Jayakumar Balasubramanian

Its been five years since CNBC-TV18 started in India. CNBC partnered with the TV18 which is run by Raghav Bahl and some dynamic young people. There are very nice programs which I normally watch during weekends. Programs like "Lessons in Excellence" which is a series gives a deep inside of corporate leadership. People like Sam Pitroda, C.K. Prahlad and other "Gurus" of management express their thoughts under various topics like "Creative Leadership", "Family owned business", "Co-creating value system in a competitive environment". There is another reason why I watch the program. Of course it is because of the beautiful anchor of the proram "Menaka Doshi" ;-)

The topics related to economics is becoming very interesting area for me nowadays and I am making some serious attempts to know more about the world economy. When the western world went for "Industrialization" during the 17th and 18th centuries, my country India was looted left and right. Other than that when India got independence in 1947 our leaders went for a "close" trade policy and killed the entrepreneurship instincts of Indians because of which many generations suffered a lot. After opening up the Indian economy in 1991, my generation is able to see lots of FII and "Open" trade, which is helping many Indians to accumulate wealth. From the so called "Third world" my country is transforming slowly and moving towards becoming a developed country. Because of the closed economy and the "Socialistic Democracy" policies of the govenment many of my previous generations have suffered which is a heavy price we have to pay for mistakes our ...

Over the weekend I was reading some article about Vinod Dam who is called the "Father of Pentium Processor".When Dam started his career he was hired as an Engineer in Intel mainly working on EEPROMs (In those days Intel wasvery famous for its memory components rather than processors). Dam was having a natural "passion" towards the micro-processors and asked his manager for a team change from the EEPROM to the Micro-processor team (May be he would have said to his manager "I am doing a junk work bla…bla…bla..." !!). Dam's manager was not OK with him moving out of the team (May be he would have said "You are a critical resource for the existing team bla..bla…bla..."). But Dam went and spoke to the manager of the "Processor" team and told him that he will work for the Processor team apart from his normal work as an external consultant. When the x386 went for production it had a serious problem which could eventually can stop the shipme...

Off late I have become a very regular watching some of the TV programs. Ramalinga Raju CEO of Satyam Computers, said "The 2/3 of the world GDP contribution comes from the Services Industry. When I heard this I was really suprised". Not only Ramalinga Raju, me too got surprised to know the potential of the services industry. However these services is existing because of the R & D which is made by various research arms of organizations/universites. My perception about the services Industry has changed after listening to the TV program in which Ramalinga Raju appeared.

I am currently reading a book named "The Himalayan Masters" by Swami Rama. The book is all about yogis who stay in the secret caves of Himalayan mountains in search of spiritual enlightment. It is believed that these masters are there for more than 5000 years in the himalayas. Initially they acquired the knowledge through Vedas and then upanishads. Eventhough as a common man, I am not able to understand very "complex" sanskrit in which these vedas have written, this book has made serious attempts to convey the messages of the masters in a simple way. When I am reading this book I am able to easliy co-relate the messages with our normal "materialistic" world. But when I think about these masters I just don't have any words to explain their knowledge which they had thousands of years ago. These are some things which are very unique to India which one can understand more when make serious attempts to understand it.

I always like people/organization who make a difference in whatever they are doing. In 1990s when I was 10 years old I used to watch this guy "Pranoy Roy" coming in election analysis in National Channel India. His election analysis program got a huge appereciation among people in India and he went to STAR NEWS and there also his news program became very famous. In the recent past this guy along with very good team started his own new channel "NDTV 24x7"and "NDTV India". Last month they launched "NDTV profit" in which they are going global and giving business news all around the world. Mr.Roy's approach I call something like "Planned Entrepreneurship". From a 2 hr program to three 24/7 news channels he has grown a lot. This guy has introduced a new trend in India.

For quiet some time I have been thinking of starting a blog. At last I am doing it today. I have named it "Kirukkal" which means "Scribble" in my mother toungue Tamil (A South Indian language).