Feminism or Bigger Social Issue

Nowadays, a trend topic is issues related to female gender. All seems to make people aware that there are lot of issues with female gender in India and this needs to be addressed.

Whenever I read about any feminism movement on a social networking site, it makes me think - Is it really an issue of this scale? Or we are missing a bigger picture?

[Let me be very clear: I am absolutely against any crime or harassment. Against any gender, race or cast.]

I did some research, and found this specific issue related to crime against woman in India is divided into two parts:

1. Generic - Animal instinct about male and female
2. Specific - Social clash between rapid grown group and not so rapid grown group

For first point, as an animal, male is generally more aggressive. Due to evolution, male got more strength and had to fight in one or the other case - food, shelter, protection against predator or a female. At the same time, evolution made female more creative, structured, organised and selective. So as a long story short, if there is any attack, for most of the cases, it would be from male and to a weaker opponent (male or female). This was true for any kind of fight too. Naturally entire female gender is generally weaker so they are at the receiving end. [This is still about animal instinct].

Human race evolved due to lack of the strength. But still we share more than 95% DNA with animal like apes. Male/Alpha instinct does not go away that easily. That shows even in a most developed countries people introduce their wife as "Meet my beautiful wife ...". You would not hear same about husbands in same intensity there.

So showing the alpha-ness is in the nature of a man. Fighting with that could lead to no result in a positive manner. Having said that, most developed countries are much better in terms of keeping both gender at equal level. So issues like in India is not there.

Now coming to second point, due to recent (last 10/15 years) of evolution in India due to IT and other areas, most of the Gen X/Y and millennial have come out (from their village/town/city) and started "enjoying" their life without anyone's restriction. Some also created open culture at house and things become easy to adjust. Internet has been a tool during this time. This started creating new social norms (like late night outing, disco/pub, fashion and openness). Unfortunately, this was restricted to very limited part of our country. Some hasn't seen a computer, where others are regularly downloading any movie from torrent/YouTube. 

Some forget that others coming from a backward village is not at all adjusted to this new culture (mostly in cities). This leads to all kind of social clashes - rash driving, gunda giri or impolite behavior, eve teasing, pushing even if there is a reserved seat, and many more. 

Some adjusted very fast doesn't mean others would also keep-up the pace. It would take some time and things will change. 

So let's not be selfish in such a way that we think only from one view and completely ignore the other one. If we can do it, it would make (if not others) our life easier. 

Opinions

General Election is coming in India and we see war of words thanks to “Open” social media. I see all people are bashing someone or supporting someone now. The quite ones sometime start feeling the “peer pressure” and bend to start giving opinions without really meaning it.

Having an opinion is good. This makes you and other feel that you are thinking and you are “socially accepted”. So for person like me, who do not drink, it would help me to be part of discussion when someone is talking about class of whiskey or wine. This leads to a state where people want to have an opinion about the current hot topic.  As a country of hard working people, it is possible that, we do not find much time to have extensive research to have an opinion. So we try to find a source where opinions are “ready to use”. To support them, there are few statements which could be handy while discussing this. So I find so many people read media like “TOI” or “First Post” or others who is readily giving an opinion (for free) with or without any factual base.

This is fine till the time we want to hide our ignorant face. But after sometime, some of us try to take it to a next level where we use them into discussions/debates over those shallow opinions. I could see so many people just argue over an issue which neither of them have substantial ground level knowledge. “Modi vs. Kejriwal” and “Khobraghade case” are the recent examples. And during the debate, if someone challenges the other person to state the facts, they do not have it. And this leads to personal remark and then a big show.

Generally, we take our opinions personally. That’s perfectly understandable if not ideal. But incidentally, now I see so many people get offended by someone else’s opinion. If A wants to support Modi/Kejriwal and B is not in favour, B acts like A has created a big crime or he is the biggest fool of the time. You may also find there are few who come in rescue of either A or B and start debating. And after that, there is an interesting scene for others for few minutes! People fight till the end and someone will emerge as a “winner of the battle”!

I think we all can have opinion as it is a free country. Other may also have it. But that doesn’t mean all have to have same one. One thing which we really need to become develop is respect other’s opinion. If there are differences, you can discuss. Keep the open mind and do not take it to a personal level. It’s not about winning or losing. After all, we are friends here and it is just about expressing our view.

iWant to become Steve Jobs?

Steve Jobs passed away last night. World lost a great visionary and great fighter. People like Steve always inspired others to create great things and become successful like them.

But, whenever I think about people like Steve Jobs, one thing pinch me inside my head:

Is it really worth being Steve??

I know most of you think what kind of question is this? The man who was such a visionary, a fighter and an entrepreneur and he gave so many things to this world. Why someone not want to become like him?

I might be completely wrong or might have some valid points, but before judging that let me try to put my point here.

I believe that a man cannot be a complete that much successful from all aspects. One may be very good at technology (like Steve/Bill), but at the same time failing at understanding politics. Similarly, a good politician (like Churchill) might be a failed father or a son. In the same way, a great family man might be failing measurably at professional front. In short, achieving success at all front is, if not impossible, is so much difficult that I have not seen till now with my limited life and visibility.

Now, some ‘Techie’ must have a thought that, “I don’t give a damn about what is going in politics or how economy works. I like my technology well and I can create wonders.” Agreed. His effort and brain can create wonders and he could be the next Steve Jobs. He can get deep into his work and technology and forget everything else. Even it can be his family or friends. And after few ten years people will see him as a great ‘successful’ person. But till then he would have to put so many years of him and his family for work where family/friends comes at lower priority.

I see so many examples of ‘successful’ people who climbed the ladder fast and high, but are currently not fit physically or socially and at later stage, repent about their current situation.

I agree that if there were no Steve Jobs or Bill Gates or Churchills world wouldn’t have been this good. But that doesn’t make them complete successful person which you want to be.

For me, my family/friends are the ones who care about me and should be at priority. If little more time for them gave me little less money, I think I would accept that. For someone else, this is not correct.

Again, I might be wrong or have few correct points. Need your contribution to make it clear.

Making Payment at Shopping Mall

Whenever I go to a grocery store or shopping mall to buy something, at the time of payment, one question usually comes to my mind. “How do I pay the bill?” Cash, Debit card or Credit card? And if I have multiple credit cards, which one should I take out?

Many times we don’t get such doubts. Because we think it’s all same. At max what we make sure that we don’t use credit card more than what we could pay at the end of the month. All these make sense. But is it really the same if we pay by cash or debit card or credit card?

With my limited knowledge of working in cards and payment domain in finance sector, I have found few facts which is leading me to this question.

So let’s understand about various cards and payment process.

But before that, one question to all. Why do banks want you to take their credit cards and use it? Why are they giving you some credit for some days for free? They are here to do business and make money. Why would they involve in an activity where they are giving away money for free??

So one thing is final. They are not doing social service. There must be some way by which they are making money even by lending money to us. What could it be?

Here are the answers. Credit card companies mainly makes money by these three ways.

1. Advertisement: With each card and its statement, they do some advertisement and generate money.
2. Interest: When someone uses a credit card, in many cases, he will end-up buying more than wanted and can’t pay in one go. Credit card companies will wait for that moment and will offer an ‘easy’ EMI. But, interest rate for cards will be in the range of 20%-48% where we end-up paying around 10% to 15% of the cost as an interest to credit card companies. And that is the case when EMI is of 3 months.
3. Transaction Fee: With each swipe of card, credit card company will take around 2% as a transaction charge. Just imagine the total transactions per day and 2% of the cost in their pocket.

Here for second and third point, company gets money from the card user. How? Then lets see how money flow happens when a card is swiped at the store.

 

When we ask shop keeper to swipe the card, he will swipe it and make us sign on a slip. Then he will show those slips to his bank and get money after some days. Here in this case it may happen that our bank and seller’s bank is not same. So association like Visa and MasterCard will come in between and settle the payment. Our bank will give money to Visa and Visa will pay to seller’s bank. And we will pay the amount to the bank at the end of the statement cycle.

Here, the transaction fee will come. Our bank will give 2% less to the merchant as a fee. So for the bill of Rs. 100, merchant will only get Rs. 98. But why this merchant is bearing this cost? He can use other methods like ask us to make payment in cash. Here are few reasons why he agrees to pay that amount.

1. With the card, we will not have the limit on purchase and end-up buying more. So more business to him.
2. He won’t need a person who will take care of all cash. (end of the day cash will be huge, if all cash is there)
3. He will tweak the prices and will transfer the burden of transaction fee to us.

In most of the cases, merchant will not bear the cost, but will pass to us. If you remember your old days, the old kirana stores were giving us more discounts on MRP than all new Bazaars. Because all these bazaars have the component of transaction fee on them they won’t give discount to us. So at the end we will end up paying more.

So next point comes in our mind is even if we pay him in cash, he won’t give us discount, then what to do. The answer is simple. Nothing. Use your credit card and enjoy the “free” credit for a month, or go to the seller who doesn’t accept credit card (and may give you some benefit).

Now people, who were thinking about using debit card more, think again. Here also the fee will come to us only as bill amount is same. Rather, we are losing the interest what we are getting on our balance for few days. If we use the credit card and pay the amount at the end of the statement period, we will surely get some interest on our bank balance.

So, next time when you go out for shopping in mall, think once that how should I pay him so that I will be at minimum loss… You may want to use a credit card which will give you more days to pay the final bill.

How people sell in India

These days one type of news is going all around… India is growing… India is becoming Super Power… India is a future leader… Currently, all major companies are attracted towards India. You know the reason? It’s India’s one of the large population with people living with given small set of resources and, with all the large set of constrains and troubles.

For such a large consumer market, companies like (rather love or desperate) to sell all their products. If you can recollect, we have so many products on the self of the shops which were not at all there few years ago. Consumerization is picking up the pace and Indian people are shopping things like never before. In fact, it’s going more towards American type of consumerization where market will sell you things which you actually don’t need (‘need’ is different from ‘want’). And for such large people, this is how they sell things. You can also take points from here and can sell ‘your’ things to your target people.

In India if you want to sell things, follow these steps

1. Show them there is a ‘big’ problem in life and you are a part of that problem. Hitting emotions is the major part here.
2. Tell them, you have a solution for that.
3. Solicit it with few people saying problem is solved. (It can be some known/trusted people like, celebrity, so called scientific results, or your local re-seller/shop keeper)
4. Show them its value for money (people love it). This is only when you can show the problem is ‘so big’ or competition is high.
5. Just to support that, show them it’s a trend. All are doing it. (If you don’t, you the only one who would be behind)
6. Giving something extra. Tell them it will solve some more problems for you… (just to compete with others, people like free things)
7. Play the trump card at the end. You have multiple variants suiting to your skin/personality/… (Just change the color/smell/look)

That’s it. You will have successful sale.

That is what companies are doing these days. You can take few example of the products like, anti ageing products, hair fall treatment/product, ‘natural/herbal’ face/skin products, anti-dandruff products, health drinks/products and at the end, insurance/pension products (remember, Na sar zuka hai kabhi… ad)

There are other ways of doing sale. One of them is pushing the products so much to the people it becomes a trend and people who don’t have it, feel backwards. Like adidas/RBK/Nike types of products, iPods, mobile phones (especially big ones), bikes, chocolates, noodles, cereals, hair gel, etc. But that also many times follow the above mentioned techniques for selling as people gets trapped easily there.

There are few products which actually have improved the quality of life and I am not denying that. My point is, if you want to sell anything, these steps can help you. Some people will always be there to take it.

Do we really have time?

Currently I am working in one of the good going MNC where I am getting good amount of money at the end of the month. As it is MNC, it is expecting me to work as per my package and takes most of the time of my day time. It’s fair, coz I am paid good. I have no problems with it.


But there is a gray side of it. As much of my time is taken doing my daily job, I hardly get time to see what’s happening around. Before, I usually check my facebook account and read what my friends are doing, I also was reading status messages of my friends on GTalk. But now, all gone. Forget facebook or GTalk, I even hardly get time to check my personal mails once in a week. I sometimes miss the birthdays and important event. Sometimes my old good friends and family member complaint; “you don’t even call or message…”

But today something happened. I woke-up late today. I also had extra thing to do before reaching office. I somehow managed to complete things and reached office little late. I always keep buffer time for my meetings and joined meeting and completed all my day work at the end of the day. Then coming back, I was wondering even I started late today, still I was able to complete my day in time. That’s great!

Then I realized my old PG days. I was even busier than how I am now, but still was able to do all the things which I am not. I was working for my studies, for teams, for events, for friends, for juniors, for placements, assignments, competitions… still got time to talk to people on GTalk, put comments on Facebook, have a evening walk at college pond, enjoyed parties and had a great time. Why then its not happening now? May be I was doing better time management or my priorities have been changed or it’s just I really don’t want to become socialite anymore or may be something else. I really don’t know the reason at this point of time. But, one thing is there in my mind now, “DO I REALLY DON’T HAVE TIME?”

Today I read this at my friend’s status message:

“If you ask Rs. 2000 from your friend, you’ll get it; but if you ask 2 minutes of time, you probably won’t”…

Indian Political Power… Good for India

Recently while reading all about CWG and India’s ability to host such games, few thoughts came to my mind. The news was depicting the India’s inability of having world-class infrastructure and mis-management at every level.

It was all there because of one thing, the host was not India, it was Government of India. Same thing if taken by some private firm, then it would have been far better than now and at the same level as it would have been at any ‘developed’ country (with less cost).

Then something struck in my mind. India is told to be the future super power, and it would be; but is it how it will be? Certainly it will, but not because of the government. It would be because of the people of India. We all curse India’s political power as they have not done anything for us. But at the same time, by doing nothing, they have made (read: forced) us to do all things by our own. Being a small (read: having less money/power) in size, we still are moving the world right now. And the condition is still improving, people are doing better than yesterday and the same story repeats everyday! This is all being possible because of bad governance and ‘great’ Indian politics.

Just imagine, if politicians were good and working in a better way, then the people of India would never have been so enthusiast to work more and achieve more with less resources. We even might have the luxury like people of US and made us so much dependent on the government. Saving would have been less and courage and will-power to come out from all bad things would not have been there. The worst, the recent economic downturn would have collapsed the Indian economy as well.

So, pray god that politicians would help us to stretch our limits even further and help us to make our country even better.

PS: Please note that I am not having any political view and would not like to discuss which politician is better. Rather, work my own and contribute to Indian economy. And if government is not doing show to all that it is not doing.