Month: November 2011

Another issue that needs to be discussed and addressed is the governance model for India. This is a much deeper discussion since this will be harder to change, even though we may decide that the country is on the wrong track. UPA 2 needs to understand that the old rules of top-down, maximum government cannot work any longer.

India needs a government that empowers its people, that provides people true economic and personal freedom, and for the most part, gets out of the way of people. Instead, what we have is a government that provides  entitlements of all sorts to ensure that the upward mobility of people at the bottom of the pyramid is restricted. All that this does is create dependency on handouts, rather than increasing opportunities for people.

This formula has worked well for the Congress in creating votebanks, but aspirations have changed. Entitlements are damaging the economy and hurting the same people they are supposed to help.

What UPA 2 needs to do is a sharp course correction in its governance model. That is unlikely to happen because of the world view the Family has. But the time is not far when economic shocks will force drastic action – like what happened in 1991. Incremental change or   tweaking what exists will not cut it for lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty and giving the middle class a better future.

Continued tomorrow.

As we think through the leadership  issue, it is important to make sure we do not repeat the mistake. Our decision about which party to support and vote for must be based on the leadership of the party.

Here is where the BJP is losing the game. The ruling coalition has poor and weak leadership but the opposition’s counter to that is unfortunately no leadership or “collective leadership.”  This is not what the country needs. Group decision-making may work in some situations, but a leader has to be the one who makes the decisions and have the skills to do so. And one of the key attributes has to be mass support. If the BJP cannot provide a viable leadership alternative soon, the default vote in this country may end up staying with the Congress.

We as the people need to send out a strong message. With a government that is not governing, we need to start a vigorous debate about the importance of leadership and the kind of leader that we want. With little to differentiate the two national parties in the minds of most voters, the qualities and personality of the leader can make all the difference.

Continued tomorrow.

One of the first issues that UPA 2 needs to address is the leadership issue. Leaders matter – for companies and for countries. India has been singularly unfortunate in the leaders (such as prime ministers ) we have had for the most part since Independence.  Barring Shastri and Vajpayee, and to some extent, Narasimha Rao, we have made poor choices. Or have had bad ones thrust upon us.

UPA 2 clearly needs a change in leadership. The Prime Minister should have gone a long time ago. A PM cannot be a paper-pushing, responsibility-avoiding  person. India needs a decisive PM who will lead from the front. And whether some of us like it or not, this person has to emerge from the Congress for now.

Rahul Gandhi has shown little leadership skill in the time given to him. Pranab Mukherjee, perhaps the best of the options, is not trusted by the Family. Who does that leave us with? No wonder we find ourselves in the status quo situation of ‘no change is better than some change.’

Continued tomorrow.

The UPA 2 government is nearing its half-way mark. I was reminded of this when I was clearing magazines from the past 3-4 years last week in office, and I saw the optimism-filled cover stories in national and international publications from May-June 2009. At that time, as the UPA 2 rode back to power with a thumping win, no one in their wildest imagination would have used some of the words being now used to describe the government and the Prime Minister.

While this is good news for the principal opposition, the BJP (and I am a supporter ), it is definitely not good news for the country. We still have 30 months to go before a new government takes over. Getting a government that is decisive and effective is important in times like these when the world economy has multiple challenges and domestically we are enmeshed in the twin traps of inflation and slowing growth.

So we have to for the sake of the country, think how UPA 2 can start governing and fixing the urgent problems.

Continued tomorrow.

 

Here is what I wrote a year ago:

This week’s links:

• The Big Data era: from McKinsey Quarterly. “Radical customization, constant experimentation, and novel business models will be new hallmarks of competition as companies capture and analyze huge volumes of data.”
• Key 2012 IT Trends: from Gartner. “Virtualization, social media, energy are top issues IT will have to contend with.”
• Interview with Atanu Dey: by IndiaWires. In 3 parts.
• India’s Road to Fiscal Ruin: by Rajeev Mantri and Harsh Gupta in Mint. “The government’s bacchanalian populism has resulted in the destruction of public finances.”
• The 2012 US Elections: An excellent analysis and forecast by Nate Silver.

A friend told me I should have been careful about operating in the SMS business, and weighed the risk factors carefully. I thought about that statement. In today’s business age, one considers competition and other such factors. That a regulator and government will arbitrarily change rules to destroy an industry – what does that tell us? How do you factor that in for any industry?

This is not the India we should be building. We have seen this before. Our parents and grandparents lived through this licence raj in India. We don’t want to.

Fifteen years ago, I faced a challenge on another Diwali Day that threatened a business. This Diwali was no different from a business challenge perspective.  For an entrepreneur, optimism and the ability to rise above mundane difficulties are two attributes that are always needed in abundance. And there will be newer opportunities. But that’s for the future. As I always tell myself and my colleagues, the best ideas come when the chips are down.

In all this optimism, one fact stays. The government has shaken our confidence in being able to provide fair regulation for all. Some injuries  are hard to forget, and the past month’s actions by TRAI fall in that category.  Let us hope the actions in the coming days help reverse that.

All of this is being done under the guise of countering telemarketing and providing for a spam-free SMS inbox for consumers. Why stop there? Why not have ad-free newspapers and TV programmes? Slap surcharges all over the place to make life better for consumers. And who decides what is good for the consumers and for the society?

All this is of a piece. Like the Planning Commission deciding  Rs 32 as the daily poverty threshold. Like the I&B Ministry sits and deciding which  TV programmes are offensive so it can shut  out some of the TV channels. Like TRAI deciding SMS are injurious to our health and should be eliminated. Given half an opportunity, who would not like to play God?

Who cares about companies operating in this area? SMSes are ‘pesky’ and the biggest ill threatening the good life. So the companies sending SMSes must be pullled back with regulatory obstacles in the name of consumer good.

Continued tomorrow.

A day before Diwali, TRAI changed some rules yet again and slapped a 5 paise surcharge on promotional SMSes. Effective immediately. No notice period whatsoever.

A 5 paise surcharge where the average price is in the region of 2.5 paise is a crushing blow to the industry. The result was a trebling or in some cases quadrupling costs. Campaigns had to be halted instantly.

Of course, the SMS industry is a small one (about Rs 200 crore in all). It may also take a while for consumers to notice what they are missing: information that would be otherwise readily available and could help them economically  in daily services or with information on buying of goods or services, no longer being available on the medium most accessible to them – the mobile.

The fact that a regulator can act so arbitrarily repeatedly in 2011 is what is shocking. As a colleague put it: “TRAI’s solution to the SMS issue is comparable in stupidity and overprotectiveness to the One-Time Password for IVRS payments and 3D Secure Code for online payments. These solutions are like isolating a PC from Internet to protect it from viruses.”

Continued tomorrow.

In the past month, the actions of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India have systematically put hurdles for the businesses of most companies in the field of SMS platform provisioning and digital marketing. This is reminiscent of the past when the government could make or break a company’s fortunes.

It started with the NCPR regulations which came into effect last month on September 27. Despite criticism from industry players, the flawed rules  were imposed. Arbitrary distinctions between transactional and promotional messages were not corrected despite industry feedback. Random limits of 100 messages per mobile number were introduced.

That was not enough. On September 27 itself, TRAI  amended the rules by introducing exceptions for a few named companies. Note that. Named companies, not even categories. If that isn’t an example of the old licence raj, I don’t know what is.

The story doesn’t end there.

Continued tomorrow.