

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Happily I proceeded,

Despising the villain,

Amplifying myself,

But not juxtaposing with life.

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But as life would have it,

This time a calamity struck,

Wiping out all my successes,

And bringing about my doomsday.

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But this time I had no one to blame,

As the villain was dead,

Whom I had killed myself,

And that made me realize,

Do own up your success,

But don’t blame someone else for your mistakes.

*****