Wednesday, 11 May 2016
Amnesty Capital - An idea worth thought (Extract from my book 'Transformers' ISBN 1514861240)
Ideally, citizens should pay taxes and the nation should be free of corruption. In reality there are huge sums of unaccounted money in culturally stagnating nations. Governments of respective nations have every now and then launched pardoning schemes, which are under-availed for various reasons. This is how I propose to attract this capital into the real economy.
‘Amnesty Capital’ is an innovative way for Governments
to re-route black money into real economy, while ensuring that a specific
sector which otherwise is not addressed adequately owing to it being capital-intensive,
high-risk technology sector gets a boost. Governments are usually incapable of investing
in high-risk technology projects for multiple reasons. Therefore, Governments
could specify, assess & approve projects, say, in the capital-intensive and
high-risk areas of material science. Amnesty capital could be treated as either
Unsecured Royalty Capital (read ‘royalty capital’) or a Bearer Bond or Bearer Debenture
or Bearer-Quasi-Equity, existing in form of a paper instrument with a three to
five year lock-in period. Public, then is allowed to buy these bearer financial
instruments of any of the approved Companies, anonymously; from any dealing
bank without identifying themselves at all. The Companies that access this
capital shall be obliged to pay a small balloon return on the Amnesty Capital
accessed by the issuer to the holder, along with the principle, on submission
of bearer instrument. The Company will also be obliged to provide the Government
a return, which enables the Government to recover the taxes it would have
otherwise never received on the said amount. All the monies from which the
Govt. has recovered its minimum tax through 5-years’ bonds are provided a
Government approval as tax-paid monies. The redemption amounts of the financial
instruments will be transferred into any account specified by the bearers, when
they go to redeem and monetize them, thereby maintaining the anonymity of the
bearer.
This provides taxes to the Government; converts black
into white taxable income, pushes the high-risk capital-intensive technology
industry and still ensures the anonymity of the investor.
The condition is - do this only for those sectors
(like material science, semiconductors etc.) which otherwise cannot access capital
in India. The scheme could be used in other countries, which face the reality
of humungous unaccounted money in private hands, while certain sectors of
economy being neglected.
Wednesday, 4 May 2016
"Sorry Maa, but this time you have to slumber on the lumber"
Family & friends,
Your concerns and condolences are
appreciated. Day before on 3rd of May at around 0730hrs my maa gave
up fighting for her life. She loved life so much with all is trappings that I found
it inspirational.
Last two days were too burdensome with
a mix of obligations, duties, love, hate, tears, so many people with lots of avoidable but
unstoppable chirping - some truths and some blatant social lies, discussions that I kept on hearing - about the political landscape of Punjab; all - a
heady cocktail, leading to complete numbness of mind by the time my obese
mother weighed no more than few kilograms in bones and ashes. It was impossible
for me to coherently respond to anything immediately thereafter. I highly appreciate
that you, my extended family and friends are concerned and I believe you
must also have been sad for a few moments, depending on how much you knew Mama. In the last couple of days I realized how magnanimous is silence, if conferred, by those 'mourning' your loss.
Mama had undergone painful two months
and an agonizing week which is beyond expression. I saw the ‘line of control’
in the battle between her consciousness and her parasitic microbiome, inching
close to her. Those we kill at will in youth, come back with a vengeance at a
time when the walls of our fortress are crumbling because of age. Though at 80+ years, one would not
say the same about her mental faculties, till three days ago, she was alert,
remembered everything in minutest details, could do lot of strategic thinking
and was still ordained with her attitude. She refused to talk to my aunt, taking
offense in her inability to visit often from Chandigarh (a city 150 kilometers away). Being the eldest in
her family, she had a disposition to dominate & had some anger still
alive in her; till last. I saw in her a fighter, who had the power and desire
to live.
I saw in her a largehearted
person, who did whatsoever she could for others without counting. It is unfair
to claim she had no failing. Like all earthlings, she had hers, but I loved my parents
not because they were great people but because they were mine. One’s kin are
the only people one needs no reason to love and respect. Interestingly, while we
(my 15 years elder sister, my 14 years elder brother and me) saw her failings,
she none in us, for we were her Chef-d’oeuvres. Michelangelo loved not
his art so much, as much she loved us - her creations. She sculpted us all different,
never repeating her work of art though some strokes on all the three canvas are visibly
similar. Looking at me she knew I needed some motivation and would invariably
say “you are my babbar sher (lion in Punjabi), you cannot be worried or scared”,
and her words would magically spring my feet into action. Since my life is
based on the labours of
others – hers did the foundation. She was immensely loved and cosseted by my
father. She was highly respected by her brothers. And she was very possessive. Everything
she immensely loved she would never give away, whether it was a piece of jewelry
or my 14 year elder brother. She had a child-like want of fulfilling all her
desires and an unostentatious sense of giving away. She loved mangoes, but knew
my father loved them more and thus invariably declined to have the last piece
which would be hers by parity. I am sure we must have faced difficult financial
times but she steered the household so elegantly, that we were never even informed
of such times. In short, a cushion she was in my emotional life. But,
“I have no cushions to offer you in
return, sorry Maa, but this time you have to slumber on the lumber”.
Friday, 11 March 2016
Kanhaiya & Umar are the soldiers you have been looking for Mr. Prime Minister
While I have had opportunity to meet our Prime Minister a few times
while he was the Chief Minister of Gujarat, I would desist from claiming
to know him. With the handicap of having limited capability to
understand people, I could make the following inferences – he is a
patriot and wants India to progress. He also seems to care less about
religion, irrespective of what image of his is portrayed in public by
others or himself. That he rammed off all encroachments of public
property by temples in Ahmedabad is one of the three reasons for me to
reach this conclusion. The second reason is his use of the word
‘Kalpana’ (Imagination) of God in his facebook townhall meeting – so he
considers the concept of God as an imagination of humans, not a reality.
Thirdly, he is too thinking a man to be led into vanilla belief. Having
said that it is also evident that he will not be averse to using either
God or religion to achieve the goals he has set. May be, he is an
evolved & smart atheist. One conclusion that I have made with good
degree of certainty is that he is not a status-quoist. He is a change
agent and abhors the socio-cultural & economic stagnancy India has
been into. His disdain of chalta-hai is so gravitational that he makes
it a point to showcase it one way or the other, sometimes in words other
times in silence. Erstwhile Governments and Bureaucracy alike bathed
themselves in the warmth of laissez-faire, misinterpreting
non-interference to be it’s inaction. His dislike of status-quoists is
acerbic, verbal and apparent. He believes, and truly so, that our
leadership of yesteryears let the nation down on many accounts. When
compared to past, like it or not, he represents a change. He is a rebel.
With the benefit of aforementioned assumptions, I would deduce that Kanhaiya and Umar are the people, you are looking for Mr. Prime Minister. They are change agents. Hold them close to your bosom. Convention is conformism, rebellion is change. Intellectual & political obedience is indeed what you need to draw the nation out from, if you are really meaning to make India a great nation. Our polity and convention till date have been laissez-faire. There has been no bid to make the nation leap. If you want this nation to be a thought leader, one that creates pioneering industries, produces great scientists, where innovation is common place, that goes to Mars, is clean and green, economically developed, that is revered and took notice off; then let a million such mutinies thrive. I do believe you need those who will obediently do what you want done – they are your executors. In innovation-led companies we understand that it is critical to have your discovery team and your execution team. You have your execution team in place. Dissidents are your discovery team. They hate status-quo as much as you do. They want change as much as you do. So embrace these children of revolution, because they are you. Having said that what merits mention is that while Arvind Kejriwal and Narendra Modi followed action with oratory, Kanhaiya is still in the verbal domain. He needs to graduate to action to be counted amongst the coveted club of rebels.
It is a sigh of relief that the nation is debating nationalism, we have people ‘for’ certain definition of nationalism and others ‘against’ it, we have some for sedition others against it, we have some for and some against Mahisasur. It is beautiful. The nation is thinking. Unaccompanied by violence or provocation to it, divisions are not worrisome. They are inappropriately being portrayed as a doomsday for the nation by the left, the right, some parts of press and sometimes even by intellectuals. Divisions only show that people are thinking, they are standing for one or the other view. These are the first signs of revival, though not the revival itself. Great nations are not formed by herds of people cowed into thinking alike and even worse – doing alike; they are products of dissent, non-conformism and pluralism. Irrationality is cradle to human progress. It is convention that is rational & logical to human mind, change & novelty seem irrational to begin with. We progress only because we take routes that seem sub-optimal in best case & outright wrong in worse. It is this rebellion and change and irrationality that lets us discover the untraversed paths, the sensible amongst the discoveries later become rational. Reason is born from the womb of knowledge not vice-versa. Change, rebellion, Inquilab, irrationality is so important, that our incapability to comprehend it is one of the two major barriers to development of artificial intelligence better than ours. In my book ‘Transformers’ I have analyzed that barrier to real artificial intelligence are:
(i) our incapability as of now, to code an omnipotent & over-riding sense of survival in machines (which we possess), because we are afraid that would we code this capability, the machines might kill us for their own survival and hence we are happy possessing robotic slaves, not true human-like artificial intelligence. Our own urge of survival is the bottleneck to development of intelligence exceeding ours, by us.
(ii) second is the capability to take irrational and sometimes wrong or even sub-optimal decisions. We humans are irrational beings and this is what differentiates machines borne from our reason & wisdom. We have still not discovered the science of taking & executing wrong or sub-optimal decisions. It is so difficult to choose a wrong way of doing something, as the choice is infinite. This is the only other obstruction to development of human-like machine intellect.
In ‘Transformers’ I have highlighted why we Indians are not innovative, why dis-proportionate levels of conformism weigh so heavy on our socio-cultural and in consequence economic locomotion. Good heavens! at last we have started to grow our own rebels. Thankfully, we now have a Narendra Modi, an Arvind Kejriwal, Kanhaiya and Umar. They are our discovery team.
The inspiration to write this article came from reading an excellent piece by Apoorvanad a professor of Hindi in Delhi University which appeared in Indian Express. Titled “Umar Khalid, my son” – “because to rebel is to affirm and renew one’s humanity”.
I have provided the link to the said article.
With the benefit of aforementioned assumptions, I would deduce that Kanhaiya and Umar are the people, you are looking for Mr. Prime Minister. They are change agents. Hold them close to your bosom. Convention is conformism, rebellion is change. Intellectual & political obedience is indeed what you need to draw the nation out from, if you are really meaning to make India a great nation. Our polity and convention till date have been laissez-faire. There has been no bid to make the nation leap. If you want this nation to be a thought leader, one that creates pioneering industries, produces great scientists, where innovation is common place, that goes to Mars, is clean and green, economically developed, that is revered and took notice off; then let a million such mutinies thrive. I do believe you need those who will obediently do what you want done – they are your executors. In innovation-led companies we understand that it is critical to have your discovery team and your execution team. You have your execution team in place. Dissidents are your discovery team. They hate status-quo as much as you do. They want change as much as you do. So embrace these children of revolution, because they are you. Having said that what merits mention is that while Arvind Kejriwal and Narendra Modi followed action with oratory, Kanhaiya is still in the verbal domain. He needs to graduate to action to be counted amongst the coveted club of rebels.
It is a sigh of relief that the nation is debating nationalism, we have people ‘for’ certain definition of nationalism and others ‘against’ it, we have some for sedition others against it, we have some for and some against Mahisasur. It is beautiful. The nation is thinking. Unaccompanied by violence or provocation to it, divisions are not worrisome. They are inappropriately being portrayed as a doomsday for the nation by the left, the right, some parts of press and sometimes even by intellectuals. Divisions only show that people are thinking, they are standing for one or the other view. These are the first signs of revival, though not the revival itself. Great nations are not formed by herds of people cowed into thinking alike and even worse – doing alike; they are products of dissent, non-conformism and pluralism. Irrationality is cradle to human progress. It is convention that is rational & logical to human mind, change & novelty seem irrational to begin with. We progress only because we take routes that seem sub-optimal in best case & outright wrong in worse. It is this rebellion and change and irrationality that lets us discover the untraversed paths, the sensible amongst the discoveries later become rational. Reason is born from the womb of knowledge not vice-versa. Change, rebellion, Inquilab, irrationality is so important, that our incapability to comprehend it is one of the two major barriers to development of artificial intelligence better than ours. In my book ‘Transformers’ I have analyzed that barrier to real artificial intelligence are:
(i) our incapability as of now, to code an omnipotent & over-riding sense of survival in machines (which we possess), because we are afraid that would we code this capability, the machines might kill us for their own survival and hence we are happy possessing robotic slaves, not true human-like artificial intelligence. Our own urge of survival is the bottleneck to development of intelligence exceeding ours, by us.
(ii) second is the capability to take irrational and sometimes wrong or even sub-optimal decisions. We humans are irrational beings and this is what differentiates machines borne from our reason & wisdom. We have still not discovered the science of taking & executing wrong or sub-optimal decisions. It is so difficult to choose a wrong way of doing something, as the choice is infinite. This is the only other obstruction to development of human-like machine intellect.
In ‘Transformers’ I have highlighted why we Indians are not innovative, why dis-proportionate levels of conformism weigh so heavy on our socio-cultural and in consequence economic locomotion. Good heavens! at last we have started to grow our own rebels. Thankfully, we now have a Narendra Modi, an Arvind Kejriwal, Kanhaiya and Umar. They are our discovery team.
The inspiration to write this article came from reading an excellent piece by Apoorvanad a professor of Hindi in Delhi University which appeared in Indian Express. Titled “Umar Khalid, my son” – “because to rebel is to affirm and renew one’s humanity”.
I have provided the link to the said article.
Rajdeep's anti-nationalism
My view on Rajdeep Sardesai's article "I am anti-national".
Rajdeep your article expresses your palpable frustration.
May I, with humility offer you certain important facts -
(1) We in India, are brought up with a gross - confirmation bias, resultantly, few value dissent. We appreciate children, who do what parents ask to be done. Now you, as in the article, are India's spoilt child. So I see many thrashing you here under. We often find it easier to confirm a majority bias rather than think on our own (thinking consumes too much energy bro!). This is apparent because those e-thrashing you are not even probably understanding the 'literature' in your article (gentlemen, 'I am antinational' is an expression of disgust of RS, to draw your attention to freedoms that are no so for-granted, as we think they are).
(2) Indians have an exceptionally high 'survival bias' which means that we will do anything & everything to survive - this is apparent as we are the only civilization besides chinese which existed uninterrupted for few thousand years. We have lived through invaders & repressions. Higher the survival bias, higher the selfish gene. So culturally, we are not team players - we are taught individualism through our scriptures from day one. Hence, we are, kind of, okay with floods, till our terrace is high enough not to drown. We are more materialistic than Amercians, who we constantly criticize for the same - "we are more catholic than pope"
(3) We are actually very intelligent & clever. Yes, having lived and interacted in few nations and cultures, I am clear - we are very clever and intelligent. Intellect in itself is the quality of gathering knowledge with the subterranean but omni-present purpose of survival. Our 'intellect' historically has arisen not from exploration (as in case of western nations) but from survival. Philosophically, this automatically induces some dishonesty. "Ashwasthama mar gaya haathi" - is a great instance of such survival-originating intellect. Unfortunately so, but being 'worldy-wise' or 'Duniyadari' in India is interpreted as "accept little lies or dishonesty or repression till it favours one or at least does not impact one." While this works excellent for purposes of survival, it really becomes a bottleneck for progress. As progress requires multi-dimensional view of environs sometimes competing, sometimes rebellious.
(4) We in India are not so well read nation, therefore often, we fail to grasp what is the underlying statement in a piece of literature. Here's the living proof of it - I prophesy, "because my current comment is going to be very lengthy, few will read or comment on it and hence I will be saved of a barrage of abusive messages." (5) We are culturally stagnant. Can you quote me any major cultural rebellion we have had? The stagnancy has lead to all of us becoming status quoists. (6) Now regarding your anti-nationalism. Assuming anti-nationalism is opposite of nationalism, you seem to be on the wrong side of us all. We 'nationalistic' people are the ones one who are perfectly fine with half-clad hungry children on road crossings, with the maid sitting on floor while we sit on the sofa, with throwing the 'lays' ka lifafa on road, defecating in open, getting people to clean our shit, paying little here and little there for a favour, over-charging and under-treating innocent patients, taxes underpaid or avoided, parking in the middle of the road, blocking traffic for a VIP, taking dowry, repressing classes, queuing for foreign work permits, happy to quote "mera munda taan kannede da citizen hai", hitting & running when not busy trampling people under SUVs; talking in whispers that "yahan dande ke jor pe kaam hota hai", commenting on ramayana or mahabharta without having read Koran or Das Kapital, or works of Vivekananda or Immanuel Kant or Schopenhauer or Espinoza; and RS, you dare be an opposite of us! Hum aapko aapne mein milaynge, peate nahin ho toh pilaynge (we will make you like us, if you do not drink you are no my friend, so drink). Mere bhai main gehari neend mein hun. Mujhe sone do, jo hansta hai use hansne do, jo rota hai use rone do, bas sone do mujhe sone do (I am in deep sleep don't be the irritating alarm in my ear).
Rajdeep your article expresses your palpable frustration.
May I, with humility offer you certain important facts -
(1) We in India, are brought up with a gross - confirmation bias, resultantly, few value dissent. We appreciate children, who do what parents ask to be done. Now you, as in the article, are India's spoilt child. So I see many thrashing you here under. We often find it easier to confirm a majority bias rather than think on our own (thinking consumes too much energy bro!). This is apparent because those e-thrashing you are not even probably understanding the 'literature' in your article (gentlemen, 'I am antinational' is an expression of disgust of RS, to draw your attention to freedoms that are no so for-granted, as we think they are).
(2) Indians have an exceptionally high 'survival bias' which means that we will do anything & everything to survive - this is apparent as we are the only civilization besides chinese which existed uninterrupted for few thousand years. We have lived through invaders & repressions. Higher the survival bias, higher the selfish gene. So culturally, we are not team players - we are taught individualism through our scriptures from day one. Hence, we are, kind of, okay with floods, till our terrace is high enough not to drown. We are more materialistic than Amercians, who we constantly criticize for the same - "we are more catholic than pope"
(3) We are actually very intelligent & clever. Yes, having lived and interacted in few nations and cultures, I am clear - we are very clever and intelligent. Intellect in itself is the quality of gathering knowledge with the subterranean but omni-present purpose of survival. Our 'intellect' historically has arisen not from exploration (as in case of western nations) but from survival. Philosophically, this automatically induces some dishonesty. "Ashwasthama mar gaya haathi" - is a great instance of such survival-originating intellect. Unfortunately so, but being 'worldy-wise' or 'Duniyadari' in India is interpreted as "accept little lies or dishonesty or repression till it favours one or at least does not impact one." While this works excellent for purposes of survival, it really becomes a bottleneck for progress. As progress requires multi-dimensional view of environs sometimes competing, sometimes rebellious.
(4) We in India are not so well read nation, therefore often, we fail to grasp what is the underlying statement in a piece of literature. Here's the living proof of it - I prophesy, "because my current comment is going to be very lengthy, few will read or comment on it and hence I will be saved of a barrage of abusive messages." (5) We are culturally stagnant. Can you quote me any major cultural rebellion we have had? The stagnancy has lead to all of us becoming status quoists. (6) Now regarding your anti-nationalism. Assuming anti-nationalism is opposite of nationalism, you seem to be on the wrong side of us all. We 'nationalistic' people are the ones one who are perfectly fine with half-clad hungry children on road crossings, with the maid sitting on floor while we sit on the sofa, with throwing the 'lays' ka lifafa on road, defecating in open, getting people to clean our shit, paying little here and little there for a favour, over-charging and under-treating innocent patients, taxes underpaid or avoided, parking in the middle of the road, blocking traffic for a VIP, taking dowry, repressing classes, queuing for foreign work permits, happy to quote "mera munda taan kannede da citizen hai", hitting & running when not busy trampling people under SUVs; talking in whispers that "yahan dande ke jor pe kaam hota hai", commenting on ramayana or mahabharta without having read Koran or Das Kapital, or works of Vivekananda or Immanuel Kant or Schopenhauer or Espinoza; and RS, you dare be an opposite of us! Hum aapko aapne mein milaynge, peate nahin ho toh pilaynge (we will make you like us, if you do not drink you are no my friend, so drink). Mere bhai main gehari neend mein hun. Mujhe sone do, jo hansta hai use hansne do, jo rota hai use rone do, bas sone do mujhe sone do (I am in deep sleep don't be the irritating alarm in my ear).
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