Outcome or Process, Choose One

IT enabled Governance (ITeG) is gaining acceptance and momentum. The Electronic Service Delivery Bill now under consideration of the government is expected to give further thrust to e-enablement. With Aadhaar (unique id) getting better traction, Aadhaar integration in the service delivery also is providing stimulus in ITeG initiatives.

The complexity and challenges relating to the e-enablement vary across departments. On one end of the spectrum, the processes are quite mature and well defined, and computerization is primarily a means for improvement in productivity. On the other end of the spectrum, what is required is not just automation of existing processes, but a total transformation solution which involves significant process re-engineering, re-alignment of the role of various stakeholders which may also result in some stake holders role getting redundant or less important, innovative use of technology, phased implementation, continuous monitoring and many mid-course corrections.

In both cases Information Technology is a critical component; but often it is forgotten that IT is a means to an end and not and end in itself. I do not intend to discuss the other dimensions of ITeG in this post (take a look at ‘An amateur’s guide to e-Governance”). This note is about how the IT component is managed by government departments. Most government departments have limited in house skill to undertake these activities and therefore they outsource these to private sector service providers. Most of the IT service providers who take up these jobs of the System Integrators often do not have a total solution orientation or they are not capable to offer one. So they end up being suppliers to staff.

The predominant skill set for them is writing software for the specification given by the solution architects because our domestic software industry is often drunk with the $ from being technicians and cybercoolies and not architects and engineers. The user requirement study is "Tell me what exactly you want me to automate, I will program it" and not "Tell me what your dream is, we will work together on how technology can make it happen". So their approach is that of manpower provider than a solution provider. They don’t share the risk of a failed system (the limitation of liability clause adequately takes care of this) nor do the government comfortable to share the reward in the form of outcome based payments.

Often service providers influence how the RFP is made which ends up being an enquiry for supply of bodies than outcomes. So RFP gives more importance to the CV of the team instead of making them responsible for the outcome. Subsequently these contracts make the client to pay for rectifying the bugs in the programs and also make him spent for much more hardware than needed. Augmenting this problem is the purchase decision based on the lowest price quoted by the vendors. No proper matrices for measuring the outcome are defined and the department attempts to micromanage the CV, the attendance, hardware specification and so on. Then either the shoddy service providers takes the contract or the selected vendor develops shoddy solutions. That is the reason many ITeG don’t live up to the expectations.

When people are told exactly what and how to do something, they stop thinking for themselves-and they can't learn and grow. ~ unknown

Death by Power Point

Couple of weeks back I attended a conference. As the key note speaker we had an expert from one of the top notch institutions in the world, who had recently relocated from London. As the topic was close to my heart, I parked myself in the front seat. The speaker had a distinct western accent as he had been out of the country for a long time.

As expected from any expert speaker today, he had a power point presentation to support his talk. The slides started moving one by one. Extremely colorful, quite complex diagrams with wide variety of shapes and colours linked and interlinked using arrows and lines flowing in and out and very densely packed text. Quite visually impressive!

Even front row, I found it difficult to read most of the text. The message that was expected to be understood from the various cubes, pyramids and animations were too complex for me to follow; especially when I attempted to follow the speech. The speaker expected me to quickly assimilate each slide in milliseconds and then connect it to the pearls of wisdom that came from his mouth.

The audio and the visuals were impressive; but, failed to communicate to the audience. This is a phenomenon that has become quite common these days. Power Point presentation is a killer utility that Computer revolution has contributed to the modern day manager. With more and more functionalities and features Power Point has become more important to corporate executives than even food and water. (The only other killer functionality that can beat this is the is ‘copy paste’ function)

A good Power Point presentation can be a powerful tool to make penetrating communications; especially in presentations. It can help the presenter as cue card to help in keeping a structured story line, it can pictorially present some difficult concepts, it can help the audience to quickly refer to the broader context of what is being presented so on and so forth

But overuse of the funky features is making this to a tool that kills effective communication. Power Point helps in building excellent visual presentations and diagrammatic representations.

The diagrams pie charts we use as a part of a written document can afford to be a bit complex and dense (though I would not recommend overdose of it). This is because the reader has the flexibility to read the text, look at the model, ruminate and go back to the text and the model again if he feels the need. In this case he sets the pace. Even when we provide an electronic copy of the presentation and the receiver can view it at his pace, we can afford to have some element of complexity.

But if we are using our PPT as a complement to our oral presentation we cannot afford such complex and dense slide show. If our presentation is to a small audience who are very much clued on to the topic we are presenting (say our department colleagues, our board, our client) we can get away with some of these gimmicks.

But if we are making a presentation to a larger audience then these colorful animations dampens the effectiveness of the presentation. Very often when we make presentations and the speeches to a large audience, the level to which most of the people are clued into the topic will be to a much lesser extent. In such circumstances, if we make our PPT and speech complex and heavy, it will fail to communicate though it may appear erudite. The complex slide deck will then become a distraction. Human beings cannot listen, read and assimilate complex messages in real time as his working memory have limited capacity and has limited duration, especially when it comes to new and novel information. The visuals could act as an intuitive complement; but, if it is anything more, it can be very frustrating and ineffective. What is worse is the presenter referring to the slides all the time taking away one of the most important component of oral presentation; the eye contact.

The new breed “MBA” varieties (I can vouch for that. I am one too) who are computer savvy (A very critical skill these days) get carried away by everything the computer can do without assessing how useful and how relevant they are in the context. The slide deck for them becomes a tool to intimidate, a means to prove how smart they are and not an aid to communicate and to relate. But in reality they become crutches to the speaker and not an aid to the audience. Should we consider banning power point presentation? Absolutely not; if we do that there will be many more (like consultants) to join Dodo as an extinct species.(don’t deny me my daily bread)

"If your words or images are not on point, making them dance in color won't make them relevant." - Edward Tufte Professor Emeritus, Yale University

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Don’t do me a favor; Grant me the right to demand

Depository’s act of India provided for one of the highest level of service level commitments to the account holder. It required that the depository should indemnify any losses to the investors resulting out of negligence from its part or from the part of its agents namely depository participants. Thus it gave the account holders the right to demand safety of their investment. At the time of enactment of this act, when about 25% of all settlement in the stock market used to have problems associated with paper and there were innumerable instances of investors losing their investment on account of frauds relating to share certificate, this stringent service level requirement appeared utopian and impossible to sustain.

This put enormous pressure on the new depository that was set up, registrars who were hitherto not used to respecting investor’s right and the brokers and bankers who were used to service on good effort basis. This Damocles Sword ensured that systems, processes, checks, balances and audit trail are built and maintained to meet this service level. In the last 15 years since first depository was established, the market intermediaries managed to live up to this service level with practically insignificant instances of breaches which necessitated the service providers to pay up.

What did the magic was the right given by the act of parliament to demand a certain service level without being felt as if we are being offered a favour. In the recent past the government has extended this principle in a number of areas; right to information, right to food, right to education and right to electronic service delivery.

All these are attempts to empower the citizen. Right to Information which was the first of such initiatives has been there for some time. The results have been very encouraging. As more people get to be aware of this right and learn to exercise it, the pressure for performance will build up. It was heartening to see that even children are learning to use this powerful tool. I was impressed by the Class 8 student Kavana Kumar from Karnataka who used this tool to get the garbage dump next her school cleaned by the municipality. These may be anecdotal evidence as of now. But these have potential to grow to stronger tools. Similarly when we give the citizen the right to demand and not stand in supplication for what is due for him we are triggering a paradigm shift.

Instead of being armchair critics who bemoan the degeneration of the society and the level of corruption with little compunction in using the same means to push our own agenda, we need to learn how to use these tools to make a difference. We should also encourage and support enactment of more such laws placing rights into hands of the citizen/consumer, to bring in more service orientation; especially from the people in positions of power both in private and in public sector. Then may be we will learn the meaning of "service with a smile" if not a grimace:-)


Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being.” Kahil Gibran

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Caveat Emptor ?

The bank was taken aback by the order of the IT secretary of Tamilnadu as the adjudicator under the Information Technology Act, when he directed the bank to pay Rs 12.85 lacs as the compensation to an Abu Dhabi based NRI for the loss suffered by him in a “Phishing Fraud” . (1)

“Phishing” is a security risk that many computer users are getting to be familiar. In this case the account holder received an email that appeared genuine, which asked him to provide the use rid and password for his internet banking account to avoid his account getting closed. He parted with these details and he lost about Rs 7,00,000 from his account.

The bank took a view that the loss is on account of the carelessness of the account holder and refused any compensation as they had advised all account holders not to part with their userid and password to anybody. How could he be so irresponsible and give away his password and then claim that the bank should compensate him? But the adjudicator did not agree to this point of view.

This is an interesting dilemma for all entities like banks and depositories that provide online service to their clients. Where does their liability end for the loss suffered by their clients? Under what circumstances will they continue to be liable even if the loss was the outcome of a failure by the account holder?

Similar issues have been there with respect to offline transactions too. For example the loss suffered by credit card holders on account of misuse of their card details or loss of money from the bank account by fraudulent instructions.

One of the accepted doctrines in legal theory is that the entity that is best equipped to manage the risk should be liable to the loss arising out of such risk. This doctrine has been followed not just in online transaction. It has been used in fixing liability in terms of workplace accidents, accidents in amusement park and and so on.

For many this may look very unfair. Shouldn’t the responsibility of the service provider end when it has put in place risk containment measures and warned the users about the potential risks? Why should it bear the brunt of a fraud when ingenious souls manage to find a way around the protective walls?

There are studies comparing the incidents of banking frauds between the countries that placed the primary responsibility on the service provider and on the customer. These studies showed that when the legal structure supported the above doctrine the extent of fraud was much less. The service providers continuously upgraded their risk containment systems as they could not hide behind “fine prints” in the forms that they make their clients sign and the disclaimers that they publish. They cannot limit their risk with firewalls and dematerialized zones in their data centers. They have no option but innovative in saving their clients from their own foolishness. They are forced to look for patterns, trends, exceptions, track locations from where the transaction originate, raise alert when exceptions occur and so on. But if still a client is faced with a loss, he is compensated unless they can prove the customer connivance or involvement. We can’t just declare “Caveat Emptor”.

Risk mangment therefore becomes a managerial decision, may be more than technical solutions. (Read on Digital Security – Business, People and Economics for some more thoughts on this)

Ref: (1) https://indialawnews.org/tag/human-rights/

"Customers don't expect you to be perfect. They do expect you to fix things when they go wrong." Donald Porter, British Airways

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Matter of Right

Government of India had put out a draft bill on Electronic Service Delivery (ESD) for public comments. The key features of this scheme are

i) Every department of the government should mandatorily make its service to citizen available through electronic mode.

ii) This ESD should be made operational within five years of enactment of this bill. Extension for another three years will be allowed if there are valid reasons for this delay.

iii) Within six months of enactnment of this bill, every department should publish the list of services which will come within the ESD commitment.

iv) As in the case of the Right to Information Act (RTI), the proposed ESD act provides for Commissions at center and state level to ensure that the expectation under the act is delivered and failure is met with punitive action.

This right for ESD proposed to be guaranteed under an act of the parliament can be seen as maturing of various e-Governance initiatives that the government has been taking in a variety of fields for more than a decade. India is considered to be a powerhouse in the field of ICT and we practically run the back-office operations for the whole world. With this, this should be an easy target. But is it?

World e-Government ranking undertaken by United Nations gives India a rank of 119 out of 192 countries it surveyed in 2010. As my friend Neel pointed out, “How come even after more than a decade of e-Gov initiatives at the highest level, we still want six months for all departments to publish the list of services they can make available electronically and we need five to eight years for this to be fructify?” Reasons are many; but the following appear to be the most fundamental of them.

i) Many of the e-Gov initiatives are computerization of existing operations of the departments, heavily accented to MIS reports for internal consumption and upword reporting.

ii) Processes were not fine-tuned with a citizen focus. Committed service levels or actual performance levels were seldom benchmarked or published

iii) Solution implementation was more activity based than outcome based. Often vendors saw their role as software developers or as hardware suppliers and not as service providers.

iv) More attention was given to the automation of front end without getting the back-end streamlined and automated. In many instances sufficient consideration was not given to building electronic repository of the records and masters or ensuring high data quality which are the foundation blocks for electronic service delivery.

This problem is not unique to government computerization efforts. In many private sector companies also the computerization took this route. To begin with computer was a perk and status symbol for the boss. Then it became a department initiative. It was much later an integrated corporate wide strategy got evolved in progressive companies.

Similarly, in government initially it started as a privilege for the big bosses. Then it became a department initiative left to the interest of the head of the department. Integrated service delivery is still a dream. (read on "India gets a CIO- Part II")

Now when we attempt to make electronic service delivery a matter of right we have to give more attention to the lacuna highlighted above else we will not be able to live up to our promise or the expectation of our citizens and the commissioners will end up inundated with grievances.

Picard: Come back! Make a difference!
Kirk: I take it the odds are against us and the situation’s grim.
Picard: You could say that.
Kirk: If Spock were here, he’d say that we are irrational, illlogical human beings for going on a mission like this... Sounds like fun!

-Star Trek: Generations
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Even Elephants Can Dance

My friend Zakir Thomas is a revenue service officer; but he is more comfortable in developmental work than being an enforcement officer. At present he is the project director for Open Source Drug Discovery (OSDD) a unique initiative by Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and is personally mentored by its DG, Dr. Samir Brahmachari.

Though concept of Opens Source development has been in practice for a long time (though not in this name), it has become quite popular with the advent of internet, more so with the availability of collaboration tools (now referred to as web 2.0) which has enabled communities across the globe to work on solutions to complex problems.

Internet itself is product of such collaboration and Linux, the Operating System, is one of the most known open sources software. There are hundreds and thousands of such initiatives out there today in a variety of fields. Sequencing of human genome can be seen outcome of such a participative effort. However, in fields like Pharma where the cost of research, testing and regulatory approval can be phenomenal, collaboration is considered suicidal. On account of such high cost Pharma companies have least interest in working on development of drugs for ailments which particularly affect the poor (TB, Malaria etc) or which affect few people are very limited. They are keener on development of drugs for lifestyle ailments like Blood Pressure and Coronary Diseases

It is in this area the model of open source development is attempting to play a role. Today there are only few such initiatives in the world like Tropical Drug Initiative (Participants from University of California Berkeley, Dukes University, University of Sydney), Institute of One World Health, TB Alliance etc.

OSDD initiated by CSIR is an initiative attempting to provide affordable health care to the developing world, presently focusing on development of drug for TB which today kills two people every three minutes in India. OSDD has taken of well with participation from about 4500 scientists/ students from 130 countries. It has completed mapping of TB bacteria genome a record time. It already has two molecules for TB in the pipeline. CSIR hopes that they will be able to bring out at least one drug for TB in the near future.

I asked Zac what has made this possible. “A few People with commitment and Tools that made collaboration possible” he replied. He introduced me to two fellow scientists who were with him then who is working from Institute of Genomics & Integrative Biology(IGIB). Sridher Sivasubbu is a PhD in fish genetics and Vinod Scaria a medical doctor who is equally comfortable with computers. Both of them are young and highly qualified to have picked up high paying jobs in private sector in India or abroad. But they have decided to dedicate at least few years of their life to this initiative. Their energy level, enthusiasm and commitment for bringing multidisciplinary skills through collaboration to develop better drug for TB is awe-inspiring.

There are more of such dedicated scientists across the labs who share this passion. Zac suggested that I read the book “Geek Nation” by Angela Saini in which she has dedicated an entire chapter (titled The impossible drug) on this collaborative effort of a number of committed professionals from multiple labs across India to find a cure for TB. (This book is worth reading as it gives an interesting perspective on the dream, hope and possibility of India becoming a scientific super power).

What OSDD has done is to make the platform available to for these professionals to collaborate among each other and with the best around the world who are willing to join. I hope that OSDD is able to build on this momentum and don’t get ossified to a white elephant when the pioneers move on.

It is a commendable achievement for a government institution to work on such revolutionary models. We see such islands of excellence in many parts of the government. What is unfortunate is that often there is no mechanism to sustain this momentum. When the pioneers move on there is no planned succession. Successors are not selected keeping in mind the requirement of such exceptional institutions; but following a process which is meant to manage routine operations. And that is the tragedy of governance we face often.

Elephants can dance; so long as we play the right music…

"It is the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed." - Charles Darwin

Related Readings

Competitive Advantage - A case for blogs and wikis

If wishes were horses

Dare to Differ

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“It is elementary my son” (humour)

One of my friends mailed me this funny story. Once upon a time on a cold wintry morning a sparrow was out from his comfortable nest looking for few morsels to fill his stomach. It was too cold and the wind was so harsh, that the sparrow fell down almost frozen. He was lying there helpless. Then a bull passed by and pooed on him. The hot manure warmed the little sparrow and he felt very comfortable. He was happy and he started to sing. A cat heard the song and it found the sparrow relaxing in the warm poo and it pulled the sparrow out of the poo and ate him up.

There are four morals we learn from this story.

i) Those who shit on you may not be your enemies: In our life and career, there will be many instances when the action of somebody will harm, belittle or demean us. Very often it may not be intentional; but just coincidence or matter of his survival. If we look from the other person’s point of view, there may be extenuating circumstance if not genuine reason. Sometimes it could be their revenge or they could be absolute a--holes. Whatever be the reason we suffer and we feel hurt.


The important thing is that we need to survive this assault, this insult or this harm. If we get caught up in the anger and spent our time in planning for revenge, we waste our time, our effort and our health which otherwise could be channelized for towards more fruitful end.


If we are in a situation where we have to deal with with unadulterated a—holes, it is better to kick them out or get out from such a place. (The book “No Asshole Rule” by Robert I. Sutton makes an interesting reading on this topic)


On the other hand, if we hurt somebody (specially their ego) we need to keep in mind that most humans love to get back and take revenge. If we want to avoid escalation of this conflict, we should either try to patch up or make sure that we are not in the line of fire of they won’t dare to react :-).


ii) Those who take you out of shit may not be your friend. When we are down and out, many of our old friends may not take a second look at us. Then we come across somebody who is keen to deal with us. We feel thankful and obliged. May be they are good Samaritans; maybe they are trying to take advantage of our plight or weakness. Even if it is genuine good will, don’t overstay our welcome; else he may not remain our friend

We need assess the situation dispassionately. The temporary setback should not make us succumb to any deal. The failure or loss in one arena does not diminish our value in all spheres; there is no need to feel defensive and no need to negotiate from an area of weakness. We negotiate based on what we are good at and more so based on our faith in ourselves.


iii) When you are in deep shit, keep your mouth shut: Some of us are very trusting, which is very good if we mix it with prudence. When the chips are against us, we need to be more careful about what we share, what we complain about, what we cry out loud about, or what challenges we broadcast or whom we trust. Discretion becomes all the more critical or else we give us away.

iv) Eventhough it may provdie some comfort shit is still shit:  Very often when we indulge in actions that are illegal, currupt, unfair or unscrupulous we may derive certain money, fame, pleasure and comfort. But if we decide to wallow in this shit, one day it is going to catch up. Remember the big cats know where to look for.
“I consider it a mark of great prudence in a man to abstain from threats or any contemptuous expressions, for neither of these weaken the enemy, but threats make him more cautious, and the other excites his hatred, and a desire to revenge himself” Niccolo Machiavelli

Taming the Corruption Tiger

Corruption (‘private gain at public expense’) has always been a matter of concern for the mankind since time immemorial. Many people love to eliminate this completely; but this is a disease which we may never be able to eradicate totally.

We see wide disparity in the level of corruption across the countries. Transparency international undertakes an annual survey and publishes Corruption Perception Index (CPI) of countries. No single country has ever got the perfect score of 10. Only five countries out of 182 get score above nine, 23 above seven and 47 above 5. India with a score of 3.3 has a rank of 87 which falls in the middle.

One of the interesting revelations of the CPI is the strong correlation between human development, economic progress and CPI. Is it that the economic progress reduces the incentive for corruption or the low corruption facilitates economic progress? It is both. There is a strong mutual dependency between economic progress and CPI. Chile is one of the few countries  that has managed to move from being a developing country to an almost developed country in the last few decades. Chile is also one of the very few developing countries with a high CPI score (7.2) giving it a rank of 21, which a level USA.

Corruption is a part of human nature. What can control it are the mechanisms in place to restrict it. The legal infrastructure and the strength of enforcement determine how easy it is to get away with corruption. (I don’t deny the influence of culture in corruption. But I strongly believe that this culture of corruption is not hardwired into the brain of certain class of people making them more corruption prone. Some people may find it easy in comparison to others to behave with less civic sense and in more socially unacceptable manner. Strong enforcement and an environment that is conducive can limit this cultural bias and bring about better discipline. Denmark today with a CPI score of 9.3 is the world topper. Remember the famous quote from Hamlet "there’s something rotten in the state of Denmark". Another example from home is the extent of cleanliness and efficiency Delhi metro has managed in its trains and stations which is significantly of higher degree compared to any other public utilities)

We in India have been struggling to manage this high level of corruption. The Anti Defection Law and the Right to Information (RTI) Act definitely help in this direction. The Jan Lokpal Bill has been struggling to get acceptance by the parliament for more than four decades (The recent high profile initiative by Anna Hazare of Civil Society was an attempt to force the government to take a definite action on this) We still don’t have a proper whistle blower protection act.

Legal enablement is definitely a necessary requirement; but, it is not a sufficient condition. Strong Judiciary can ensure justice; but, today we have a serious problem of a large number of pending cases blocking the judicial machinery. “Justice thus delayed is Justice denied”. RTI is an excellent tool to bring about transparency. But the resource constraints can prevent this from scaling up.

When we look at the disparity in the level of corruption across countries, the major differentiator is the extent of corruption and inefficiencies in the areas that affect day-to-day life of the citizens, whether it is to get some clearance, approval or certificate or to run their business. Corruption in high places and in areas with high stakes is the most difficult to control anywhere in the world. But if we manage the former, 90% of the irritant value may be removed for the society as a whole. When we take care of this petty corruption, it may also help to bring to open high-end corruption because  the dealing hands have all the incentive to blow whistle as they do not benefit from corruption anymore and thus no more are they partners in crime.

Today the progress in information Technology provides us with significant opportunities to improve governance processes. IT enabled Governance (IteG) can help improve process efficiency, it can help in bringing about better transparency, it can measure performance efficiency and publish the same, it can provide analytical support for risk management, it can reduce leakage and so on which are all elements that can bring about improvement in governance and reduce opportunities for corruption.

It will also help easy outsourcing of service delivery without loss of control enabling government to focus on policy making and policy administration. The income Tax Department’s outsourcing of PAN issuance, the Ministry Company Affairs online initiative and the Ministry of External Affairs initiative of Passport Processing etc are examples of successful implementation of this model. In each of these case we have witnessed significant improvement in turnaround time and elimination of petty corruption.

The IT enabled Governance (ITeG) is still in its early stage. It was not so far away when we could observe the PCs in a typical government department placed at the boss’s cabin with secretary using this as a word processor. Those days are gone. But we still have a long way ahead. Even when a catalytic role is played by some central authorities, it is often limited to budgetary control by purse holders with limited appreciation of the larger role of technology enablement. This is akin to what happens in the corporate sector when the controller (Finance and Administration) is in the driver’s seat as far as computerisation is concerned. What we need is to evolve a nationwide strategy for ITeG and develop a framework for managing ITeG Projects with respect to people, process and technology.


The accomplice to the crime of corruption is frequently our own indifference ~ Bess Myerson

Related reading

Amateur’s tips on e-Governance
Give us the Facts
To be or not to be (Part 1) - The Art of Cooking
The art and ethics of lying - Part II

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Looking for “the One”? A Cynic’s Fantasy

‘Matrix’ is one of my favorite science fiction movies. In this movie, most of the human beings live the life in a virtual reality (the matrix), while their bodies are used as an energy source by the machines that have conquered the earth. A few humans have managed to escape the matrix and build up a resistance movement to break the matrix. The ruling machine class will do everything within their power to suppress this resistance. The movie is about this conflict and confrontation for the right to be free and not be a just a tool for select few!

Sometimes when I look around, I feel that this movie Matrix, to a great extent portrays the real world. The driving force as well as the reason for the existence of ruling class of politicians and business men is Power and Money. The politics mostly focuses on creation of power and the business mostly focuses on creation of riches and they help each other with their specialization and they exchange Power for Money and Money for Power.

They control all the resources. They extract the resources and convert them to products for their comfort or to increase their wealth. The common man treated as nothing but another resource; labor in the production process, the slave at their beck & call and the customer for what they produce which is a way to increase their wealth. They play with their policies so that this large mass of living resource is pacified, subdued and remain docile. The movies, the games, the TV and the religion are all used as means to keep the common man in a state to stupor. Slowly and steadily higher proportion of wealth shifts to this ruling class.

Occasionally we see some making an attempt to better the life of the society at large, to treat common man more fairly, to enable inclusive growth, to stop over exploitation of the earth’s resources, to sustain the environment and to bring about peace and harmony. This initiative is immediately snubbed. Look at some of the recent examples; Anna Hazare and Bhushans of Civil Society, Mr Thomas, former CVC, Mr. G V Ramakrishna and C B Bhave, former chairman of SEBI, Mr Tharoor former Minister, Sanjiv Bhat the IPS officer from Gujarat who has decided to take a position, Sreedharan,cheif of Delhi Metro and a host of not so famous and not so recent examples can be picked from politics, bureaucracy and social service.

Although corruption, fraud, exploitation, murder and terrorism are common currencies used by many (or most?) among ruling classes (both in business and in politics) technical faults, minor errors in judgment and even fabricated stories are blown out of proportion and exploited to suppress those who try to make a difference. I don’t claim these people are completely devoid of any errors. No human beings are. But the difference is that they mostly strive for the good of the society without being driven only by private agenda, their intentions are mostly honorable and they try to do the right thing in their endeavors, .

Unlike in Matrix there is not going to be “the One” with superhuman abilities to save the world. The change can only come from small contribution from each one of us. We need to learn to differentiate between technical faults of those who mean good and shenanigans of those who work to maximize only their private interest. We need to support these few good men instead of indulging in self righteous criticisms about those who try or making excuses for our inaction. We need to support the former, pardon their occasional errors in judgment and support them to go forward and perform. And for this we need to learn few tricks from the ‘bad’. If we don’t learn to do this, there may be no hope in this battle. Take it or leave it…

"What is the reason? Soon the why and the reason are gone and all that matters is the feeling. This is the nature of the universe. We struggle against it, we fight to deny it; but it is of course a lie. Beneath our poised appearance we are completely out of control". Merv the Frenchman in Matrix Reloaded.


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Some Inconvenient Questions

[I am a concerned citizen of the world. I worry about the doom that is projected for this mother earth on account of the irresponsibility of “we the people.” Recently I came across some contrarian thoughts in few books that I read (referred below) which raises some questions on the current popular thinking. I have attempted to draw attention to some highlights. Those interested can read up more.This may be a bit heretical but I believe it is worth being alive to these issues]

In 1798, an Austrian Monk Robert Thomas Malthus, who was also a political economist,  predicted a gloomy future for the mankind because he believed that population would increase at geometric progression and the food supply would grow at arithmetic progression resulting in collapse of the mankind. In 1898 another eminent British scientist, Sir William Crookes, argued that unless nitrogen could be chemically fixed from air by some scientific process, the human race would not be able to feed itself from the land available. They were not being paranoid. Their predications were based on facts, based on scientific estimation of arable land, based on the prevailing productivity of land, based on availability of fertilizer and based on their estimation of population growth. [1]

In the same year (1898) delegates from across the globe gathered in New York for the first international urban planning conference. Their main cause of concern was management of horse manure which had exploded to un-manageable problem in all major cities of the world. In 1894 Times London had predicted that by 1950 every street in the city would be buried nine feet deep in horse manure. Somebody in New York predicted about the same time that by 1930 horse shit would rise to Manhattan’s third-storey windows. All policy efforts to mitigate the problem offered no solutions. Urban planning conference broke up in three days instead of the planned 10 day schedule. [2]

Within 15 years after Sir Crookes made his predication a German Scientist Bosch invented a technology for large scale production of inorganic nitrogen fertilizer. Today almost half of the nitrogen in our body would have passed through such a factory. The invention of internal combustion engine was the environmental savior. It managed within two decades to address the problem that was driving nations around the world nuts. They also released significant land for farming which was hitherto being used to feed the horse and other draught animals.[3]

These solutions to the society’s vexing problems were not found by means of depopulation of society or by policy directions that reduced travel and commerce. It came about from human ingenuity and innovation. The internal combustion engines improved mobility, revolutionized travel and agriculture and helped the mother earth to sustain seven billion people without falling into the Malthusian trap.

With the exploding usage of these IC engines, today we are faced with the negative externalities of greenhouse gases (incidentally the methane gas produced by the ruminating animals produce 50% more greenhouse impact than the transport sector!) from this technological magic and we are worried about future of our energy options and global warming. In the same way the urban planning conference on horse manure failed to produce results, the Copenhagen Summit on climatic control was unproductive. The reason was not lack of intention. But because the marginal cost of discipline is much more than the benefit; not just for individuals, but also for countries. Garett Halden has nicely explained this “tragedy of commons”; the problem of free riding.[4]

We have to have innovations to address this. Not just knee-jerk relations based of fads and fashions. The renewable energy sources today have not reached the level of scalability to solve the global energy problem. Many of them, on a total input-output ratio of energy spent and energy output is quite inefficient and often a net consumer of energy. Matt Ridley has pointed out this conundrum with an interesting analysis. “Today about 125 kwh per day is the average energy consumption of a British national. Let us assume that we managed to brig it downto100 kwh which is to be supported with 25% each from nuclear, wind and solar, 5% each from bio-fuel, wood, wave tide and hydro. Then there would be sixty nuclear power stations, wind farms would cover 10% of entire land, solar panels covering an area the size of Lincolnshire, eighteen Greater Londons growing bio-fuels, forty seven new forests growing fast rotation harvested timber, hundreds of miles of wave machines off the coast, huge tidal barrages in the Seven estuary and Strangford Lough and 25 times as many hydro dams in the rivers as there are today’ Still with frequent power cuts.” [5]

We need to incentivize and encourage game-changing innovations and not hope for altruistic actions by individuals and countries represented by their political masters or jump at everything that sound green or organic without analyzing its true cost and benefit. We cannot be carried away by such dreams and take retrograde steps of arresting economic growth that would do injustice to billions of global citizens who hope to share some part of the benefit of human progress, massive drives to bio-fuels that will reduce land under cultivation leading to food shortage or hijack more rain forests. If we take this path the cure we are attempting will end up being a bigger disaster.

“Our dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time; what we really want is for things to remain the same but get better.” Sydney J. Harris
Related Reading: Question of Existence
References
[1], [3],[5] The Rational Optimist, Matt Ridley
[2] From Horse Power to Horsepower, Eric Morris
[4] The Corruption Conundrum, V Raghunathan
Super Freakonomics, Steven D levitt & Stephen J Dubner
The Price of Everything, Eduardo Porter

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Give us the Facts

When India got its independence in 1947 as an outcome of partition there was large scale migration across the India-Pakistan borders. From West Pakistan, more than 300,000 refugees (this does not include thousands who moved to Delhi, Mumbai etc.) migrated to eastern Punjab leaving behind about2.7 million hectares and they were looking for land to settle down and farm. As against this, the total land left behind by Muslims who migrated to Pakistan was only 1.9 million hectares. The government had a huge challenge of allocating land to these refugee farmers equitably.

Sardar Tarlok Singh of Indian Civil Service, as the director general of rehabilitation in this region, managed this process with clear and simple guidelines which were enforced pretty well. To address the variation in productivity of land across regions, he defined a ‘standard acre’ which was the area that could yield specified quantity of rice. To address the lesser area available for allotment compared to what was left behind, he introduced a ‘graded cut’. As per this each party received only a specified fraction of the land area left behind by them. This hair cut, administered in a stepped fashion, was lowest for smaller land holding and highest for the highest slab.

The biggest challenge was verifying the authenticity of the claims. He addressed the same through open assemblies of refugees from the same village. False claims were punished by reducing allocation and even imprisonment which were strictly enforced. He was able to make allotment of 250,000 properties within 18 months from March 1948, when he started collecting claim applications. [1] (Compare this with the efficiency of administration of various development schemes run by the government these days even with availability of more people and better technology.)

Thus the most difficult problem of verification of claims was addressed through transparency. Peer verification, social audits and village assemblies were mechanisms used by generations. But as the society got larger, government procedures more complex and often opaque and exception handling ad-hoc, various government approvals, benefits and programs became inefficient and avenues for misappropriation.

Right to Information Act (RTI) is a good beginning. But the resources available for this are so limited that it will be practically impossible to scale up the transparency drive. The resources get clogged in meaningless queries, which often is the intention of those raising the queries. RTI is a good tool to dig deeper; but not a tool that can scale up easily.

To give momentum to the march towards more transparency, we need to have a system in place that continuously publish time series data to be published by various government departments on its expenditures, programs, exceptions, benefits, sanctions and approvals. At present most of the information dissemination by various government departments is nothing more than a public relation exercises. There are certain departments in certain states taking excellent initiatives. But often they remain as individual effort which dies down after the initiator has left or remain as islands of excellence.

What is needed is an institutional framework for publishing granular data in electronic form that can be queried and analyzed. The progress in Information Technology and better connectivity make this eminently possible and affordable. Various agencies can then access this data and make observations and conclusions. Some people may make simple queries for clarifications. Some pope will undertake extensive analysis of the data to identify trends or patterns or to measure efficacy of various schemes. Transparency Portal of Brazil is an excellent example for such an initiative.

This may be inconvenient for many and such people will always try to object and raise excuses. Some try to hide behind so called ‘privacy issues’. I agree privacy is important. But privacy is for private matters. When it comes to most government expenditure and government benefits, the public has the right to know how this has been spent and who the recipients are. Sometimes we hide behind strategic and security concerns. Certain information may have to be always confidential. But some can be released after time delay. We have to be very selective when we classify information on the basis of such consideration and it should not be a means to obfuscate. We should have mechanisms in place that would dispassionately evaluate the sensistivity to classify information as confidential.

This is a trend that we see around the world. An interesting example is how the data relating to government support during the recent financial market crisis in USA has been released. The central bank and industry lobbies resisted tooth and nails releasing this data. In December 2010, Dodd-Frank financial law forced the central bank to release the data relating to trillions of dollars of loans it extended to the various banks under trouble. However, it did not release the details of the loans under the discount window. Supreme Court has now rejected the objection by the banking industry and has forced central bank to release this data also[2].

It makes sense for the government to have a coordinated effort with help of experts to study the functioning of each department and develop an institutional framework and a time bound plan for defining the scope of data release. Let us publish time series data at the most granular level; details of individuals and entities who receive any kind of government patronage, input, aid or subsidies given against the quality and quantity of their output, details of companies found to have been engaged in corrupt practices, details of fund transferred to each department and how it has been spent as so on. Mário Vinícius Claussen Spinelli, Secretary of Corruption Prevention and Strategic Information, Brazilian Office of the Comptroller General has beautifully described the Three Laws of Open Government Data:

• If it can’t be spidered or indexed, it doesn’t exist
• If it isn’t available in open and machine readable format, it can’t engage
• If a legal framework doesn’t allow it to be repurposed, it doesn’t empower


In the beginning there was nothing. God said, "Let there be light!" And there was light. There was still nothing, but you could see it a whole lot better. ~Ellen DeGeneres

[1] India after Gandhi, Ramachandra Guha
[2] Fed To Disclose Discount Window Crisis-Lending Data Thursday


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If wishes were horses…

I recently read an interesting observation about growth prospects for India. During the first millennium AD, and even before, India was an evolved society. It had world class educational institutions (Nalanda, Taxila etc) which attracted students and scholars from around the world; it had world renowned commercial centers which had trade relationships with many continents, and it demonstrated leadership in area of philosophy, mathematics, literature and astronomy. It was the era of knowledge and reasoning.

The second millennium was the era of engineering and industrial revolution which practically bypassed India. The colonial suppression would have definitely contributed to this. But, as per the above article it was also a manifestation of how Indian brain is wired, which makes it more comfortable with knowledge and logic than technology and applied science.

The third millennium again is that of knowledge and learning, which are comfort areas for the Indian brain. In fact the planning commission in early 2000 had set up a task force under the chairmanship of Dy Chairman of Planning Commission to evolve strategies for becoming a knowledge superpower.

I don’t know how correct is this analysis with respect to the competitive edge of Indian society in this knowledge economy. But there can be no argument about the fact the key drivers for today’s growths are information and collaboration. The most important infrastructural requirements for these key drivers are connectivity to link people and capability to use the modern tools that facilitate information flow and collaboration.

Today India is acknowledged as a powerhouse in the area of Information Technology. We are the back end development center for the whole world. Graduates in every field of science, whether it is engineering, physics, chemistry and mathematics appear to be drifting to computer programming and many more into IT Enabled Services.

Therefore, it appears that we have the aptitude, the infrastructure and the human resources necessary in this most important field and we are well poised to build on this. But when we go a little deeper, we see some underlying weaknesses.

A global ICT index called “Connectivity Score Card” based on a Study created by Professor Leonard Waverman, London Business School, and economic consulting firm LECG, commissioned by Nokia Siemens Networks has been tracking the level of sophistication of ICT infrastructure across the world for last few years. It is a broad based matrix taking into account availability of infrastructure and usage & skills in the area of ICT among consumer, business and government sectors. This study has ranked countries which are segregated into two groups called innovation driven and resources driven as per the categorization of world economic forum. The former contains mostly developed economies and latter more of developing economies. India forms a part of the resource driven countries and with a score of 1,82 out of 10 it ranks 21 among 25. The only four countries which have ranks lower than India are Kenya, Nigeria, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Malaysia with a score of 7.14 has the top place among the resources driven economies.

What do we learn from this contradiction? We have outstanding strengths in the field of ICT which is one of the key requirements for a knowledge economy. But, this skills and strengths are concentrated in few Islands of excellence. Therefore, we need to have a focused strategy and attention (a little more than that gets wasted in telecom scams) for wider availability of ICT infrastructure for us to exploit this opportunity. Somebody once asked Dr R A Mashelkar what would be his ultimate wish for India. He had no difficulty in responding quickly. “High quality connectivity to every citizen at affordable cost and skill to use it effortlessly and meaningfully.” Then, as Mat Ridley would say, ideas will have more sex and multiply.

The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn't think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential. Steve Ballmer


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Never Rode & Never Fell

“If Thomas is corrupt, (I don’t want to defend him, let justice system decide) is there something wrong with what defines corruption in India. I can be wrong ....what do you think?” My friend Antony wrote to me.

I had read the news items regarding the controversy relating to appointment of Mr PJ Thomas as the Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC). With the cursory reading of the news items I was under the impression that he could be one of the corrupt officers who had managed to slime his way to the prestigious post. I was taken aback by Antony’s mail.

I asked around. I talked to his college mates, his colleagues in the IAS and his family friends who knew him as a person. Everybody told me that he is a man of high integrity and a brilliant officer. I read the Supreme Court Judgment relating to the writ petition as to the legality of his appointment. This judgment was only about the legality of the appointment and does not in any way take a view on the merit of the Palmolein case which is pending in the court of Special Judge. As to what I have understood from my talks with the various people who are of the know of this case, though he got embroiled in this case when he was the secretary, Department of Food and Civil Supplies of Kerala State when the Palmolein controversy erupted, he may not have been beneficiary or may not have consciously abetted the controversial decision.

This questionable import of Palmolein took place in 1991. Subsequently in the last 20 years, this matter has been tossed around in legal and procedural wrangles without any decision. Instead of undertaking thorough investigation as to who erred in his judgment, or who was negligent or who was corrupt to fix responsibility and take necessary action, this case had become a political tool in the fight between two political parties and their leaders dragging the career of a few officers for few decades.

I am sure that it is this conviction that Mr Thomas is an honorable and capable person to take the role of CVC that prompted the Prime Minister and Home Minister to recommend his name for this post and not because they thought they have a pliable officer who would play by their tune.

I am not qualified to comment on the merit of the case. But in my mind, this case is a classic example of the perverse incentive that influences the decision making process of our bureaucracy. As Mr Thomas has observed in his petition “it is routine for officers in the discharge of their duties to have cases slapped against them, many of which are trumped up or politically motivated. In an environment where a bureaucrat bears the brunt of protests against governmental action, it is necessary that an objective view be taken of how officers function.”

Instead of taking such objective assessment of the process followed in decision making, if we find fault with the outcome of the decision with the benefit of hindsight, and we allow such matters to be enmeshed in legal wrangles without any conclusion for decades, we have a serious problem. Honest and good officers get penalized and tainted for their life for having taken a judgment call. This worry and concern often act as a deterrent to take a bold stand or to interpret the laws and procedures for the right cause without any private agenda. On the other hand the unscrupulous officers realize that the legal processes may get dragged for years without any result and in the meantime they can maximize their private interests and that of their political mentors.

If we don’t find ways to protect and support good officers we have no moral right to complain about the inaction of the bureaucrat. Take it or leave it ...!

It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive. Earl Warren


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Paving the last mile

My post “Last mile to the bottom of the pyramid” discussed how targeted delivery of subsidies and benefits can reduce leakage, improve efficiency of delivery and stimulate demand in the economy. In this post I discuss three critical components for targeted delivery.

Unique Identification: The first and foremost requirement for targeted delivery is unique identification of recipients. “Aadhar”, the biometric based unique identity for residents, addresses this issue. Especially, an infrastructure for verification of identity by matching the biometric signature (say finger print) of the recipient against the master database of UID effortlessly and cheaply from any part of the country would be an extremely powerful tool. This may sound like science fiction or a costly option for our country. Experts do point out that the current state of technology makes this quite feasible and affordable as we can have a standardized process for identity verification for variety of applications. With the increase in volume of usage, the cost would only drop further.

Enrollment of eligible person: The second component is the ability to filter out the individuals who are not eligible for specific subsidy or benefit. Today each agency that is responsible for providing an entitlement goes through extensive processes for enrolling eligible persons. If we take a deeper look, we can see that there are many common eligibility parameters for most of the entitlements. For example one or more indicators like age, sex, income, educational qualification etc are common for most of the subsidies and benefits. I agree that there are some efforts like BPL and APL list, differentiated ration cards etc in certain states which are attempts in this direction. But, there are hardly any agencies that have implemented an infrastructure using the power of modern technology to build and maintain such databases which can be easily accessed and referred to by other systems using a published standard interface.

If we are able to establish one or more entities that would build and maintain databases of individuals against their Unique Id (Aadhaar), various parameters which go into determination of entitlements, there will be tremendous efficiency gains and cost reduction in the process of enrollment. These databases should also have mechanism for reverse flow of information from the administering agencies which will help in continuous update of these parameters. These would be essentially utilities that focus on the IT enabled data management which help the implementation agencies to focus on policy administration.

Some people may point out that such integration of data is an intrusion into privacy. However, conceptually it is just like the credit bureaus like CIBIL that maintains credit history of individuals using data sourced from banks and financial institutions.

Distribution Channel for subsidies: The third critical component in targeted delivery is the distribution channel. As the various subsidies are provided by means of reduced price of products or service, there is a need to manage the distribution of these discounted products along with market priced products. If this movement is not strictly controlled and monitored there could be significant leakage. This would require each of the agencies to make significant investment and effort for this process control which often forces state management of distribution that sometime compromise quality of service.

One of the most efficient ways to address this is standardization of manner for delivering subsidized products. The highest level of standardization is when the subsidy is in the form of a money transfer. In this case the goods will move in market price and the eligible person will get the subsidy credited to a bank account which is easily accessible. In this way the process of benefit distribution is not product based but beneficiary based which can be same for variety of products or services from kerosene to education. The agency responsible can then plug into a standardized payment mechanism at very low cost. Further tweaking the eligibility condition will also require very little or no tweaking of payment system.

In this model the agency distributing the subsidy can focus on product/ service distribution. Moreover, there may not be any need to restrict such distribution through government controlled agencies and can be handled by a number of private and public service providers helping competition and resulting improvement in service quality. Government can focus on administration of eligibility and administration of the subsidy. This monetization of benefit can also leave the choice of how to use this entitlement to the beneficiary.

Criticism for this model is that the beneficiary may misuse the entitlement irresponsibly and the state will not be able to influence the behavior of the target audience. Even this can be addressed by mechanisms like transferring the subsidy to the account of lady of the house (It is a well researched fact that women of the house are normally more responsible with money. Similarly the better status of the Nair woman of Kerala who historically had the economic power on account of a matrilineal society could also support this) or dependent on compliance to certain conditions.

This can also be addressed by a minor tweak of payment system. In this case each of the subsidies can be treated as an entitlement credited to the account which can be used only against purchase of the prescribed service. As far as the payment system is considered it is very much like handling multicurrency accounts which is a well established process.

Tail piece: This post attempts to highlight the possibility of establishing two critical infrastructure utilities which in conjunction with the Aadhar can significantly improve the subsidy and social security administration. This cannot be achieved overnight. But it makes sense to give focused attention to the above as we have established Unique Id Authority of India.

In the end, it all comes to choices to turn stumbling blocks into stepping stones.Amber Frey

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Software and Hard choices

In this world there are many countries which are endowed with natural resources. Some of them were content to extract these resources in its most basic form and sell and some countries built up industrial bases that add value to these natural resources. The latter prospered and the former often stagnated especially because this abundance in one area acted as a disincentive to growth in other areas. The stagnation might have happened when the resources ran out or more prices dropped or with falling demand or arrival of more competitive suppliers.

We have the potential for a somewhat similar problem in our software industry which is growing to be a significant sector of strength and opportunity for India. This could be on account of some factors that are holding us from rising above mediocrity. If we don’t address these, eventually we may end up paying price for this as a nation.

Demand Growth: There is an increasing acceptance for use of Information Technology in most sectors of economy in India; e-Governance, hospital administration, educational institutions, manufacturing industry banking and financial services. This offers huge potential for the IT industry. In India, our focus and strength is in application development more so in building bespoke applications and less in hardware and system software. This, in addition to the outsourcing opportunities for undertaking developments for international clients, creates a burgeoning demand for software industry in India.

Customer Awareness: However the in house appreciation among this large consuming sector within India is quite primitive and therefore unable to demand sophistication and quality from their vendors. On the other hand, a significant part of the our outsourcing contracts are for relatively low-end programming as per the solutions defined by in house CIO and his team or based on the solutions architectured by high-end international consulting companies. Thus there is very limited incentive among the programmers to worry about the performance of their output but encourages to focus on functionality and features.

Increase in Diversity: Fast paced  introduction of new tools, more sophisticated databases, and diverse programming languages encourages the programmers to be familiar with this diversity than develop deeper expertise in any of the systems to extract the performance efficiency. The are happy to be "Jack of all trades but Master of none"

Leaping hardware technology: The hardware is progressing in sophistication so fast that it is reducing the cost for processing same volume. When shoddy system design and program quality put strain on performance with increase in volume, the developers recommend more iron. Since these new machines process more volumes, the senior management of customers the gets lulled by the apparent reduction in cost and ask few questions because in most other areas they are used to increase in cost with increase in volume.

Impact of IT cost: Major consuming industries for our software developers are manufacturing, financial services and government. For manufacturing IT costs as a factor of their total cost is relatively low. As they get their revenue from selling products (cars to drugs to chemicals to consumer durables and non-durables) their attention is more on the technology for making and selling their products. IT is seen as an enabling component or a fad and gets lesser attention on performance.

Similarly in Financial services with the revenue being a function of the value of transactions than the number of transactions they pay less attention in cost per transaction. In e-governance application also the situation is same with less attention to performance but more on functionalities.

Measurement of Performance Efficiency: In software industry, there hardly few good measures of performance efficiency that are widely used and fewer bench mark values against which performance can be measured; especially when it comes to cost per transaction. With nobody taking the ownership of the total solution, when problems occur, providers of each component like hardware, system software and networks point finger on each other. Even very few system integrators own the performance of the total solution, and but shift performance responsibly to the components. (Read “Learn to count- both Blessings and Failures” for some more thoughts on this)

So What?

The more discerning users for whom cost per transaction is critical like those of EBay, Google and Facebook have their own in house team whose focus is to squeeze out efficiency and reduce the cost and hardly few of our software service providers do any meaningful work for this high-end computing.or develop unique solution

There are many smart Indians in the development teams out there working on such solutions. But our domestic software industry is often drunk with the $ from being technicians and cybercoolies and not architects and engineers. The user requirement study is "Tell me what exactly you want met to automate, I will program it"  and not "Tell me what your dream is, we will work together on how technology can make it happen"

But if there is a large demand for low and middle end computing should we not supply it to earn our dollars and be happy? Of course yes. What is the risk in this?

The transaction volume in our consuming industry is growing leaps and bounds. The shoddy designs will soon show its weakness in handling this ballooning volume. The users will ask for more performance. They will ask for sophisticated analytics, pattern recognition, trend analysis and statistical modeling with the goldmine of data that has been amassed. Then our conventional solution providers will have nothing to offer as against those companies who have given more attention to high-end computing and more sophisticated model building often having outsourced the run-of-the mill programming to us.

That is why in this time of plenty there is a need to invest in building high performance solutions, develop a culture of fine-tuning systems for performance, learn to offer solution to a client's problem and not just code what he ask for, develop capabilities for building models and so on. Even in our public policy we should start factoring this and shift the incentives from profits of software export to investment and profits from high-end products or solutions development for the global markets.

Talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates. There's plenty of movement, but you never know if it's going to be forward, backwards, or sideways.H. Jackson Brown, Jr.


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Last mile to the bottom of the pyramid

Targeted drug delivery systems attempts to deliver drugs directly to the organs which are afflicted by disease or need repair. This improves drug delivery efficiency, reduces leakage and keeps the side effects to the minimum. The idea has been there for a long time; but, we had limitation of technology. Therefore we tried carpet bombing by injection to blood stream to take drug to affected area which caused enormous waste, failure to sufficiency penetrate to where it is needed the most and caused side effects to healthy parts of the body. Today advances in nano technology, advanced polymer chemistry and electronics engineering are coming together to revolutionize drug delivery system to make it more directed.

The same concept is applicable in social security systems too. Especially when we want to reach a helping hand to the needy in terms of subsidized food and fuel, health benefits, support for education and so on. In the absence of more effective means to address the last mile problem, we use carpet bombing here too. For example when we keep the price of kerosene low to help the poor, a large chunk of it is cornered by unscrupulous elements resulting in humongous loss to the exchequer and the needy is often denied what is promised to him. The same is the case of subsidies for many other products and services.

Today two silent developments are opening avenues to address this lacuna in a better fashion. The first one is the Aadhar project, which is attempting to identify each individual uniquely. This unique identity can help in reaching the benefits directly to the needy on a regular basis. The second critical component is the increased connectivity at affordable cost. Widely available connectivity specially using mobile technology has enormous potential for transforming the society in a variety of ways. When we marry the unique identification with reliable and affordable connectivity the impact can be truly astronomical.

Therefore our strategy for providing better data connectivity (whether as 2G, 3G or 4G) should be universal access that is practically free. I agree that we should avoid graft, corruption and nepotism in selection of service provider. Our approach for this selection and license charges to the service should not be to maximize short term revenue to the government but to reduce cost of access across the country. To avoid the service providers exploiting the low input cost, we can have mechanisms to regulate price or to share the revenue or other means which focuses on continuous cost reduction to the end consumer.

The benefit of mobile revolution in social transformation is obvious and there are many studies already undertaken to prove its impact in the poorer segment that today is learning to use this in a variety of applications. The fishermen of Kerala now use this to improve his yield and reduce wastage. Some village panchayats have found ways to use mobile phones to reduce domestic violence. (Whenever the drunken husband tries to beat up his wife she send an SOS to a specific number and then quickly and unobtrusively a group of women land up to the hut which acts as a deterrent to the drunken husband)

Our ability to reach such benefits to a large number of end consumers has another impact in the demand side of the economy. If we put more money to the hands of the rich (who are few in number) most of it goes to saving or spent abroad and so on. On the other hand when we put a little more money to a large number of poor people, most of it will go to consumption of food, cloth, shelter, consumer durables and non-durables, education and entertainment. This can have very significant impact to demand in the economy that will also protect us from over dependence of export which was one of the reasons for the eventual collapse of the East Asian miracle.

This increased purchasing power can be further leveraged if we can get the goods more cheaply with easier availability which is possible if we are able to bring in better efficiency in retail marketing and distribution infrastructure.

Although the policy makers are aware of each of the above areas, very often the vested interests with deep pockets are able to torpedo such initiatives often, with specious arguments and powerful lobbying. We see this in most of our policy making exercises including the annual budget. In this latest budget even though definite actions in these areas are limited, it is heartening to see that the Finance Minister is making an attempt. He has referred to strengthening the retail sector, ways to better farmer yield and reduce retail price by removing inefficiencies in distribution and also has established an inter-ministerial task force headed by Mr Nandan Nilekany to suggest means of directed subsidies to the intended intermediaries in the area of kerosene, LPG and fertilizers.

This a good start; and in comparison with the reduction in tax rate or permission given to the international investors in participate in Indian Mutual Funds or increase in FDI limit and so on which are more high profile policy changes, the impact of the abovementioned initiatives have unfathomable potential for strengthening our economy if we proceed forward from this baby steps keeping in mind that this is only a start.

“It has been said of the world's history hitherto that might makes right. It is for us and for our time to reverse the maxim, and to say that right makes might” Abraham Lincoln

To be or not to be - Part 8 'GET it Right or DO it Right ?'

Managers can be classified into two broad types. Type 1 consists of managers who want to make things happen, who give priority to what is good for the organisation (not just in the short term), for whom private agenda is second priority, who is willing to give his best to the job, motivates and supports his team members,who is willing to take responsibility for his actions and who takes pride in what he creates for its relevance to the organisation and to the society Let us call him the “Doer”

Type 2 consists of those who like to put-in minimum effort for maximum glory, for whom private agenda is the top priority, who spends more time in massaging the ego of his boss, who sees his team as just a means for his end, who is happy to take credit but finds ways to shift blame for any failure and for whom the output is just a means to self beatification. Let us call him the “Passenger”

I agree that being Doer or Passenger is not a binary option. They are two ends of a continuum and we fall somewhere in between. We may also move left and right in or take position based on circumstance, stage of life and personal experience. In this post I have categorized them into two buckets with Doer being more than a 50% doer and vice versa.

Every organisation will have both doers and passengers. Doers give priority of what they contribute for the organisation and the passengers give priority for what they get for themselves. Doers often put their head down and focus on deliverables while passengers are on the look out for personal credits (In our school life also we would have seen these two types; those who burned the midnight oil to complete the project / assignment and those who were smart to ‘copy paste’)

The Doers are looking for continuous improvement, looking for ways to make things better, to find a better solution, to better serve the customer, thinking of ways to to empower the team and to strengthen the organisation so that it continuous to deliver even after they are gone.

The passengers are focused on maximisation of short-term glory which can be quickly monetized, on avoidance of problem, are too happy to maintain status quo and take no decisions. They don’t care what happens after they are gone.

Eventually in most organisations the passengers do grow faster than the doers because they are better at managing their environment and more than willing to sell their souls for a price.. End justifies the means with ‘end’ defined as maximising personal agenda. They are too happy to live off the hard work of the doers and smart in edging out the doers in due course.They graduate from passengers to pirates.

Eventually the passenger/ pirate ends up being in the driving seat and the doers leave. This is aided by supervising bodies who are happy to certify technical compliance than try to understand and act upon deeper issues and root causes. Then the passengers will maximise their private interests leading to long tern ruin of the organization. If the organisation is operating in less volatile industry it may live a little longer.

This is the real world and in this world which course should I take? If I can respect what I am then I should be a Doer, If I judge myself on the riches and glory that I have amassed, then it is better to be a passenger. The choice is mine and I will pay the price for the choice I make.This could be what we may term as the the conflict of pragmatism and idealism


‘Laws’ control the lesser man. ‘Right conduct’ controls the greater one. ~Chinese Proverb

“Half Full or Half Empty?”

Most of the days when we open the newspaper early in the morning, the headlines that stare at us are that of some scam or the other. In the last few months we had Aadarsh Housing Society Scam, Common Wealth Game Scam, Telecom 2 G Scam, Illegal mining scam.

What do we read from this? One way to look at this is to feel disheartened that our society, government and bureaucracy is in a state of continuous degeneration and the world in general and our country in particular is on a slippery slope. A slope that is leading to moral disintegration and anarchy; a modern Sodom or Gomorrah awaiting fire of destruction from heaven!

Another way to look at this is that we have had such scams all these while and the increased activism by citizens, judiciary, and news papers supported by technology tools are help to unearth and unravel more of these. Better reach of news through print, television, internet, blogs, facebook and tweeter is helping better dissemination of these stories far and wide and make many of us aware and alive.

I believe the most powerful of all is the transparency and exposure that could help to bring about better social deterrent and citizen vigilance. This increased transparency could and is becoming some sort of a check to many and could bring about some sort of discipline and moderation in our society.

If we take a deeper look, most of the scams and injustice that will catch the attention of the wider press are those that are sensational and it involves political and bureaucratic elite, celebrities or because it is gory. But what affect the life of the majority are the corruption, callousness and lack of service orientation of the institutions that facilitate our day-to-day life. It could be getting a land title certificate, a birth and death certificate, paying our electricity bill, getting a mistake rectified in by Income Tax Assessment, getting a ration card and due ration against that card, treatment at a government hospital, getting complaint redressed by the police man and so on.

When it comes to areas where stakes are very high, the corruption or lobbying, which is often a sanitized version of corruption, often is there to influence decisions and policies. This happens in most places in the world. But many countries successfully manage to make the life comfortable for our day-to-day needs. This helps to reduce waste of time and gives peace of mind for the common man.

It is in these areas that we are quite backward compared to many others. Is it because we don’t pay the officers and employees a decent wage that they have to resort means of corruption? Is it because we don’t have proper checks and balance in service delivery that deters inefficiency and insensitiveness? Is it because service orientation is not a part of our culture? Or a combination of all?

Citizen activism and exposure can have a larger impact in this area. It is here that the technology tool can be a great support to each of us can play a role in building a social momentum. “I PAID A BRIBE.COM” is an excellent initiative in this direction. It accepts the fact that there are times we have not way except to pay our way through. It gives an option to anonymously present our experience. It also gives us an option to recognize instances where we could get work without bribe or when we got an opportunity to resist.

If a larger cross section of the society joins in such initiatives we will definitely see some results. We don’t have to give too much of our time nor do we have to inconvenience ourselves by being seen as a trouble maker or a whistle blower (which often is bad for the concerned though good for the society as a whole) or be a martyr. We don’t even have to take a moral stand of not paying a bribe to get what we want. We just have to anonymously share our experience and encourage our friends to do so. At the least it will help the next person to find out what the market rate (of bribe) for a service at a certain location. As an economist would say efficient price discovery!

“It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness” Unknown

Moon shot and Mouse trap

Once upon a time a mouse decided to take a walk out of the burrow. As he came out of his burrow, he saw a lion lying there in the shade. His first instinct was to scram back into the burrow. For some reason he decided to stand there and take a look. The lion had just finished a sumptuous meal and was in a good mood. He called out to the mouse.

“Hello little mouse, what are you up to?”

“Oh! Just trying to see if I can have some fresh air” little mouse replied

“What is the big deal about fresh air? If you decide to come out of that hole you can always have as much of it”

“It is easy for you to say that. You are so big. So nothing can happen to you. But for me, I have to be very, very careful.”

“My life is a misery. I have to be always on the lookout for the cats, the dogs the foxes and all such creatures who are trying to make a meal out of me” The little mouse continued.

“Oh! Is that all? The solution is very simple” The lion replied

“Really? Please oh king; please tell me what to do”

“Just become as big as me” The lion replied.

“But how is it possible?”The mouse asked

“That is for you to figure out. I am the king, I only make policy decisions” Lion replied

***

“I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space, and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish." President John F. Kennedy declared in his speech to U.S. Congress, May 25, 1961.

“We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.” Later he described so about this audacious goal at a speech in Rice University, Houston.

In 1969 Luis Armstrong walked on the moon.

***

What is the difference between the above two stories other than that one is a made up story (not by me) and the other is a true story.

Both were tough challenges and ambitious goals. The first one was set by a leader without thinking through the competence of his team, what is realistically possible with the resource available; a wishful thinking.

The second one was founded on understanding on what could be achievable, supported with the right kind of resource allocation, and total commitment by the leader.

We see samples of both among our corporate leadership. Some set whimsical challenges for the team based purely on bravado or the latest management fad. Then they squeeze the team hoping that this pressure, threat and fear will deliver results.

Some set the goals founded on what the team is best at, what can give them a dream to strive for and then give them the necessary resources and training, induct complementary talent, give a free hand to deliver and extend them a hand of support when they hesitate.

This I suppose is the mark of a visionary leader. And the wisdom to see this difference is what we need to pray for.

''There is a wide difference between true courage and a mere contempt of life.'' Unknown

Bureaucracy – Nature or Nurture ?

One of my good friends is a senior civil servant. As he joined government service straight from the college and his career experience was only in the government sector. He is a very diligent officer and likes to give his best to the assignments at hand. He is familiar with the general public complaint about government servants that they are bureaucratic, slow, process oriented than result oriented, corrupt, insensitive and so on in contrast to the private sector which is result oriented, quick on their feet, nimble and innovative. The difference portrayed is often that of hellhole and heaven.

Recently he had an opportunity to work in a team, which consisted of civil servants and veterans from private sector, offering a public service. He was excited about the opportunity to work in such a dynamic team which combined best of both worlds, working for a common purpose, to make a meaningful contribution to the society. He looked forward to working in a place which mixes the divergent ideas and culture. In this post I take a peep into one of the interesting observation by my friend regarding the working style of people from both sides of the divide.

As per my friend, he experienced very similar bureaucratic tendencies even among the representatives of the private sector. “What is the big difference that you guys talk about?” he asked me. He confessed that he may have been expecting magic or may have had excessive expectation from the experts from private sector.

My take on this is as follows. In private sector creative and entrepreneurial people set up new companies and new businesses. They get a team to work with them to implement these enterprises. As the companies get bigger, more of the managers and the employees that join the team are normally risk-averse and are happy to do what they are told to do. Some organizations maintain the dynamism and have dynamic growth while the others settle down to maintenance mode.(Read “Be Relevant or Perish – Part II for some more thoughts on this)

In government too we see similar pattern. Outstanding and dynamic officers set up new departments, new organizations, new services or new ideas. Then they move out and maintenance managers take over.

In both cases, when the organizations get to be under the control of managers and administrators comfortable with ‘status quo’ the service level deteriorates and the organization becomes moribund. The big difference is that in private sector, the competition and limited entry barrier for new ideas, may force the dinosaurs to extinction and new and vibrant companies will eventually take over. (Unless they are sort of utility companies existing as natural or legal monopolies).

But in government sector neither the moribund institutions or departments die nor new departments are created in competition with the existing ones. (Have you heard of competition for police, registrar of companies, pollution control board, land registration department etc?). This could lead to eventual degeneration in service quality. Sometimes a new dynamic officer comes in for a stint and situation improves till he lasts. The cycle goes on.

As far as the public is concerned their experience shows that they have to deal with a large cross section of non-performing government departments which frustrates them in their day-to-day life; both for normal living and in their business ventures. They have no other option or competing choices. On the other hand, when they deal with private sector service providers they have different service providers, which give them a choice, freedom to demand service and walk out if they are unhappy. (There are many cases where the private sector can get away with shoddy service levels).

So in the end what drive this divergent behavior? Nature or Nurture? When it comes to risk taking every human being lie somewhere in a continuum with extreme risk averseness on one end and extreme risk taking on the other end. Risk averseness come out of our basic survival instinct of the human ape. As we progressed the survival has grown to encompass survival in the society, protecting our economic security, pride, career, acceptance and so on. Risk taking comes out of the other dimension of survival that tries to find new opportunities for food, a mate and position which in the modern society also takes the form of riches, social standing, prestige and so on.

Majority of people are risk averse in nature and their actions are determined by this need to reduce uncertainty, what in corporate circle refer to as CYA (Cover You’re A…). Such people try to play by the letter of the law, make no judgment calls, or tilt the apple cart. This means that it is in the nature of most of the human beings to build up rigid, straight jacketed restrictive systems. On the other hand there are some who are very comfortable in challenging the status quo. They try to venture to road less travelled and create environment that encourages many to follow. This means it is also a matter of nurture.

The companies, institutions and society need both; a healthy ecosystem that safeguard its citizens from excessive uncertainties in social and economic spheres at the same time encourage and support innovation and risk taking, The challenge for the leadership is to find this healthy balance with the right mixture of rules, norms and incentives.

"Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people." Eleanor Roosevelt


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