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Category: Specials

Bite-sized wisdom from Sadhguru

Posted on by Penguin India

A motley bouquet, the articles that comprise Flowers on the Path offer insights from Sadhguru that spark you with their incisive clarity, delight you with humour, or even render you in profound stillness within.

Whether the subject covers social issues and worldly affairs, individual challenges, or dimensions of the beyond, Sadhguru’s ability to delve to the root and look at life in all its totality is evident.

 

Health Is Wholeness

 

Life Afresh With Children

 

 Rising Beyond Religion

 

Mind: The Dumping Ground

 

Dynamic Stillness, Static Stagnation

 

The Snakes and Ladders of Comfort

 

Spiritual Allergy

 

Choosing Your Destiny

 

What We Are Not

Front cover of Flowers on the Path
Flowers on the Path || Sadhguru

As a flower can confound you with its brilliance and beauty, so too does each article in Flowers On The Path  hold the possibility to confuse you out of your conclusions, and pave the way towards true knowing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kim Wagner on New Discoveries while Writing ‘Jallianwala Bagh’

Posted on by Penguin India

The Amritsar Massacre of 1919 was a seminal moment in the history of the Indo-British encounter, and it had a profound impact on the colonial relationship between the two countries.

In Kim Wagner’s Jallianwala Bagh, which takes the perspectives of ordinary people into account, the event and its aftermath are strikingly detailed. Wagner argues that General Dyer’s order to open fire at Jallianwala Bagh was an act of fear and its consequences for the Indian freedom struggle were profound. Situating the massacre within the ‘deep’ context of British colonial mentality and the local dynamics of Indian nationalism, Wagner provides a genuinely nuanced approach to the bloody history of the British Empire.

In this piece by the author, he talks about his learnings while writing and researching for the book.

As I was writing the book about the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, one of the things that struck me was the abiding belief in the benevolence of the British Raj on the part of the local residents of Amritsar. Above the entrance to the memorial there is today a sign that says: ‘A Landmark in Our struggle for Freedom’, and the events of April 1919 are often referred to as a key moment in the independence movement that came to its fruition in 1947. In this narrative, the hundreds of civilians who were massacred by General Dyer, were martyrs to the cause of an independent India and it is as such that they are today commemorated. The interesting thing is that no-one in Punjab in 1919 even thought of independence.

Indian nationalists at the time, such as Drs Kitchlew and Satyapal, were thinking exclusively in terms of dominion-status within the British Empire – similarly to Australia or Canada. Despite the socio-economic dislocation and hardship caused by the First World War, the global flu pandemic, high food-prices and failed crops, the disappointment of the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms and the anger caused by the Rowlatt Act, the population of Amritsar never lost their faith in the Sarkar, or British Government.

As locals sought to petition the authorities for the release of their two leaders who had been deported on 10 April, they did so using the terms Ma Bap – the traditional supplication entailed by the line ‘You, My Lord, are my mother and father!’ After the confrontation turned violent and stones were thrown at the military pickets, who responded with indiscriminate shooting, people were shocked that the British would open fire on ‘innocent’ people. That is also why crowds twice sought to cross the railway bridges leading from the old city of Amritsar and into the Civil Lines, and twice were fired at.

As late as 13 April, local residents maintained their faith in the British Government whom they believed would ultimately act in a benevolent and righteous manner. Shortly before Dyer arrived at Jallianwala Bagh with his strike-force, a British airplane flew over the city and when people in the crowd became restless, the Satyagraha activists, who had organised the meeting, reassured them: ‘We need not fear anything. The Sarkar is our father and mother: why should Government kills its own children.’ While Dyer mistakenly believed that he was facing an armed crowd of rebels, and therefore opened fire to prevent a second ‘Mutiny’, people in the crowd did not see themselves as engaging in anything unlawful. The ban on public meetings had not been widely disseminated in the city and there was widespread confusion as to the actual nature of the meeting at Jallianwala Bagh, which furthermore coincided with the festival of Baisakhi.

The massacre, and its aftermath, brutally disabused Indians as to the true nature of British oppression and it was from April onwards, as a result of what had occurred, that people more generally began to think of independence. Before any details of what had occurred in Amritsar reached beyond Punjab, the poet and writer Rabindranath Tagore famously returned his knighthood at the end of May 1919, stating that: ‘The enormity of the measures taken by the Government in the Punjab for quelling some local disturbances has, with a rude shock, revealed to our minds the helplessness of our position as British subjects in India.’ It was not, however, till the following year that Gandhi initiated the non-cooperation movement and finally took up the cause of independence.

The Amritsar Massacre has since been recognised as a crucial watershed in the history of British India, and the in the freedom struggle, yet it is important to remember that this was far from evident to the people involved at the time. It was not till 1947 that the events of 1919 could be seen as the beginning of the end of British rule in India.

*

When it comes to British contemporary perceptions of the ma

The Great Disappointment of the ‘Modifesto’: Ten Facts Proving that ‘Achche Din’ Remain a Distant Dream

Posted on by Penguin India

As the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government completes its current term ahead of the General Elections 2019, it is time to evaluate its performance, specifically in terms of its management of the economy.

Salman Anees Soz—international development expert, economic and political commentator and consultant at the World Bank, conducts a critical assessment of five years of the brand of economics Prime Minister Narendra Modi has championed, often referred to as ‘Modinomics’. The Great Disappointment takes a look at the rhetoric of the 2014 ‘Modifesto’ that actively denied the achievements of previous governments and announced that a government led by Narendra Modi would match their cumulative performance within its first term.

Brought into power with the biggest political mandate in almost three decades, did the NDA government succeed in gainfully transforming India’s economic trajectory or did it squander a once-in-a-generation opportunity?

A realistic look at GDP growth under Modinomics is not very promising

The 2016–17 survey notes that ‘GDP growth slipped from 7.7 per cent in the first half of 2016–17 to 6.5 per cent in the second half. Quarterly real GDP growth also shows a deceleration in the third and fourth quarters relative to the first two quarters. The slowdown in these indicators predated demonetization but intensified in the post-demonetization period.’ What that survey could not have predicted is that in the following quarter, economic activity slowed and the growth rate slumped to 5.7 per cent, the slowest pace in three years.

The much-touted tax reform failed to hold up structurally

Early on, the GST’s technology infrastructure could not keep up with the volume of transactions, and the government once again seemed unprepared for the scale of reform. It was demonetization redux and gave another major opportunity to the government’s critics to paint it as incompetent. Yashwant Sinha said that the GST ‘would make a fine Harvard University case study of everything that was wrong with the rollout of a tax reform’.

The agricultural crisis worsened in the last five years

Agricultural exports declined from US$42 billion in 2013– 14 to US$38 billion in 2017–18. They were lower in the intervening period. Agricultural imports went up by about 50 per cent during this time Interestingly, investment in agriculture (measured by gross capital formation as a share of agricultural GDP) fell from 17.7 per cent in 2013–14 to 15.5 per cent in 2016–17.

While the decline in global crude oil prices caused a reduction in fiscal deficit, oil prices for consumers in India are higher than ever

An analysis by the Mint newspaper showed that ‘almost the entire reduction of about 0.6% of the gross domestic product (GDP) in India’s fiscal deficit between FY14 and FY16 could be attributed to the sharp fall in crude prices’.  The current account balance improved. The government liberalized diesel prices sooner than anticipated on account of this sharp decline. However, instead of passing on the benefits of lower crude prices to consumers, the government retained much of the gain through progressively higher excise duties on petroleum products.

In many cases, the Modi government allegedly simply renamed its predecessor’s schemes

According to an analysis by the Quint, an online news site, the Modi government renamed nineteen out of twenty three schemes started by its predecessor, the UPA government. For example, the famous Jan Dhan Yojana is the new name of an existing scheme Basic Savings Bank Deposit Account (BSBDA). Swachh Bharat Abhiyan was originally Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan while the RGGVY (rural electrification) became DDUGJY.

One of the most touted ‘benefits’ of demonetization has evidently not materialized

There is no concrete evidence to indicate that demonetization led to a significant decline in terrorism. In fact, Prasenjit Bose, an economist, found that ‘total fatalities in terrorism-related violence in India have hardly seen any significant decline in 2017 (data till August 2017) compared to the two previous years, with violence in Jammu and Kashmir actually witnessing an escalation’.

Demonetisation has not shown a drastic increase in either direct tax collection or in the number of taxpayers

 Wilson quotes CBDT (Central Board of Direct Taxes) data to show that ‘there was an 11.6% growth in the number of income taxpayers in 2013–14, without any demonetisation. It then fell to 8.3% and 7.5% in next two years but increased to 12.7% in 2016–17 but again fell to 6.9% in 2017–18. So, the trend shows that there was no dramatic increase in the number of taxpayers.’ Wilson also notes that growth in direct taxes was much higher during the UPA’s ten years (average 20.2 per cent) as opposed to the Modi government’s four-year average growth of only 12 per cent.

Modi’s pitch to India’s youth was clear—if they voted for him, he would get them a job. Unfortunately, ground realities present a depressing picture

Total employment fell from 48.04 crores in 2013–14 to 46.76 crore in 2015–16. The failure to create jobs is becoming the biggest political challenge for the Modi government. There are constant reports in the media about the challenging jobs situation in India. The government’s response has been to latch on to questionable data on job creation to argue that India does not have an employment problem.

 The Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) scheme, the centrepiece of Skill India, has had negative reviews

The Sharada Prasad Committee, set up by the skill development ministry to review the performance of various sector skill councils, came out with negative reviews of the PMKVY. The committee noted that ‘no evaluation was conducted of PMKVY 2015 to find out the outcomes of the scheme and whether it was serving the twin purpose of providing employment to youth and meeting the skill needs of the industry before launching such an ambitious scheme’. In various stakeholder consultations, the committee reported that ‘all of them said in one voice that the targets allocated to them were very high and without regard to any sectoral requirement. Everybody was chasing numbers without providing employment to the youth or meeting sectoral industry needs.’

 The figures used to tout India’s GDP growth have come under the scanner after a suspicious change in methodology

India’s GDP data has been under the scanner ever since the CSO changed the methodology for calculating economic output in 2014–15. Most analysts were surprised after the publication of the new GDP series. Even the government’s chief economic adviser, Arvind Subramanian, and the then Governor of the RBI, Raghuram Rajan, cast doubt on the new CSO data. According to the Economist, investors  ‘roundly disbelieve India’s growth figures’.

 

Grab your copy of The Great Disappointment today!

 

 

 

Quotes from Marlon James’ ‘Black Leopard, Red Wolf’

Posted on by Penguin India

Tracker is a hunter, known throughout the thirteen kingdoms as one who has a nose – and he always works alone. But he breaks his own rule when, hired to find a lost child, he finds himself part of a group of hunters all searching for the same boy.

Drawing from African history and mythology and his own rich imagination, Marlon James weaves a tapestry of breathtaking adventure though a world at once ancient and startlingly modern.

From his book are these seven quotes to give you an essence of the book.

“Bi oju ri enu a pamo.

Not everything the eye sees should be spoken by the mouth.”

~

“Life is love and I have no love left. Love has drained itself from me, and run to a river like this one.”

~

“You ever see a man who doesn’t know he’s unhappy, Leopard? Look for it in the scars on his woman’s face. Or in the excellence of his woodcraft and iron making, or in the masks he makes to wear himself because he forbids the world to see his own face. I am not happy, Leopard. But I am not unhappy that I know.”

~

“A man will suffer misery to get to the bottom of truth, but he will not suffer boredom.”

~

“Truth is truth and nothing you can do about it even if you hide it, or kill it, or even tell it. It was truth before you open your mouth and say, That there is a true thing.”

~

“When kings fall they fall on top of us.”

~

“I am content with much. This world never gives me anything, and yet I have everything I want.”

Against the exhilarating backdrop of magic and violence, Marlon James explores the fundamentals of truth, the limits of power, and excesses of ambition, and our need to understand them all. Get a copy of Black Leopard, Red Wolf here!

Aspects of Shiva that we can use in our Daily Life

Posted on by Penguin India

Shiva led a life of contradictions, unmitigated wonder and beauty. When faced with difficulties, he had to tread gently, take a deep look into himself, sometimes go against his inherent nature, and change, when need be.

In the earliest and rather scant appearances, Shiva seems to have been a marginalized deity among the pantheon of gods, and yet he has become one of the most ubiquitous.

The Reluctant Family Man is a study of reflection, introspection and the necessity for taking responsibility through the life of Shiva.

Here are some aspects of Shiva’s life that we can use in our daily life.

Sati is Shiva’s first spouse, and with both his spouses, he has memorable exchanges and dialogue, illustrating the caring, sharing, quarrelling and forgiveness evident in these associations.

~

The salubrious nature of marital squabbling is shown constantly in Shaivic myths. The fights are remarkable,where both parties threaten, browbeat and try to convince each other so that they can, eventually, come to a rapprochement.

~

Shiva challenges conventionally prescribed gender norms and the patriarchal notion of a man having to always appear strong and resolute. Instead, he weeps copiously, wretchedly mourning his dead wife without caring what the world might think. His vulnerability and pathos are on full display.

~

What is pleasantly surprising is the fact that Shiva can handle such a strong, almost insouciant wife (Parvati). In fact, Shiva is the only god who has an outspoken wife and perhaps the only deity who does not try to be dominant. Only a self-confident male can coexist with such a female.

~

Loving spouses can repeatedly challenge each other if the marital relationship is to serve the function of promoting the mental growth of partners. Shiva and Parvati certainly don’t believe in the silent treatment that many couples have been guilty of from times immemorial. If something troubles them, they address it right away.

~

Through Shiva’s attitude towards his wives, we can see him managing his ego. He is the great yogi, the great knower, and although he knows how to play supreme lord and master to an adoring Parvati, he also knows how to give in when she is his spouse and submit totally to her in her form as Devi.

~

Do not put all your eggs in one basket. Have your own independent relationships other than the one you share with your partner. Shiva is known to go off with his cronies and partake of a relaxing hallucinogen, and indulge in ‘alone time’ and meditation. Parvati has her friends, Jaya and Vijaya, who help her in her ablutions and other aspects of life. They both also have their own ‘portfolios’ in the celestial world and keep very busy, away from each other. They give each other, as they say in today’s times, ‘space’.

~

In a rather unique manner, Shiva epitomizes balance in his life choices, because not only is he Mahayogi, an ascetic, he is also Shankara, the beneficent married one. He balances two opposites.

In The Reluctant Family Man, Nilima Chitgopekar uses the life and personality of Shiva-his self-awareness, his marriage, his balance, his detachment, his contentment-to derive lessons that readers can practically apply to their own lives.

5 Things You Need to Know About GST’s Impact on the Common Man

Posted on by Penguin India

On 1 July 2017, Goods and Services Tax (GST) became a reality. The government hailed it as the biggest tax reform of independent India which would herald a new freedom for the nation and unify it with ‘One Nation One Tax’. Some of the claims made by the government were that GST would bring about ease of doing business; increase tax collection; lower inflation; increase GDP growth by 1-2 per cent; and check the black economy.  More than a year later, we have more questions than answers.
Why did the economy slow down? Is the government likely to collect more taxes? Why have prices continued to rise? Why has Malaysia withdrawn GST?

It turns out that problems with GST are both transitional and structural. To correct for these there have been a few hundred notifications and orders from the government which have added to the confusion.
In Ground Scorching Tax, well-known economist and India’s leading expert on the black economy, Arun Kumar systematically and lucidly explains the reality behind GST, demystifying this complex tax for ordinary citizens.

Known for not pulling any punches, the author explains why GST is truly a ‘ground scorching tax’ and  a double-edged sword for the common man, why it will increase inequality across sectors and regions, why it will hurt small businesses – everything the government does not want you to know.

He also proposes an alternative which will convert this tax into a `Ground Nourishing Tax’.

Read on to learn how the common man is affected by the ‘Ground Scorching Tax’

The unorganized sector employs the vast majority of the workforce so the setback caused to this sector by the GST renders a large number of people unemployed and lowers the overall real wage rate

GST and digitization accelerate this ongoing process of marginalization of the unorganized sectors. As pointed out in the previous section, marketization marginalizes the weak in the market—it favours the large over the small businesses. While in economic terms this may seem to be ‘efficient’ with growth being fuelled by the large scale sector, it leads to growing inequality which has political and social implications. Since it is the unorganized sector that employs the vast majority of the work force, any setback to this sector leads to growing under employment and crisis in the lives of these people. With the growth of the organized sector, while wage rate may rise, employment available declines since the large and medium sectors are far more automated than the small sectors. Thus, the overall wage received by workers would fall. The purchasing power of those employed in the unorganized sectors and of workers as a whole would decline. (p. 186)

 ~

Small businesses are financially affected by not being able to receive or offer Input Tax Credit.

The concern for the small suppliers led to their being exempted from registration under GST. So, suppliers with turnover of up to Rs 20 lakh have been exempted. But they will not be able to get input credit (ITC) and if they sell to any other business they cannot offer ITC. A very big disadvantage indeed. Similarly, those with a turnover between Rs 20 lakh and Rs 1 crore will fall under the Composition Scheme and will neither get ITC nor be able to offer ITC. They would also not be able to make inter-state sales. Further, the tax that they should have paid under GST but did not pay since they are exempt will have to be paid by the business purchasing from them. This is the reverse charge mechanism (RCM). Thus, the purchasers’ cost would go up. (Pp. 103-4)

(Subsequently, due to changes announced, units with turnover up to Rs.40 lakh are exempt from registration and the limit for Composition Scheme has been raised to Rs.1.5 crore)

~

Some of the GST rates are higher than the rate they were paying under the earlier system which has increased prices and expenses for the common man

The GST rate on goods and services have been fixed close to the rate they were already paying under the old regime. So, if some good was being taxed at the rate of say, 15 per cent then it was moved largely to 18 per cent under GST. Most services were at the rate of 15 per cent and that has increased to 18 per cent. This has proved to be inflationary. (p. 104)

 ~

Since indirect taxes are applied on goods and services consumed, they affect all sections of society unlike direct taxes which are collected from those who are well off and can afford to pay it. Indirect taxes are also regressive as they typically result in the impoverished sections paying a greater proportion of their income then the well off. The overwhelming focus on GST and indirect taxes as opposed to direct taxes is antithetical to the interests of the common man.

It was argued that indirect taxes are stagflationary while direct taxes are the opposite and hence more desirable. Thus, it would have been more desirable for the nation to collect more of direct taxes than indirect taxes. In 2005, the UPA I government had also talked of the need to introduce the direct tax code (DTC) to reform direct taxes. However, little headway has been made in that direction. The emphasis has been on GST and collecting more of indirect taxes—indicating a political bias. It was also shown that indirect taxes tend to be regressive while the direct taxes can be progressive. Thus going for more collection of indirect taxes increases the regressive component of India’s tax system. It also does not put greater pressure to tackle the black economy and collect more of direct taxes. Again this benefits the elite sections of society. They can continue to earn large sums of incomes through the black economy on which they do not have to pay taxes. (p. 172)

 ~

 The local bodies have been deprived of their sources of revenue from taxation under the new regime.

As some of the important sources of revenue of local bodies (like Octroi and entertainment tax) have been absorbed in GST, they needed to be also provided with independent source of revenue. This has not happened. There is no mention of devolution to the local bodies. It is not clear whether the Centre or the states are to pass on a share of the resource. (p.190)

In Ground Scorching Tax, well-known economist Arun Kumar explains the reality behind GST.

Eight Inspirational Intrapreneurs from ‘Jugaad 3.0’

Posted on by Penguin India

DIYer n. A disrupt-it-yourselfer; a Jugaad 3.0 innovator; an employee who acts and behaves more like an entrepreneur in the context of an established organization

Dr. Simone Ahuja – consultant, author, speaker and entrepreneur, is the CEO of Blood Orange where her mission is to empower innovators in large organizations and mobilize them with entrepreneurial tools for a single purpose: to transform the corporate culture from the inside out using design and lean principles. In Jugaad 3.0 Hacking the Corporation, she shifts the focus from ‘entrepreneurs’ to ‘intrapreneurs’, the incredible ‘corporate hackers’ who tap into and around the bureaucratic machinery surrounding them to advance their projects. Or we could call them ‘constructive disrupters’,since today’s intrapreneurs often seriously challenge existing business from product offering to business model, yet they do it actively from the inside and, by doing this, help keep the enterprise viable.

Based on hundreds of interviews, as well as the author’s consulting work within companies, Jugaad 3.0 Hacking the Corporation identifies the competencies these corporate hackers possess. It also offers a spectrum of carefully crafted archetypes to help people see themselves in this trend and allow organizations identify the innovators in their midst.

Read on to learn more about eight inspirational intrapreneurs whose passion and innovation transformed organizations from within-

Balanda Atis —As a chemist formulating mascara at L’Oréal USA, she set her sights on formulating foundations that did not look ashy on darker skins.

“Although Atis and her colleagues were not freed from doing their day jobs, L’Oréal gave the trio access to a lab. Fuelled by passion and purpose, they produced and tested foundation samples on their own time. Lacking opportunities for data collection, they tagged along on trips to existing conferences and fairs across the country, collecting skin tone measurements from thousands of women of colour. The big breakthrough came when Atis discovered they could work with an existing colour compound. Ultramarine blue was seldom used in cosmetics and difficult to work with, but it allowed them to create richer, deeper shades without the muddy finish that was so common in existing darker foundations. Atis and her tiny team succeeded in satisfying a massive customer need that had existed for generations.”

 

Ravi Ramaswamy— He led the innovation team behind the Efficia ECG100 an easy to use ECG after realizing that resource-constrained settings needed medical systems should not only be easy to buy but also easy to use and did not require expensive specialized training.

“The prototype exceeded everyone’s expectations. What is now a diagnostic-quality electrocardiogram started with the team’s purchase of an off-the-shelf mobile device. Any Android phone or tablet could act as the user interface after the simple installation of an app. The team’s energies went into making an ECG acquisition box that was just as compact (the finalproduct weighed fewer than ten ounces) and intuitive to use. ‘We worked on it for about six to eight months,’ Ramaswamy recalled, before asking for a meeting with Philips Healthcare’s business unit leader. After hearing the idea and trying out the prototype, the executive said: ‘This is a fantastic product. It’s going to be the pathway to the future.’ Ramaswamy reported that ‘from then on, there was no looking back. We had the complete support of the business unit in terms of driving this model.’”

 

TOYOTA US TEAM—They worked on the margins of Toyota’s organization to redevelop the Toyota Avalon.

“Take the wholesale redevelopment of the 2013 Toyota Avalon. Led by designers and engineers working far from the company’s Japanese headquarters, the initiative was culture defying for Toyota. When the US-based team told their story to industry analyst Mark Phelan, they stressed that they ‘worked in the margins of Toyota’s playbook, following the old adage that it’s better to beg forgiveness than permission’”

 

Doug Dietz—After seeing the discomfort of young children getting CT scans, he developed the GE Adventure Series—which involves turning dark, scary CT scanning tunnels into inviting storybook hideaways for young patients.

“First, it was by visiting a customer’s facility—the paediatric oncology department of a major hospital—that industrial designer Doug Dietz recognized a customer problem crying out for a better solution. He tells the story of how he had just finished working on a CT design project and thought he’d done a wonderful job. He was very proud of himself, and in 2005 he went to one of the hospitals where the equipment was being installed for the first time. But it only took an hour of observation for him to realize how reductively he had pursued his mission. The first people he watched interacting with the new machinery were a family with a young child. The child was so terrified by the machine that she needed to be sedated. Dietz had to be there to get that the key to better outcomes—including better image capture, higher machine utilization and better patient experience—was decreasing the need for sedation. It wasn’t just about making machines more capable; it was about making children—and families—more comfortable.”

 

Lars Kolind—His spaghetti organization at Oticon allowed employees across the board to choose projects according to their skills or as an opportunity to develop new skills, and share equal responsibility for projects.

“Going back even further to 1990, an executive named Lars Kolind arrived at the Danish company Oticon with a bold new structural idea he called ‘the spaghetti organization’. If you think about the clean boxes and lines on the traditional command and- control organization chart, and then you think about what happens to those lines in a Holacratic or Hollywood system, you see where he got his metaphor. To the great surprise of the engineers working on Oticon’s innovative hearing aids, asvwell as all its functional groups from finance to sales and from HR to PR, Kolind in one fell swoop did away with everyone’s job title and moved them all from their accustomed offices and desks too. Most important, he told them that it was up to them now to decide where their talents could be best applied. No one would be assigned to projects where they would receive topdown mandates from project bosses.”

 
Kishore Biyani—His innovative intra-organization recruitment to create more ‘Kishore Biyanis’ for leadership roles.

“In January 2016, he put the call out across his organization for applicants interested in those leadership roles. Already, this was unusual, since the recruiting did not look outside FCL’s walls: this was a campaign, called Ban Jao Biyani, run wholly within the organization. More interesting still, having received 450 applications from employees, he and his team then ‘shortlisted’ fifty applicants, and put them through a boot camp where they were ‘trained on management aspects and asked to present a business plan for the brand they had bid for’. This was, in effect, the kind of competition some organizations today host for proposed innovation projects—but in this case, it was not intrapreneurial ideas but the intrapreneurs themselves who were being chosen for further development and investment.”

 

SHARMILA SAHA AT Mindtree—Mindtree’s programme

‘5 X50’ chose five intrapreneurial projects, each of which was judged to have the potential to grow to $50 million in revenues. The five were carefully selected through a competitive process and the winning teams were given the full support of an incubator-style experience of mentoring and resource provision.

“A quick win from that programme was a new line of business: Mindtree’s Digital Surveillance unit, launched in 2013. The team behind it, led by Sharmila Saha, was driven by the new market demand for better public-space surveillance technology in the wake of high-impact terrorist attacks, seen on a global scale by the 11 September 2001 attacks in the United States and the Mumbai attacks of 26 November 2008. It saw that potential clients like US Homeland Security were struggling with conventional CCTV feeds, which required hours of tedious monitoring, and thought it could come up with next-generation capabilities. Prior to the 5 X 50 initiative announcement, Saha and four colleagues had been working for half a year on the concept, which features audio-video analytics and real-time updates. Winning the competition meant that Mindtree invested about $1.5 million (about Rs 9 crore) to incubate it to the point where it was ready for its first client, the Bangalore City Traffic Police.”

Babak Forutanpour—He found himself the accidental founder of a movement Qualcomm. The group acquired a name—FLUX, for ‘forward-looking user experience’.

“This is what Babak Forutanpour was up against as a software engineer at Qualcomm circa 2004. Once he was onboarded and unpacked his laptop, he realized there was no suitable place to bring a new idea to have it vetted and considered for development. ‘No one was listening, and my boss didn’t even want to brainstorm,’ he recalled. Eventually he was so desperate for a sounding board that he pulled together a ‘little biweekly luncheon’ with like-minded people outside his usual circle. ‘If nothing else,’ he figured, they could all ‘eat a ham sandwich with someone interesting’. But that initial group quickly decided to go beyond the sandwich and try to accomplish something more substantial together. In short order they came up with a cool new technical solution for reducing ambient noise. After a thorough vetting of prototypes by subject-matter experts, a patent that eventually produced real value for Qualcomm was applied for and awarded.”

For more, get a copy of Jugaad 3.0!

Eight Signs you are Taking your Partner For Granted

Posted on by Penguin India

When in love, you tend to take each other for granted, and sometimes, that can cost you a lifetime of togetherness . . .

In the book Something I Never Told You by Shravya Bhinder, Ronnie knew that his first crush was way out of his league, and yet he pursued and wooed Adira. Shyly and from a distance in the beginning, and more persuasively later. He couldn’t believe it when the beautiful Adira actually began to reciprocate, falling in love with him for his simplicity and honesty. Slowly, as they get close and comfortable with each other, life takes on another hue. From truly magical it becomes routine.

Here are some quotes from Ronnie and Adira’s relationship that will prevent you from making the mistake they made:

“Every time we had an argument or a disagreement, or if one did not like anything about the other, she used to go silent, or respond in monosyllables, sometimes even sounds—hmmm . . . ah . . . oh . . . what kind of a response was this?”

 

“I have learnt only one thing in my life—that we should not stop expressing our love, ever! After some time together, we usually stop telling our beloveds how much they mean to us. We stop saying, ‘I love you’, and start taking each other for granted. The comfort of company creeps in.”

 

“I took you for granted, I took what was between us for granted as I never knew that all could be lost in the blink of an eye. The few times when I did tell you how much I loved you, I failed to stand by it. I should have told you more often how much you mean to me; I should have not hesitated in saying the three most significant yet sparingly used words in most modern relationships.”

 

“I never thought that you could go anywhere, that I could lose you. Destiny tricked me and shook my world. When in love, we should tell our beloved how we feel about them; every day, every hour if we can, every minute if we must.”

 

“How I wish the walls of my ego had crumbled that night and been buried under the immense love I have always felt for you. How I wish I had disobeyed the devil in me, when I planned to make you suffer remorse for one more night.”

 

“Yes, the mode of communication which is the best for lovers after letters and calls, is email. Not many of us explore that option, but I feel that chatting or texting doesn’t really convey our messages and tone well. I would prefer an email any day to a chat or text.”

 

“We were both a little broken, entirely messed up and madly in love with the idea of love. ‘Love dies when you stop working on it,’ I told her in a reassuring tone. My mind was running on an overdose of emotions.”

 

“If your first day with your girlfriend is the most memorable one, it means that you could never really develop the spark you had into a fire. Love is like wine—the older it gets, the better it becomes. It can intoxicate you, make you forget all your worries, and be the relief that you have always been looking for. The passion should increase day by day, hour by hour and minute by minute. People who say that the spark dies after the first few years have never been in love.”

 

Ronnie and Adira will probably never find their forever after . . Get your copy today to find out more!

 

Reel vs. Real: Adapting My Story into a Book

Posted on by Penguin India

by Novoneel Chakraborty

One of the things which makes a reader curious about any story is how real or true it is. When authors pen stories, it is believed that they must have written it after being inspired by real-life incidents, which they have lived or seen closely. Majority of the times this assumption is true. What makes my latest novel Half Torn Hearts, an autobiographical attempt, slightly different in its approach is that I didn’t rely on any incident to make it autobiographical. I created the characters, gave them a relatable milieu and dived deep within myself only for their emotional graph, their outlook towards life and their deep character, fishing out emotions and words which were expressed by me and felt by both myself and the three women in my life. It was while penning down this novel that I realized a story becomes impersonal not only because of the plot points you use but also because somewhere the characters and their inner pathos are straight out of your real-life experiences. And, that a storyline may be fictitious but the characters may very well be real.

Half Torn Hearts has an interesting backstory. This is the only book of mine which took five years to complete. The process not only made me revisit old wounds but also convinced me that an author doesn’t tell a story. A story unfolds itself through an author. Few understand this difference. An author is a medium, not the story. For this story to be complete, it had to make me come in touch with someone who eventually became my muse, not only to finish this book but also for my overall creativity. Patience is a virtue and nobody else can understand this better than a storyteller.

In all my stories that I’ve penned so far, I’ve always fine-tuned the real-life inspirations. By fine-tuning, I mean that sometimes reality isn’t as dramatic as fiction should be. And at times, it is too over-the-top to be used in fiction sensibly. The one major limitation of fiction when compared to real life is that fiction always needs to make sense within the parameters of its self-defined logic, while reality is free of such limitations. And when one writes about something deeply personal, one needs to make sure it doesn’t hurt anyone who is involved in the real story. That’s a reason why I used the plot of this novel to hide the emotions of the characters in such a way that only those involved will be able to understand where certain things in the story are coming from. And for a normal reader, it may just read like an engaging story.

A very important aspect while penning down a personal story is editing. I’m not talking about structural- or copy-editing here. When things happen in real life, they have their own pace of events, and every event seems important. But when one sits to write, one cannot write about each and every event because, in a personal, real story, one will be invested since it’s one’s story, but for a reader, the investment happens only when things they are reading aren’t boring.

I write in the commercial fiction zone. Hence, the most important question that plagued me while writing this was what to keep and what not to. And in ‘what to keep’, there was another sub-query of ‘how much’. I follow a cardinal rule of writing: thou shall not bore thy readers, at least not knowingly. To get to this, one needs certain creative objectivity, which can’t be developed immediately. The more one writes and subsequently, the more one edits, the more one will know what really needs to remain in the final version of the manuscript and what simply needs to go. For example, in my current novel, there was a scene between the protagonists, Raisa and Nirmaan, which for the first time in the story was bringing them intimately close. When I read the manuscript for the third time, I realized that for the sake of the sanctity of the story, the scene should not be happening even though it was one of my favourite scenes in the book. Eventually, I edited it out. As they say: ‘kill your darlings’.

Lastly, I would say: telling one’s own story, in whichever way, involves a lot of responsible writing. Truth has interpretation. It also has misinterpretations as well. Hence, it has to be well-balanced. And, getting into that balance requires a lot of redrafting, personal introspection and revisiting things within oneself, things which we are done with—or maybe never done with—until the story shapes up the way we envisioned. But then, there also lies the magic of storytelling.

Half Torn Hearts is a coming-of-age tale of three layered individuals coming in terms with their first loss.

Novoneel Chakraborty is the bestselling author of many romantic thriller novels and one short story collection, Cheaters. Known for his twists, dark plots and strong female protagonists, he is also called the Sidney Sheldon of India by his readers. Apart from novels, Novoneel has written and developed several TV shows such as Savdhaan India and Yeh Hai Aashiqui.

From the Editor’s Desk: Women Writing for you

Posted on by Penguin India

by Manasi Subramaniam

MARCH | #ReadMoreWomen

This March, we were excited to be partnering with SheThePeople to curate the Women’s Library, which is an exceptional shelf of books – all of which just happen to be written by women! But as we planned the promotions, I started to realize what an extraordinary range we have in our fiction backlists as well – and I wanted to use this opportunity to bring to your attention some writers and books that we’d love to see you revisit – or even discover for the first time.

So here’s a challenge. Let’s try making a conscious effort to read more women. What a conscious effort to read more women does is redouble any unconscious efforts: it holds us to our commitments, it diversifies our reading, and brings the reader’s attention to books that may have – consciously or unconsciously – slipped through the cracks.

Below are my picks of women’s writing that I’d love for you to read

Shashi Deshpande’s That Long Silence is about Jaya, a failed writer who has identified herself as a daughter, a wife, and a mother for seventeen years. When her husband is accused of business malpractice and his career starts falling apart, Jaya finds herself confronting deeply buried fears, especially her fear of anger. Deshpande’s second novel is about the Indian woman who is taught to suppress her voice, long before she takes her husband’s name.

Other books by the author: The Dark Holds No Terrors, Moving On.

Winner of the 1999 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book (Europe and South Asia), Manju Kapur’s Difficult Daughters is set in Amritsar around the time of Partition. The protagonist is an independent young woman named Virmati, who wants something more than marriage from her life, but her desire for education lands her in an affair with a married professor. When the professor marries Virmati and brings her home, Virmati finds herself in an ironic situation—the choice she made to be free now imprisons her.

Other books by the author: Brothers, The Immigrant.

Taslima Nasrin’s Lajja was met with radical backlash in her home country of Bangladesh. Since 1994, Nasrin has been in exile but her controversial novel received worldwide acclaim. Lajja is about the Duttas, a Hindu family living in Bangladesh. Sudhamoy, the patriarch of the family is unfazed by rising radical sentiments against the Hindu minority in his country. On 6 December 1992 the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya is demolished, and Sudhamoy’s life takes a drastic turn.
Other books by the author: Exile, Split.

Described as The Virgin Suicides meets Little Women in Pakistan, This Wide Night is Sarvat Hasin’s debut work about four sisters in the progressive and inclusive era of 70s Karachi. Maria, Ayesha, Leila and Beena live with their mother. Their father, Captain Malik, is barely in the house, which encourages the women to create their own unconventional world. The sisters are forced to confront challenges when their country goes to war.

Other books by the author: You Can’t Go Home Again.

Hedonism and political turmoil serve as the background to Nadia Akbar’s Goodbye Freddie Mercury a novel set in contemporary Lahore. Nida seeks to escape her claustrophobic house after her brother dies in the army. Omer is the son of the Prime Minister’s right-hand man, Iftikhar Ali. Omer’s childhood friend is Bugsy, a Freddie Mercury fan who works as a radio jockey and has feelings for Nida, Omer’s girlfriend. While living their life from one drug-fuelled night to another, the three friends soon become a part of a larger, political agenda.

I’m excited to hear what you’ve been reading as well – and if you have suggestions for our women’s library!

 

Until next month,

Manasi Subramaniam

Photo by Patrick Fore 

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