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From a post a year ago:

Middle India needs to agree on a set of principles that it believes in and which lie at the foundation of good governance. Think of these as “Pretty Good Principles.” (Thanks to my colleague, Atanu Dey, for this phrase.)

So, what can these “Pretty Good Principles” be? Here is a starting recommendation.

• Equality and non-discrimination: All citizens have equal rights and the government must treat all citizens equally.
• Minimal government: Government must be restricted to matters related to judiciary, central monetary authority, law and order, external affairs, and defence.
• Market economy: Government must not be in any business producing goods or services which the private sector can produce.
• The Funding of Public Goods: Where justified, public goods may be subsidized through public funding. This includes some public utilities, education up to the high school level, and some science and technology related R&D.
• An efficient and incorruptible justice system

This week’s links:

• 5 Technologies that will shape the Web: from IEEE Spectrum. “We asked two dozen analysts, engineers, and executives to describe what technologies they think will shape our online experiences in the next several years.”
• Big Data: from The Economist. ” Companies that can harness big data will trample data-incompetents. Data equity, to coin a phrase, will become as important as brand equity.”
• Social Web beyond Facebook: by Liz Gannes. “What are other models of “social” besides Facebook’s current product? Could someone who does social better than Facebook mount a significant competitor to the site? And, most importantly, could they succeed?”
• Playing Fast and Loose: by Pratap Bhanu Mehta. “A morally insidious vacuum in government. A self-proclaimed civil society displaying its own will to power. A media age where being off-balance gets you visibility. A public whose mood is punitive. An intellectual climate that peddles the politics of illusion. And all this in a context where government paralysis is enhancing the two biggest risks to the well-being of the poor — entrenched inflation and slowdown in growth. Instead of clamouring for visibility, we should follow old Baba Ramdev’s advice: take a deep breath.”
• 12 Debates that define our Times: from Forbes India. “Complex debates that define our society analysed and resloved by the keenest thought leaders of our time.”

Summarising:

1.     For the BJP to form a govt at the Centre, it needs to focus winning not just 175 but 275 seats (or 225 + 45 with the three current NDA llies). Winning 275 needs a dramatically different strategy from trying to win 175. To get to 275 seats out of 350-odd seats, the BJP needs to ensure a “wave” election with a 75% hit rate. That needs to be focus of future efforts. A summation of state elections will only get us to 175-odd, and if the Congress manages 150, BJP will not be able to form the government.

2.     A wave election last happened in India in 1984. BJP’s approach needs to be to work towards creating a wave in 2014 – across the country, and especially in the 330-350 seats where the BJP is competitive. No one, as far as I can tell, is thinking of what it takes to create a wave. 2014 may still be three years ago, but a lot of groundwork will need to be done to make this happen.

3.     Switch focus from maximising allies to maximising seats for 2014. All strategy needs to be focused on this.

I think various factors are coming together to create the foundation of a possible wave election in 2014. For one, look at the 90% hit rates that have happened in places in Bihar, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. (Assam came quite close.) The same concerns and issues have resonated across a state. I believe that something similar can happen nationally in 2014.

Based on the above, the BJP’s focus needs to be to maximise seats and hit rate, and not maximise pre-poll allies.

If we take the argument further, we need to look at two facts.

• First, if one actually analyses the BJP’s Lok Sabha performance through the years (and a similar analysis can be done for the Congress), it will be seen that the party has won at least once in about 300 of the 543 Lok Sabha constituencies.

• Second, the BJP is in power directly or with an ally in 9 states which account for 170 seats. The party is competitive in states with 219 seats, and almost absent in states with 154 seats. Thus, for the BJP, the pool of seats where it has any chance of winning is about 389 (170+219), with about 55-60 seats going to its three current allies (JD-U in Bihar, Shiv Sena in Maharashtra and Akali Dal in Punjab). That leaves the BJP competing to win in about 330 seats.

States in which the BJP can get allies are states where the BJP has little or no presence. Thus, there is little benefit for a party to ally with the BJP prior to the election. In fact, the perception has been created that an alliance with the BJP may cost the ally votes from specific communities.

The BJP’s best bet is to focus on these 330 seats and aim to win 225-250-275 of them. With the three present allies (JD-U in Bihar, Shiv Sena in Maharashtra, Akali Dal in Punjab, they must aim to reach the half-way mark of 272 on their own. Only then can they deliver the governance and development to the country that they have been doing at the states. The BJP needs to stop worrying about trying to get new allies because none will come, and even if they do, there is no guarantee they will stay after the elections. These fair weather allies will partner only with that party which helps them get power.

Continued tomorrow.

I wrote last week briefly about the need for BJP to change its focus from trying to get 175 seats in the next election in order to forma  government to aim for 275. Many of you wrote to me asking me to elaborate on the line of thinking. I will do so in a 3-part series.

Congress has a natural advantage in government formation at the Centre even if BJP is the largest party. As long as Cong gets around 150 and BJP doesn’t get more than 175-180 (and of course Cong + BJP is greater than 272 so no Third alternative comes in), it will be a Cong govt. I think the Cong realises this, and that is what explains their actions, smugness and confidence. The BJP leadership focus only seems to be on 175 (as it was even in 2009).

The goal for the BJP needs to change from trying to win 175 to winning 250-275. This point needs to be understood and agreed on. 175 seats will not get a BJP government in 2014. (This is because Congress has a greater pool of allies to choose from, and even if they win 150, they will be in a position to form a government with support from allies.) For 275, the focus needs to be either increasing geographical footprint in places it doesn’t exist, or increasing hit rate in seats the BJP contests. The former is a 10-year exercise, and the BJP should have started on that aggressively in 1998-99. It didn’t, and now the best it can hope for on that front is some results in 2024.

So, the focus on increasing hit rate in seats. This is about creating a “sweep” or a wave. The question and focus needs to be on how that can be orchestrated that in the next elections in 2014.

Continued tomorrow.

Indian cities need some serious urban planning. What we have right now is a mix of sub-standard ideas, ad hoc decisions and delayed implementation. That is no way to treat cities like Mumbai.

Let us look at Mumbai. Yes, we got one Sea Link. Plenty of flyovers. An above ground metro and monorail are coming up. Some other random bridges are being talked about. But surely, we can do better than that. For one, the metro should have been underground for the most part and covered a lot more of the city. We need sea transport like how Hong Kong has. We need more bridges on the western and eastern sides of the city.

Who is thinking? Where is the vision for Mumbai? Are is our destiny narrow raids, traffic jams and crowded public transport?Who is responsible for making Mumbai’s urban infrastructure 10X better than what it is?

Abhishek’s school vacation is in June and July – he goes to the first standard when school re-opens. We were planning to go to the US in mid-July for 10 days, but are rethinking that. Any alternative recommendations? Our travel dates are July 10-20.

Some ideas that have come up are: one of the Club Mahindra resorts in India (the ones which are available are Binsar, Corbett, Nawalgarh, Mussorie, Kumbalgarh), Bangkok-Pattaya or Bali. My one worry about some of the Indian destinations are the rains. We aren’t the beach, ocean-jumping people, and are looking for a nice relaxed place which has plenty of things for a 6-year-old to do.

Places we don’t want to go this year: Europe, Singapore, HK/China.

So, any suggestions of specific places and hotels/resorts?

Thanks!

The Day I First Landed in the US….

Come May, and a memory that comes by is of a day almost exactly 18 years ago when I returned for good from the US to become an entrepreneur in India. And with that is the memory of the day I first landed in the US in September 1988. Let me start with the latter.

I landed in New York on an afternoon on the Labour Day weekend in 1988 just ahead of the orientation week at Columbia University. A friend was supposed to come and pick me up, but didn’t. This was in the pre-cellphone era, so I had no way to trace him. I had made a booking at YMCA, so went there by cab. The Lufthansa flight had left me very tired and with an upset stomach.

I reached YMCA and promptly fell asleep. The jet lag was taking its toll. I was feeling feverish, and was very hungry but didn’t want to go out on my own for some reason. My friend finally came in the evening, and that was a big relief. My first meal in the US was at Pizza Hut! It was my first taste of pizza. Post-dinner, I went off with my friend to stay at his graduate housing at Columbia – my housing request hadn’t yet come through.

For some reason, the memory of that day has stayed on. It wasn’t a particularly enthralling day.  But it was the first day in the land that was so different from India, and a start of a fascinating four-year journey.

…and the Day I Returned from the US

My US stay that began in September 1988 ended with my return to India in May 1992. I had quit NYNEX six months ago and spent that period in California working at a company as a precursor to coming back (with a friend) in a possible JV.

My return journey took me via Singapore. That was the most convenient way to come to Mumbai from San Francisco. The transit time in Singapore was  about 12 hours. I went to meet a person who ran a big trading business out of Singapore. I still remember meeting him at his office and seeing the huge Singapore port in the window from his office. He talked about Singapore and all that it had accomplished. I was riveted with his success story — after all, I was en route to India to become an entrepreneur.

When I landed in Mumbai, I had a distressing experience. The Customs officers would not pass my PC  which I had got on Transfer of Residence. They arbitrarily assessed it at a high value, and wanted money to clear it. The odds were stacked against me given the discretionary powers vested in the officers.

I spent the next 6 hours (my first 6 hours back in India) at the airport going from one counter to another — I was determined that I would not pay them anything that was not official. My mother waited patiently outside. It took inordinately long to get the paperwork done – and I left the airport in the wee hours of the morning without the PC. For that, I had to come back the next day to meet some Assessment Officer, and pay money (by cheque) before I could get the PC out.

The contrast between Singapore and India that encompassed a single day could not have been more stark. And even today, as I look back 18 years ago, even though things have improved in India, I cannot but help think of our lost decades that stunted a generation. Even today, we are still not able to outgrow the wrong turns we took post-Independence.

This week’s links:

• Why Middle Managers May Be the Most Important People in Your Company: from Knowledge@Wharton.
• Financing options for start-ups: by Fred Wilson.
• On Innovation: Steve Denning blogs about a Malcolm Gladwell article. “What has emerged over the last decade is a group of firms like Apple, Amazon and Salesforce.com that have learned how to get to the root of the problem and combine continuous innovation with disciplined execution. They are managed in a radically different way from traditional management.”
• Pratap Bhanu Mehta interview: on rediff.com. “I think Rahul Gandhi is making the biggest mistake in thinking that political mobilisation and outreach can happen independently of your record in government. That somehow you can be a big national leader without taking a clear public stand on the major issues of the country.”
• Democracy, Elections and Voting: by Atanu Dey. “Do we really have to inform and educate all voters? Can we do something which does not involve educating everyone but that will have the same outcome as if we were to fully educate all the voters? Yes!”
• India needs $110B in capital for solar report: WSJ on a KPMB study. “The solar sector has the potential to transform the Indian economy in the way the IT sector transformed the Indian economy during the 1990s.”

I came across this article by Tavleen Singh (read it in The Afternoon, May 19), and it struck a chord:

Our most serious problem is the inability to build basic 21st century infrastructure without which there is little doubt that our great Bharat Mata will by the middle of this century resemble one, gigantic slum. More than 700 million Indians are expected to be living in urban centres by 2050 and to accommodate them experts calculate that we will need to build 500 more towns and cities. We have not started to build the first of these yet…It is our misfortune that the voice of poor Indians is only heard at election time. If it was stronger and louder all the time India would change more rapidly. It is our misfortune that the loudest voices in India are of educated, middle class Indians who are easily fooled into supporting some red herring like the Lokpal bill when there are much more serious issues to protest about. So in the near future India will continue to look like a broken down, decaying country despite impressive economic growth while little countries like Thailand go from strength to strength.

Where is the vision and will when we need it most to transform India?