Book Review: Ignited Minds

Title: Ignited Minds, Unleashing the Power within India
Author: APJ Abdul Kalam (President of India)

I had always heard about Abdul Kalam as a nuclear scientist for a long time prior to his role as President of India. It is unusual for India to not have a conventional politician as the President. Historically, the President’s job is “assigned” either to a politician nearing retirement as a reward for loyalty/service, or to a potential PM aspirant (as a way of getting rid of him/her!).

Given the uniqueness of Mr. Kalam’s background in comparison to his predecessors, I was curious to get an insight to the person and his thinking. On reading his book, firstly, I was happy for India on a number of counts. Mr. Kalam is certainly inspirational and comes across as someone who really cares about the country, someone who is constantly thinking about how to make a difference, someone who is down to earth and sincere, and someone who has no political leanings whatsoever. I can’t think of any other country in the world where the Prime Minister and the President have such good credentials. I think it was a master stroke by Vajpayee to back a scientist for the Presidency. Lastly, a Muslim President from a BJP government is a noteworthy milestone.

This book is primarily meant to be a call to Indians (the younger generation in particular) to come together, “dream” and work towards transforming the country into a developed nation by the year 2020. The book certainly does justice to this goal. He clearly outlines five focus areas for the country to achieve this objective: agriculture and food processing, education and healthcare, IT, strategic sectors (nuclear, space, defence). He then delves into details on their inter-relationships and implications.

Its an easy read and filled with anecdotes about his visits to various part of India. A lot of it is about questions posed by the younger generation to him from various parts of the country. The book also captures his exchange with Swamijis, Sufis, CEOs, politicians, etc. Given his background as a scientist he covers historical information about the various research centers in India (VSSC, TIFR, DRDO, etc. ) .

While responding to specific questions posed to him in the book, the text does tend to wander sometimes without a formal closure to the answer. K. B Chandrasekhar of Exodus fame is mentioned in the book. “One fine morning he sold his 10-billion dollar company to start another enterprise” (As someone who lost $ from an Exodus investment I wonder where the President got his facts checked for this one!) Barring this, the book is a simple, enjoyable, inspirational read. I hope more of India’s political leaders took the time to capture their thoughts and vision for the country. Its a must read for India’s younger generation.

Pak-WI Second Test

The second test is interestingly poised. My prediction (which historically has seldom turned out to be correct!) is that Pak will win this test. Here are some of my reasons:

  • The Pak team has a rare killer instinct.
  • A target of around 300 in the last innings is always hard.
  • West Indies has played very consistently this test series. This is a pretty inconsistent phenomenon in itself! In other words, a complete failure from the WI is long over due.
  • Lara, whose batting forms the backbone, has scored consistently and its about time he fails.

India-Pak Relations Improving

The India Pak friendship measures seem to be growing. Advani’s visit to Pak is a great step forward as are the visit of the Kashmiri leaders to Pak. I hope this continues and something crazy does not happen to ruin these positive moves. President Musharraf (based on his visit to India in April) seems to have come to the conclusion that peace with India has its benefits. Time will tell if this wily military leader is serious or if it is just one of the many crafty plans up his sleeve.

Deep Throat: Top 10 reasons why now?

10. He was sick of seeing Bob Woodward raking in the moolah for three decades.

9. At 91, it was about time he collected his real retirement package.

8. He was encouraging the FBI to come out with the truth on Iraq.

7. He was sick of hearing his grandson call him a “girlie-man”.

6. It was a pre-emptive strike before Al-Zawahri claims to be Deep Throat.

5. He saw Paris Hilton’s Carl’s Jr. ad and had a change of heart (oops it was a heart attack!)

4. He heard that the Bush administration was planning to attack Iran because they had evidence that Deep Throat was living in Iran.

3. He had a Reagan moment.

2. Someone introduced him to President Bush as Deep Throat, the President said, “mmhh…that’s a nice name, never heard that before!”

1. Mark “Felt” it was time he finally took his own advice to follow the money!

Prof. C.K Prahalad’s talk at Stanford

Attended a talk by CK Prahalad yesterday at Stanford University. “Changing Lifestyles in Asian Countries: Opportunities for Entrepreneurs” presentation and discussion by:

  • C.K. Prahalad, Professor, Business School, University of Michigan
  • Jonathan Barker, Managing Principal, Center Street Advisors
  • Moderated by Richard Dasher, Director, US-ASIA Technology Management Center

The talk was about growth in India and China and opportunities for entrepreneurs that arise from it. While Jonathan Barker focused on China, Prof. Prahalad spoke about India.

Prof. Prahalad is an interesting and extremely articulate speaker. He spewed plenty of facts, figures, quotes and statistics like most B-school Profs. Some catchy ones:

  • 20M people travel by train everyday in India.
  • The cell phone is more reliable than the watch to keep track of time. A whole generation of people in India and China might growing not ever owning a watch but using the cell phone instead to serve the same purpose in addition to acting as a cell phone, of course.
  • Its easier to teach someone something totally new when they don’t have to unlearn what they have learned.
  • NGOs do very good work in India but they are never good at “scalability”.
  • A small town in Tamil Nadu is developing into a mostly cash less town (all transactions are done via credit card!).

He plugged the benefits of focusing on the “bottom of the pyramid” (which is the basis of his recent book “Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid”). According to him there is great opportunity for entrepreneurs in focusing on the bottom of the pyramid since it is a huge market. The challenge is to provide innovative products at a low cost (meaning: affordable to people in developing countries). He identified a bunch of potential sectors but given the shortage of time discussed only a couple of case studies – one from Hospitality sector and the another from Adult Education.

Hospitality: With 20M people traveling everyday in India by railways there has to be an opportunity for providing hotels at affordable prices. Most people can’t afford the conventional hotels. He was a consultant for a study that resulted in the new Indione hotels. These hotels apparently provide excellent quality rooms with internet access etc at an affordable price of around Rs. 900 ($20) per day. They studied the existing hotels and optimized resources to ensure that they can achieve high quality at a low cost. For example, the average Hotel employee per room is about 2.4, but in the IndiOne it is 0.8.

Adult Education: Next he discussed the example of adult education in Tamil Nadu and Andhra. Apparently, most adult education programs require proficiency in the 3Rs (Reading, Writing and Arithmetic). This requires some 400 hours (I think this was the number he mentioned) to achieve an acceptable level of proficiency, and most adults can’t and won’t make the time for it. So they said, “Why bother with all three aspects, lets just focus on Reading”. Then instead of following the conventional — learn alphabets, learn words, then learn reading” approach they developed a different strategy of seeing, hearing, then learning words and finally the alphabets”. All this learning involves computerized content so adults can learn at their own pace as well. TCS and NIIT have embarked on these programs and achieved great success in spreading literacy. However, the business impact of these programs were not discussed.

Audience Question: With all the opportunity being overseas and all jobs going overseas what does the future hold for the middle class here in the US? (there were other questions but this one stood out)

Jonathan Barker in response to this, said that a lot depended on leadership. The US needs to actively invest and explore new fields (like stem cell research) to continue its leadership position.

Prof. Prahalad, agreed with the challenge posed by “the 50 year old who needs to be re-trained” (Tom Friedman’s book apparently refers to it too). However, he said he is not too worried about the future of industry here in the US. He compared the present to the times in 80s when manufacturing was headed overseas. The naysayers said the US was doomed, though that never happened.

Questions like this one raised by this member in the audience are very common these days. But I am yet to hear a convincing answer from any of the experts to questions such as these.

The Irony: Both case studies were very interesting and helped re-reinforce Prof. Prahalad’s view that innovation and creativity can help take advantage of the large available market. Ironically both case studies were the result of efforts by large conglomerates like the Tatas. This is understandable, given that Prof. Prahalad’s “core competency” lies in consulting for large corporations.

In what way does this growth in developing countries translate to opportunities for entrepreneurs?The average Joe on the street with a cool idea will still have to struggle, can’t get very far and could eventually drown to the bottom of the pyramid! In theory yes there is opportunity whenever there is a large market, but in reality how can the small guy with the idea get ahead? The talk and discussion that followed didn’t quite address this issue. There is no question that the Tatas and Birlas will milk the bottom of the pyramid as more cars, cell phones, TV, refridgerators etc are consumed. It would have been far more helpful had there been some specific examples from one of these developing countries, of up and coming new companies/products that have combined innovation, smart business and bottom up growth to achieve success of a significant scale despite stiff competition from the big guys.

Smoking ban in Indian films and TV!

The Government of India plans to ban smoking in films and TV!! While I certainly agree with the theory that celebreties smoking on screen do influence young kids, I think its absolutely ridiculous to impose a ban of this kind. Why not attack the source, the tobacco companies! Increase the taxes, limit availability, restrict the sales, educate people on the negative effects of smoking etc etc. Movies are a medium of mass communication and should be allowed reasonable creative freedom as long as it is within the norms of decency (for which the censor board is already in place).

p.s: The Health Minister, Anbumani Ramadoss is from the anti-Rajnikanth (Tamil superstar know for his cigarrette flicks!) camp and this might have something to do with it?

Mani Shankar Iyer’s comments

It certainly helps to have well educated qualified individuals as ministers. Check out this article with interesting quotes (from Tom Friedman of NY Times book release function) from Mani Shankar Iyer, Union Minister for Petroleum in the Manmohan Singh ministry. The current government in India a strange mix of extremes, especially when it comes to the ministers and there pedigree.

Cricket: Unpredictable WI strikes back

West Indies, the ever unpredictable cricket team swung back to thrash the resurgent Pak. Its a great victory for a team in the dumps. WI have also ensured that they can’t loose the test series. Lara once again proved that he is still very much a force to reckon with. His spate of recent centuries should maker the injury prone Sachin wary of his max 100s record. Hats off to Chanderpaul for leading from the front.

This test also proves that Inzy and Youhana are too critical to Pak. Shahid Afridi played a belligerent knock as always. Opening with him might have given the fight back a different flavor. But again, you can never predict.

Younis Khan had a lousy debut as captain. More than its bowling, it was Pak’s batting that caused them the test. Bazid Khan blew a good chance to make an ompression while Yasir Hameed continues to prove his unreliability. Salman but is still very much an India specialist (batsmen who scores mostly against India!).

Bangladesh-England Test Cricket

What a pathetic show by the Bangaldeshis! The test match was almost over in 2 days! The ICC is doing a great disservice to Test cricket by granting test status to countries that are simply not ready for it. It destroys the confidence of the team and the much stronger opponents loose interest. Test cricket being the big loser in the process. As for England, this is hardly a preparation for the upcoming Ashes (which incidentally should be an exciting series. I don’t think England has had a stronger team for a long time)

As a part of the qualifying process teams should be forced to play against local teams in other countries to prove a certain level of proficiency. For instance, Bangladesh should have played more cricket in the domestic circuit in India (Ranji, Duleep and other trophies) before being granted test status.

I certainly hope Bangladesh perform better in the rest of the England tour!