Say it loud - Modi, you have failed

If you are one of those who voted for Modi in 2014 because you genuinely believed in his capabilities and intentions, and not because you were a insecure hindu, this post is for you. 

You cannot be entirely blamed for who you voted for. Given the alternatives we had, you probably took a sensible decision. You thought that India was in deep trouble and only Modi can do something about it. Modi deserves an opportunity, you said. When he was tirelessly travelling across the country and kept launching his attacks on the UPA, you didn't ask him how his government shall be different. He didn't even have to give you a broad overview of policies he supposedly had in his mind. You simply trusted him, like you trust god. Exactly like how you say "God has his own plans", you believed Modi has his plans ready to take our country forward. "Achche din aayenge" wasn't just one of those political slogans. You genuinely believed that things are going to improve in this country.

Some voices here and there were raised, asking if that belief in one person is justified, only to be suppressed by the loud, crass, nasty political campaign by Modi and his men, which was widely applauded by the majority. Political aggressiveness and shrewdness was mistaken for capabilities to run a diverse and complicated democratic country.

Modi did win and how! That is when even those of us who were a lot more critical of him than the majority, congratulated and accepted him as our Prime Minister as any decent democratic country would do. "The scrutiny shall begin now" I told myself after he was sworn in. I was wrong.We gave Modi too much leeway. Following were some of the commonly heard excuses -  "Only if he had more numbers in Rajya Sabha", "This is too early to judge a government", "He can't be making a statement every time somebody from his party makes a sexist or a communal remark", "Slowly he shall isolate the Hindu fundamentalists like he did in Gujarat", "We gave congress 60 years, let him complete one full term first" etc. It didn't end there. Slowly, probably without your notice, Modi convinced you that every decision he takes is good for the country and it's just that there could be a few negative implications here and there. When experts explained to you in detail why a few of those decisions were bad and that he should have taken those decisions after adequate consultations, "at least he's trying something" was your default response. 

A few days after Modi announced note-ban, I went to a salon. Noticing that it was unusually less crowded, I asked the guy what happened. "Business has gone down after the note-ban sir. It has created problems for all of us" he said, and quickly added "It's ok. It is good for the country. No?". I realized then, that Modi had successfully separated "country" from all of us and was creating a narrative that he was doing something extraordinary for it. We foolishly bought that narrative. We forgot that we are the country and that "we" includes farmers, daily wage labourers and others who are part of the unorganized sector, adivasis, small scale industries and so on. What was supposedly a surgical strike on black money decided to change its track and just be an impetus for digital economy for sometime, but was in fact, a disaster for the Indian economy. "At least he tried something" - some of us continue to say.

This needs to stop now. Economic indicators have been raising alarms lately and the fact that by most measures, Modi and his government have failed and have performed worse than the previous government is not a secret anymore. This, apart from the fact that critics of Modi and his ideology are not just bullied these days but are eliminated, folks are being lynched for what they eat and are abused in the name of nationalism and trolls on twitter continue to harass women.

Let those who need Modi to serve their own purpose of feeling powerful in some weird ways continue to defend him, but if you aren't one of them, speak up! Say it loud and clear "Modi, you have failed this country, you have disappointed us". Ask questions and demand answers before it's too late. Although I'm personally not too optimistic about this making any difference to the self obsessed and self serving Prime Minister that we voted for, I just hope this shall send a signal to all politicians that Indian electorate is getting smarter and that politicians cannot rely on blind worship forever.

A Professor who inspired

As he walked into our classroom in the first semester of MBA to teach a course titled "Business Environment", he convincingly carried the no-nonsense and intimidating look on his face. I was personally looking forward for his class only because I thought the course was going to be interesting. The course had been designed to help us understand some fundamentals through the assessment of the current business environment. As someone who is too impatient to wait and realise the relevance of any course much later in life, I found it exciting that this course would deal with what was happening around on a daily basis. Little did I know that the professor who walked in was going to be one of the most brilliant teachers I've come across.

Prof V. Ravi Kumar (or "Ravi sir" as we call him) , an alumnus of St Stephen's, worked at various banks for about three decades before switching over to teaching. What's striking about him is his desperation to nudge his students to keep learning. He has often told me that the whole point of higher education is to develop right attitude towards learning and to be more inquisitive of the world. Despite being the placement head of the institute, he has repeatedly lamented over the general attitude of viewing placements as end goals. Also, not many have shown the courage to discuss examinations and marks with him. However, the methods that he has employed to instill in his students the urge to learn, have been a little unconventional, if not controversial.

The popular school of thought is that appreciation and rewards work better than intimidation if you want someone to perform well. Ravi sir cares less about popular opinions. "B School is about raising the bar and getting people out of their comfort zones" he once told me. At the risk of appearing to be belittling us and attracting criticism and anger for being rude, he constantly tells his class that it is a bunch of irresponsible folks who are clueless about a lot of things that they should be aware of. He often mocks his students and is sometimes visibly annoyed at them. While a few criticize him, interestingly, I've also seen folks sympathizing with him for not being able to meet his expectations. Yet, he effortlessly commands respect and the charisma is hard to miss.

Unlike a lot of my friends who've sat through his lectures for multiple courses, I've attended Ravi sir's classes only in the first year, since I didn't pick finance as my specialization subject in the second year. Yet, I've known him personally for these two years through our various conversations. I've repeatedly gone to him to discuss what I've read and he has not only helped me improve my understanding, but has helped me form perspectives. Never have I walked out of his room without learning anything new. These meetings also made me realize how empathetic he is towards his students. Not many know how deeply he admires the efforts that some of his students put in. Technical discussions aside, our conversations have ranged from his corporate life experiences, to higher education systems across the globe, to books, to cycling, running, travelling and nice masala dosa places in Bangalore.

With increasing commodification of higher education, metrics such as pass percentage, placement record, institute's rank and students' approval ratings have taken the center stage for institutions. Students on the other hand, eye on good grades and decent jobs. Although I agree I'm generalizing, I think that these narrowly defined standards for institutions and students have resulted in, among many other things, the gradual erosion of student-teacher relationships, especially at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. A professor can play a much bigger role than just completing the course and evaluating the students and students have a lot to gain from professors apart from mere classroom learning. It is up to the students to find someone who can inspire them, guide them, foster creativity, leadership, critical thinking and so on. I'm happy to have found one, and I'm sure there are many others.

Lakhs of rupees, two precious years and a changed worldview

Back in June 2015, when I joined a B-school for my MBA course, the Modi government had just completed one year in office. While there was a lot of chest-thumping on the change in business sentiment and the newly found optimism in the country, there were arguments that there was so much that could've been done with such numbers in the parliament. The most common opinion, however was that it was too early to say. The new monetary policy framework was in place, which brought increased focus on Raghuram Rajan and his team's policies, given the supposedly increased autonomy of the RBI due to the new framework. The Fed hadn't hiked its key interest rate since 2006 and there were talks that it would hike it soon, which they eventually did in December that year. Maggi had just been banned all of a sudden, a textbook example of how external factors can cause quick disruptions in the market. Also, in Europe, all eyes were on the referendum on a bailout agreement in Greece and folks in India were trying to understand its impact on their country. I just finished my course last week, and in two years, a lot has changed. Maggi is back as the market leader, Raghuram Rajan is back in the US, banking and payments system in India are no longer the same, Flipkart's valuation has been slashed to around 5 billion, which is nearly one-third of what the company got when it raised funds in July 2015, America has a new President, and as I write this, four of the Indian states will have new chief ministers.

Without doubts, all of this would have happened even if I had continued to make software for Americans like I did for three years earlier. However, I've seen these events using new lens and with better clarity in the last two years. I've changed from being a passive observer of what is going on, to being able to analyse them and form my own opinions and judgement. In some cases, I've also developed the confidence to predict outcomes. On multiple occasions, I've been pleasantly surprised to realize that some of the domain experts have had the same views that I had on certain issues, the most recent one being on demonetization. This makes me wonder if I've finally gained the ability and confidence to have original opinions on at least some of the issues impacting most of us. I've also been able to appreciate the fact that it is an exciting phase to be in India at the moment and I'm broadly aware of the areas I can contribute to in India's growth story. Pages in the newspapers that I skipped reading earlier are read with much interest now and my reading list has books that I wouldn't have thought of reading earlier.  I also can say with some confidence that MBA has opened a number of gates of opportunities, not necessarily because of its value in the market as a degree, but just because of the general awareness it has brought in. It somehow gives me an impression that I can experiment more with my career now than I could have, had I continued to be a software engineer.

This isn't a fairy tale though. At the end of the day, it is still a race to outperform one another to get higher salaries and better grades, which takes away the joy of learning. Also, given how diverse the subjects are, the curriculum expects you to spend time and energy on a few things that you probably aren't interested in, and that can be frustrating, especially when you are forced to compromise on your other interests and plans. And of course there's peer pressure of needless distractions.  Also, we celebrated the end of the course by throwing away tonnes of papers and other junk in the air at the hostel for about an hour, without realizing that for the next couple of hours, a few folks who are in charge of keeping premises clean for us will have to break their backs clearing everything. To me, that summarized what else is wrong with the system.

In my opinion, what one walks out of a B-school with depends more on how individualistic one was for two years and what the priorities were.When asked about what you've gained while spending two important years to get one of the most expensive degrees in the country, you could make vague statements like "I've grown so much as a person" or "I've developed leadership abilities" or "I think I can now be a good manager" or "I've created so much memories for myself" or you could say that you now have the confidence to manage businesses, if not to start your own business, or that you can explain with ease why the stock market crashed on a particular day or that you can recommend what the TCS or Infosys should do urgently to survive or that you have a strong view on the ongoing consolidation in India's telecom sector  or on why "Make in India" is struggling.

Have I personally made the best use of the course? Not at all. Sheer laziness, negligence and distractions have constantly constrained my learning and I feel terribly guilty. Not many are fortunate enough to afford such expensive education and to not show complete dedication to make every penny count is a sin. Also, given how much you can learn sitting at home today, the excuses that one can come up with for the lack of learning are only diminishing. I think with one's ability to afford expensive education, comes a sense of entitlement that best things should happen easily for oneself. The real challenge is to fight that and replace it with a sense of responsibility towards oneself and society. I've seen some of the folks working day and night to perform well and while I'm not a big fan of the end result that most of them were looking for, I really wish I had that dedication.

The most common mistake that we all tend to do is to view completing a course as an end, while it is in fact the beginning of an even more important journey. We now have another opportunity to try and make every penny and all the time spent count, and I hope I wouldn't disappoint myself this time.

Post Birthday post

I turned 27 couple of days ago and scribbling about the year that's gone has been a ritual. So this post is that ritual. In my post last year (read here), I wrote about how I joined a B school with certain expectations and thanks to lack of my research, I was in for a few surprises. However,  I also wrote of reasons to be happy. Not much has changed after I wrote that, except for some new lessons learnt both professionally and personally, new friends made, and some new plans chalked out with respect to my career post MBA. Two years of life at a B School deserves a separate blog post, which I'm eager to publish as soon as possible.

Travel

I started my year with a solo trip to Jaipur, Pushkar and Udaipur. While I had been to Jaipur earlier and I knew what to expect in Udaipur because of my readings, Pushkar caught me by surprise. I never thought I'd like the place so much. Despite being a beautiful town, Pushkar has a lot to offer for solo travellers, one being Zostel, a chain of hostels that are a boon for backpackers. Zostel has it's presence in only a few places in India for now, and I hope they will expand soon. I also went to Goa twice this year and have made multiple trips to Mysore and  Chikkamagaluru. A bike trip to Bandipur and a trip to Hampi were great fun too.

Mumbai

The highlight of the year has to be my stay in Mumbai, arguably the most cosmopolitan city in India, for a couple of months during my summer internship. I had made a short visit to Mumbai earlier, but this time, I had about 8 weeks to explore the city and I did manage to live the city to the extent possible. A period of two months in a new city is ideal to explore it. It's neither so short that you can't find enough time to roam around, nor too long to make you lazy enough to procrastinate the things that you wanted to do. I lived the city through its trains, beaches, theatres, movies, nightlife, diversity, history, architecture and so on. Also, there was something about the slums in Mumbai that alternately fascinated and bothered me. It nudged me to reread one of my favourite books "Behind the beautiful forevers".

Plays and Movies

Unfortunately, last year, I must have hardly watched 4-5 plays that I loved and would watch again. The rest of them were pretty dull. However, this was compensated by some great movies that I watched, both old and new, in multiple languages. Notably, a few new talented folks in the Kannada movie industry have laid the foundation for the much needed revival of Kannada movies. It all started with Lucia and Ulidavaru Kandante back in 2013, the two fine movies that encouraged a bunch of fresh talents to make some interesting movies without having had to worry much about their acceptance. And 2016 was even more special because of a fantastic movie called "Thithi", which was internationally acclaimed. Thithi was followed by a few other decent movies in Kannada, but none of them could even come close to it.

And thanks to YouTube, I could enjoy watching some of the finest works by Shyam Benegal, Govind Nihalani, Mani Ratnam as film-makers and Smita Patil, Shabana Azmi, Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Amrish Puri, Anant Nag and Mohanlal, to name a few, as actors.

Reading

And finally, here's the list of books that I read in 2016. The priority this year, was to re-read a few books that I had read a few years back.

1. The Fault Lines - Raghuram Rajan
2. The Argumentative Indian - Amartya Sen
3. The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga
4. The Mahatma and The Poet - compiled and edited by Sabyasachi Bhattacharya
5. Swami and Friends, Bachelor of Arts, The Vendor of Sweets - R K Narayan ( Reread)
6. Sophie's Choice - William Styron (Reread)
7. Behind the beautiful forevers - Katherine Boo (Reread)
8. An era of darkness  - Shashi Tharoor (incomplete)
9. Old Path White Clouds - Thich Nhat Hanh (incomplete)

Of the above, The White Tiger and Behind the beautiful forevers have made it to my list of "all-time favourites".

As I'm about to complete my MBA and then waste time for a couple of months, I'm looking forward to get back to work after 3 long years. And now it's time to end this self obsessed post.

A year to remember

2016 was definitely not a dull year. Yes, personal experiences differ. Some of us personally have had a boring year, with nothing much to reminisce about. Some of us unfortunately remember the year for not-so-good personal reasons, while some of us probably got our first job or got married or traveled abroad for the first time or came out of a turbulent relationship this year. Personal experiences and achievements aside, if you aren't someone who keeps yourself completely isolated from the world outside, I'm sure you'd agree that 2016 was an eventful year.

This post of mine could be tagged as a tirade against something that I'm going to remember this year for. I shall remember 2016 as a year in which for the first time in my country, I saw a complete disregard for (and in some cases, dismissal of) others' suffering on a large scale. Inherently, we are all selfish. There's no denial that most of us have always been occupied in solving our own personal problems. We waste water, dump garbage on the road, drive recklessly, never miss a chance to abuse each other and so on. However, when there's, say an earthquake, a bomb blast, a drought or any other event that leads to a large scale human suffering, my understanding has been that although not many of us go out and do our bit, we sympathize with the victims. Worst case, we do not dismiss their sufferings. 

2016 has been special. After the famous announcement on the 8th of November, farmers had to struggle to buy seeds, numbers showed that agrarian economy suffered,  there were cases reported where admitting critically ill patients to hospitals had become tougher, laborers ran out of work, a few small scale industries were shut down and businesses suffered. And if we chose to be cynical about newspaper reports, it didn't take too much effort to see people waiting in queues in front of ATM machines under the sun, uncertain of whether there would be cash left by the time it's their turn to withdraw cash. People died while standing in queues. Although I've witnessed the extent to which the hard core supporters of a certain political party, government or an individual (All three are the same in some cases!) defend some of the actions, I haven't been able to figure out why I still find it shocking that a lot of us have convincingly bought the "short term pain for long term gain" argument and continue to publicly state that it is absolutely fine if people suffer. This suffering, mind you, is because of a decision taken somewhere in a closed room, purely based on personal imagination and optimism. 

While no decision taken by the government can be resistant to criticism, arguments in favor of the decision should always be welcomed and I've no doubt in my mind that there are strong arguments in favour of scrapping old notes. However, the refusal to accept that there could be people whose lives have been adversely impacted and that we shall never be able to understand the inconvenience that they've had to go through was shocking! A panelist in the Bangalore Literature Festival this year, when questioned about the hardships that people are going through, said "People die everywhere. They've died while standing in queue for ration cards, people die on football grounds, so what?". I've lost count of the number of people who have effortlessly said "People will have to suffer if the country has to progress". To me, this is one of the indications of how fast our society is degrading.

I could be blind, but in my lifetime, I hadn't seen such a public display of insensitivity on such a large scale in my country. I do tend to believe that most people who've been saying these things do sympathize with the sufferers and it's just that they haven't learnt how to argue in favour of the decision while wholeheartedly sympathizing with the victims. Nevertheless, I'm tempted to not give ourselves the benefit of doubt and would like to believe that 2016 has set a stage for people like our Prime Minister to take any decision without having had to worry about its repercussions for his political party because a part of our society is now both courageous and shameless to publicly endorse human suffering. Acche Din is definitely here.

Demonetization: A nice move at the wrong time

The idea of a country going cashless is very exciting, since the best way to get rid of black money is to get rid of cash. One of the most exciting things that's been happening in our country is the coming together of all forces that are needed for a country to go cashless. There are government's financial inclusion programmes complimented by the fact that RBI has been issuing licences to payment banks, small finance banks and financial technology companies like never before, there are mobile wallet companies competing aggressively to attract customers, there's the Unified Payment Interface, authentication has been simplified through Aadhar, more people can afford smartphones now and there are network providers reducing data charges, eyeing higher market share. Recently, as part of an assignment in my MBA course, I roughly predicted that India would become a cashless economy in the next 10 years. Although I'm being over-optimistic about this,  I really think India has what it takes to achieve this.

There are real challenges though. There is the reluctance and in most cases, the inability to embrace the opportunities to go cashless. Debit cards have been around in our cities for a fairly long time now, but over 80% of the times, they are used to draw cash from the ATM machines. We all know people who are still very reluctant to swipe cards instead of paying as cash. We also know folks who don't even use their cards. They go to the bank in the beginning of the month, withdraw cash as much as they want for the month and manage their household expenses. To be fair, the facilities for cashless transactions aren't great either. Most places do not accept cards because those transactions cost them more. In the tier-II towns and in rural areas, the situation is even worse.

Internet penetration in India is around 19% and this is a major hurdle for India to go cashless. The government and the private sector have to work together to swiftly increase internet penetration, and as the penetration improves, incentivising cashless transactions, improving internet banking literacy, continuing to aggressively improve access to banking for everyone and many more programmes can strengthen the eco-system that is already there now, though in its infancy.

The hardships that people have been facing because of the recent demonetization show how dependent we as a country are on cash. Over 80% of the transactions happen via cash. The long queues outside the ATMs are depressing, not just because they show how ill prepared the government and the banks were for such a move, but also because those queues also mean that so much of cash is coming back to the market in the form of new notes. How much ever this government and its ardent fans tell you that this move would curb black money, as long as there's so much cash in the economy, black money in various forms will continue to haunt us. Unless we do everything that it takes to reduce dependency on cash as fast as we can, the recent exercise that has been wrongly and popularly called "demonetization" will not just be proved futile, but will only be remembered as something that caused great inconvenience to honest citizens.

Apparently, it took about a year of planning before the PM announced that the old notes are scrapped. While this thrilled a lot of us for the apparent secrecy, I wonder what the preparation was about. Perhaps the right preparation wouldn't have led to people dying. It wouldn't have risked rural consumption, which is already low. It wouldn't have caused so much of distress to people who had nothing to do with black money. The government has got its timing terribly wrong, but it isn't too late. The new notes for sure will proliferate in the economy and the priority for the government should be to speed up the transition to cashless economy. Next time a PM goes on air to announce that our notes are worthless, we should be able to just shrug our shoulders and say "Who needs cash!"

A few favourites and a few complaints in and about Mumbai

I spent two months in Mumbai and I think I'm now in a comfortable position to talk about what I liked and what I didn't like in and about the city.

First, the favorites. These are in no particular order.

1. Mani Bhavan: Mani Bhavan served as Gandhi's residence in Mumbai from 1917 to 1934 and it plays a very significant role in the independence struggle. See here to know more. Mani Bhavan is today, a tourist attraction, mostly visited by foreigners. Indians who are attracted to this place are scholars and researchers, thanks to its collection of over 40000 books in the library. The library is housed on the ground floor. The first and second floors house some of the rare photographs of important historical events of Gandhi's time, Gandhi's room, quotes from and about Gandhi and the beautiful miniature figures depicting Gandhi's life. To me, Mani Bhavan's library, its interiors, the exhibition and the thick greenery along the road has been very refreshing every time I've visited the place.

2. Prithvi theatre and the NCPA: As someone very fond of watching plays, I've always wanted to go to Prithvi theatre. As a frequent visitor to Rangashankara in Bangalore, I couldn't help compare the two when I watched my first play in Prithvi and to my surprise, Rangashankara beats Prithvi! Rangashankara houses a bigger stage and a much better seating arrangement, it's probably double the size of Prithvi and its cafe is more spacious and better maintained. In the cafe, I once found Shashi Kapoor, the founder of Prithvi on a wheel chair, barely being able to understand what's going on around him while people were busy taking selfies with full co-operation from his assistant. While I initially felt terrible, after a few moments, I wondered if all the attention he gets does make him happy. Even if it does, does it give anybody the right to take a picture without his permission and post it on facebook? I don't know. All I know is that I left the place with discomfort.

The NCPA (National Centre for the Performing arts) houses multiple theatres and is much more sophisticated compared to Rangashankara and Prithvi. One reason I'm jealous of theatre enthusiasts in Mumbai is that they get to see performances by some of the finest Hindi actors. I was surprised to see that there are quite a few actors who despite being active in Bollywood, continue to direct and perform plays. After watching a play written and performed by Pankaj Kapoor and a play directed and performed by Naseeruddin Shah during my short stay in Mumbai, I haven't been able to decide who's luckier - Me or the theatre buffs in Mumbai.

3. Fort: I fell in love with South Bombay, specially the Fort area. Most of my time on weekends were spent here. I even stayed in the fort area for four days. There's something really nice about this region around Church Gate, the Oval, flora fountain, the book stalls on the pavements, the cafes, the museums, all those by-lanes and the road that takes you to Victoria Terminus. Just like how I've never been able to explain to anyone why I like Church street, St Marks Road, Vittal Mallya Road and the entire area in and around the Cubbon park in Bangalore, I'll probably not be able to explain why I like Fort so much. 

Mahesh Lunch Home at Fort deserves a special mention. Every time I've been to Fort, I've had lunch at Mahesh Lunch Home, although there were so many other options available. I don't know if it was just because of the awesome sea food or if it was because of the people who work there, most of them from coastal Karnataka. After half a dozen visits, they started treating me like I've gone to their home for lunch, which probably nudged me to visit them half a dozen times more. I've been to the one in Juhu too, but the one in Fort is my favorite. 

4. Marine Drive on Sunday mornings: I'm not denying that Marine Drive is beautiful on evenings, but I like it more on Sunday mornings. I probably like the crowd better. A walk or a run on Marine drive is one of the nicest ways to start your Sunday if you don't stay too far. I like how places like Marine Drive so visibly destroy class apartheid. There's no way you can enjoy special privileges there no matter how rich you are!

5. Sewri mudflats: How often do you get the luxury of seeing thousands of flamingos and other birds in the heart of a city!? And the fact that the folks from Bombay Natural History Society often arrange a birding tour to this place also gives you the option of using their binoculars and telescopes to get an excellent view of these beautiful species along with some education on these birds and their behavior if you are a novice. Ideally, you should reach there by 6 30 a.m and stay till 9. As the tides rise, the birds move closer and closer to you, so much that at some point, you don't even need binoculars. Some pictures here. Apparently, these mudflats aren't the only place where you can see flamingos in Mumbai. 

6. Rickshawalas: I haven't had one bad experience with Rickshawalas in Mumbai. This is one area where Mumbai beats Bangalore hands down. It took me a little while to get used to arrogance of these guys here in Bangalore after I returned.

And now, a few complaints, again, in no particular order.

1. The scarcity of real breakfast: I now understand the value of having Sukh Sagars, Shanti Sagars and Darshinis every 200 meters here in Bangalore. These are places where you get real breakfast. I'm a big fan of South Indian breakfast and I wish I could convince people in Mumbai that Vada Pav, Burji Pav, Misal Pav and God-knows-what Pav aren't breakfasts! And the unavailability of filter coffee sucks. I've had situations where waiters didn't even know what filter coffee is.

2. The lack of participation by renowned corporates in solving city's problems: I'm willing to stand corrected here, but I don't see prominent people from Mumbai participating in city administration. If you have lived in Bangalore, you often see renowned folks from corporate world coming together and engaging with Government and urban reform agencies to help them through their expertise and aid. I see this missing in Mumbai. If you are wondering what I'm talking about, you should read about BPAC. In a city where 60% of the population lives in slums, public-private partnerships to tackle urban issues might help a lot. But somehow it feels like the rich and influential are indifferent towards city's problems.

3, Weather: I've nothing to say about this.