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.

Magnetic power at places of worship

Visited Andherichya Raja (Ganpati Pandal) on the auspicious festival days. It is always said that the sanctum sanctorium of a temple or a place of worship has some magnetic field , some powers which we can't really explain.

The wait in the queue was close to an hour and i was quite bored. The approach was mired by uneven platforms to walk on. My mind was wandering. However as soon as i reached the place of worship, i closed my eyes to offer prayers and went into a deep trance like focus. I could feel some power over there. I can surely say that if that kind of focus can be retained for whole day every day, we can achieve whatever we put our mind to. It was an amazing experience

Chess Title received

I have now received the chess title of "Candidate Master" from FIDE (the world chess federation).

Eye Power - well done Patanjali !

Today i had a eye power checkup. The basic intention was to actually switch from an anti glare lens to a special lens which will also block rays from smart phones and keep eyes cool.

To my surprise my power has actually gone down from -1.25 to -1 in one eye and from -1 to - 0.5 in the other. Not sure whether such a thing happens frequently with all. I attribute this to Patanjali agurvedic Mahatriphaladi Ghrit which i was testing for a few days and the immense trust i place in the brand.