Jacques Piccard, the hero who showed us the depths of the oceans, passed away today.. I was always mesmerized by his programs on Discovery. His son, Bertrand Piccard, said it well..
One of the last great explorers of the 20th Century, a true Captain Nemo who went deeper than any other man, Jacques Piccard passed away on Saturday
If you don’t know who, Jacques Piccard is.. check out the entry on Wikipedia about him at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Piccard
My friend sent this to me today
I think this applies to you.
Long back, a person who
- sacrificed his sleep,
- forgot his family,
- forgot his food,
- forgot laughter
were called “Saints”
But now they are called..”IT professionals”
My friend, Ravi, responded via e-mail to my ranting about the end of affordable flying in India and the note that we might be slipping back to socialism..
I understand that there will be no Rs.99/- deals in future (Yes, Rs.99! + Taxes, which are close to 20 times the price of the ticket). There should not have been such deals in the first place. Many airlines to gain market share have priced their fares dirt cheap and are now facing the consequences. If they are not even making money to pay the salaries, how are they going to become profitable by bearing operating costs and considering all loans they are unable to repay even after 5-10 years of starting their operations.
In a way I feel it is good that the airline sector is making some adjustments at-least now but the managements made some blunders in implementation of their ideas. If you followed the story of Jet employees getting sacked, it looks ridiculous and shows how stupid the management was. This is a perfect example as to how a company will have to take back it’s decisions due to social pressures if it makes decisions without proper implementation plan. People like Raj Thackeray making comments like the Jet airways will not be allowed to land if the employees are not taken back, etc and his previous hatred comments against North Indians shows how narrow minded politicians are able to speak whatever they want and can come to limelight and ENJOY their actions.Read the below article which describes how a CEO of a company was attacked and killed recently in India. There may be various versions of the same story but what bothers me most is people get away with no one being held accountable for the crime.Also, there are so many political games in all states in India that it has become difficult to feel secure to do any business though you abide by the law, unless you have local support. Recent move of Tata Nano plant from Singur in W.Bengal to Gujarat is a perfect example of how things can turn due to political gains.Yes, there is corruption anywhere in the world but in India you can get away with relatively easily, even if caught. This is a major setback and I fear things will get much worse before some radical decision comes out later to tackle such situations.Sorry for going into social aspect of the problem rather than financial aspect.Anyways, we need to have political power to do anything better for the society on the large scale and to get there we will face the same issues of combating corrupt and dangerous politicians who are ready to do anything to regain their position.I will go back and spend money for the betterment of the system if I win BigGame 🙂
The Indian airline industry went through explosive growth for the last 4-5 years. Not long ago, Indians had to deal with only one state owned airline (Air India) to fly around India. With the free market reform of the Indian economy by Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, back in the late 90s, a lot of private air lines opened shop.
Flying has historically been relegated to the rich and influential in India. But with the opening of these private air lines a lot more people could suddenly afford to fly. These air lines initially offered cheap rates to grab market share. They were so successful that the state owned Air India had to start getting it’s act together and a new air line was opening shop ever day. There was King Fisher, Air Deccan, Go Air, Indico, Sahara and the list goes on..
Cheap Rates, Explosive Coverage Growth, Competition.. what more could the Indian customer ask for? Life was good :-)..
The Government finally got off it’s back end and started building new airports (they should have done it back in the 70s) and privatizing them.. India was going to enter the group of “developed” countries.
And then came the fuel cost increases of 2007/2008 and the credit crunch that is currently affecting every economy on this planet. These airlines have started to raise prices, merge with competition and lay off people (gasp!!) And customers, being the fickle ones :), are going back to the cheaper and trusty railways [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7669301.stm]. This is a crucial period for this nascent industry in India. They just showed ordinary people the joy and productivity of flying. They created a new customer base. But if this economic slowdown continues for another year or so, I am afraid, we are going to go back to the old way of high prices, bad service and monopoly..
P.S : I followed this interesting story about some lay offs at Jet Airways and wonder if we are are moving back from capitalism to socialism in India..
While I am happy for the folks that got their jobs back.. I don’t know if this will allow the company to tighten it’s belt and survive the economic slowdown.
Comment by historian Thoman Naftali, on NPR‘s The World program, about the decision by the US state department to sell the building that the US embassy in the London is housed in currently due to security reasons..
Embassies are supposed to be the frontdoors of our counrty, but unfortunately, they have become the frontlines.
During dinner with a friend recently, we brooded on these three topics..
I was watching a recent episore of “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” (sports show on HBO), which had a story about the plight of “debt” children from India. These children (in the cities of Meerut and Jalandhar) are forced into child labor due a debt their family got into. The terms of the debt so bad that the family never gets to pay it off. The children are then forced to work for nickels to stitch footballs. While the poverty of the family plays a role in this situation, an educated parent wouldn’t have allowed this to happen. If these folks had access to programs run by organizations like ASHA, they would have probably have gotten better paying jobs and their children wouldn’t have to be in this situation.
Running a marathon is a hard task, but nothing compared to the plight these children go through. I am proud to be helping eradicate such things from happening in the future. Help me raise money for ASHA, by clicking on this link (http://ashanet.org/chicago/teamashawiki/index.php/Runners/VinayKudithipudi) and donating whatever amount you feel is appropriate.
I have found my inspiration.. have you?
That the folks at McDonald’s are once again aggressively pushing the “super size” meals? It was interesting that, they stopped doing that after the backlash against the “high calories” and the obesity caused by these meals a couple of years ago. Do you remember the “Super Size Me” movie from 2004?
Looks like it is back to business as usual :-).
Quotes from the recent Democratic and Republican Conventions..
Democrats : Bill Clinton “People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power.”
Republicans : Sarah Palin “‘In politics, there are some candidates who use change to promote their careers, and then there are those, like John McCain, who use their careers to promote change.
