Congress steals the show

By not supporting the alliance mooted by Shiv Sena, Congress has come out tops in my mind. My respect for them has gone up by a couple of notches. People need to stand by their ideology, whatever may be the opportunity.

Standoff between Shivsena and BJP in Maharashtra

BJP and Shivsena fought the assembly elections on a common platform and there was a large scale transfer of votes through each other's supporters. For Shivsena to think of taking support from other opposition parties, it would be a matter of cheating the mandate. 

The best thing would be to dissolve the government and have elections afresh wherein BJP and Shivsena should contest individually. It would be a good riddance for the voters, who can then choose whom they really want to. We don't want sulking, bickering, non performing parties to rule the state. The voters have had enough.

Ayushman Bharat Scheme

Government's introduction of Ayushman Bharat Scheme is an interesting piece to think of. The explicit intent is to provide health cover and medical services to those who can't afford. A noble intention one must say even ignoring the fact that there is already news of high scale corruption in the use of the scheme.

My view is it is a step taken too early, maybe for election purposes.  The basic issue is unclean water for drinking, air pollution , garbage everywhere, start dogs, cats, rodents and so on. India is probably the dirtiest and the most country in the world.

In such a scenario, if these basic issues would have been taken care of first it would have made more sense and it is because of these issues that people are facing such severe health issues. I guess the country has given up on the intent to rectify these basic issues first and hence such shortcuts. What it means is that we should always be assured that we will be afflicted with some health issue or the other. The so called poor will get the benefits of Aushman Bharat. The rich don't need that anyways. It is the middle class who will suffer again and again...left to fend for themselves.

Death Anniversary of Swami Vivekananda

On this very day , July 4, 1902, Swami Vivekananda chose to depart from this world. Such a divine soul.

Vote

To all Mumbaikars. Please go out and vote today.

Traditionally Mumbai has been a low voter. Today too, till 9 am the voting percentage is 7%. West Bengal is trending at 17% and MP at 11.11%. Let not Mumbai be seen as insensitive again. Vote !

ASAT strike by India

There was a recent debate about the launch of ASAT (anti satellite missile) and the announcement on national television of the same by PM Narendra Modi. Being election time, opposition parties complained to election commission on PM Modi's speech as having violated the code. Election commission didn't find any issue with the speech.

My understanding of the issue is as follows:

1. Should it have been announced by India?

Yes. You are taking down a satellite by launching a missile. If India didn't announce it and some other country would have, it would have led to an embarrassing situation as it would have been construed as an act of sly agression.

2. Who should have announced it? DRDO or PM or some other official representative?

DRDO has no right to announce taking down of a satellite. It is not its core work and it has no power to decide on such actions. Also it would have seemed it is working in isolation and government has no control.

Some other official of PMO office or defence could have spoken. However the message was larger than an announcement. The message to the world was that it was not in violation of any international laws, of reiteration of no first use policy and removing any apprehensions of agression to the world as it was soon after the Balakot Air Strike.

Only the PM could convince the world on this point. So PM should have spoken and he spoke.

Golden rules of Compensation

Read a nice article and have noted some points below. These are gems of Compensation and expressed very well.
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Compensation is never going to be the thing that makes people stay at a company, nor should it be. Compensation is not a healthy version of retention.

It's better if candidates join for the people,vision, culture, and have to make a hard decision on compensation. They will stay longer. 

Be fair and transparent to get compensation off the table. You can't be transparent if you are not paying fair.

Feelings about compensation are relative not absolute.So be ready to be able to explain and defend everything through a logical set of guidelines.

You can't predict people's performance and the state of the business in a year. It's a good idea to be conservative.

Don’t jump to the numbers, first explain the framework. That will start things off on the right foot.

One of the best things you can do with new hires is to offer fair and not negotiate. If you negotiate, you're primarily rewarding people who are good at negotiating.

Value people who care about the company’s burn rate and know that salaries are the biggest part of that for most companies.

Every new hire should be informed that compensation reviews only happen once a year or when moving to a higher level role, within the purview of market salary ranges. There should be no exceptions.

In addition to providing competitive salaries for the market, you should explain what that means to your employees. Don’t leave people wondering where you got your data set or how credible you’re being on this issue.

Make a huge deal out of the exception to the person in question (not to everyone else). They need to know that you broke your system for them and that it’s a very, very rare occurrence. This communicates both that they are indeed special, but also that it won’t happen again.

Always adjust to the market once a year so that you know for sure that what you’re offering is fair, and that your employees are set up for success in their lives outside the office.

Don’t make exceptions unless you absolutely have to. Exceptions create disparity.

Unemployment in India

There is no need for an employment survey to spell out the dire situation of jobs or lack thereof in India. It is obvious even otherwise.

Bank NPAs mean an embargo on loans. This in turn restrain new projects. So no new jobs are created. Plus hair brained execution of initiatives like demonitization  have led to loss of jobs and scale down of small and medium scaled businesses. It is dire.

Whoever has a job in hand should not make the mistake of leaving without another one in place. Or the waiting time may stretch upto 9 months to get a good comparable job in India.