Irresponsibility is the name of Media

Nothing is impossible. This is pretty true when it pertains to the affairs of Indian politics. The happenings around persuade one to be more obsessed with the affairs of Indian politics.

Not long ago, I shared a joke in Sulekha-jokes column when two friends talk among themselves; one says that he would like to be the Prime Minister of India. The other guy shockingly asks, “Are you crazy?” for which the first one replies, “Why? Is that necessary?”

I never thought that this joke mentioned in a lighter vein would become a reality. Last evening, as I surf the TV channels, I found out an interesting SMS survey by a news channel asking Whether Mayawati will be the first Dalit Prime Minister of India?

At the outset, I am confused on the question itself. Since when onwards, we have started classifying the premier posts on the basis of castes? As far as I knew, I never came across a Prime Minister who was given a tag like Brahmin Prime Minister or so. Why the prefix of Dalit is to be added? Is being a Dalit is the prime qualification to be the Prime Minister irrespective of the fact whether they deserve this post or not? I thought PM post is a responsibility to lead a country and not a caste.

I am not questioning the capability of Mayawati per se for this post but I am against the tag of “Dalit” being added to the Prime Minister post. Even if she becomes one, will she be the PM for Dalits only and not for India.

The best lesson we learnt from the history is none has learnt a lesson from the history. Mr. K R Narayanan was insulted (or I would say so) when his nomination for the post of Premier was justified on the basis of his caste and not by his qualifications.

We were taught in our schools that British adapted “Divide and Rule” to spoil our country. I beg to differ. To be precise, the opposite of this is true. India was politically united only when British ruled us. How could have British or Moguls ruled us if we were united? Even when the British left us, we needed a Sardar Patel to unite 300-odd princely states to name a country called India.

We boasted “Unity in Diversity” but the emphasis was much on the diversity and not on the unity. Politicians took enough care that we, the Indians remained divided in the name of caste, region, religion, language etc., The media, which is supposed to correct the errors of the ruling parties are behaving hand-in-glove to all of their activities.

All I could say is, “Irresponsibility – thy name is Media”. Please try to shed this tag before you give superfluous tags to all others.

Changing the Organizational Culture - Part 3 of the series

How Can I Change People’s Roles? We Are Getting Close!

If an organization is struggling to survive or be competitive or just to get better, the roles people play mirror the tasks that must be accomplished. If inadequate processes and procedures prevail, then the role of “fire fighter” is held in high esteem. If inadequate processes and procedures cause us to be late with our customer, then a little “butt busting” is the role that is needed to get the job done and become successful. We need to change our processes and procedures, i.e., improve our system for doing business.

How Do I Change Organizational Processes and Procedures? Congrats, You Got It!!!!!!

Finally, something we can see, touch and measure directly. There are a number of process improvement methodologies that are being used in business today. One of those, Six Sigma, is proving to be quite powerful in achieving dramatic improvements in reducing the rejections, thus increasing the productivity, customer satisfaction and financial performance. Other approaches like LEAN, TPM, KAIZEN, TS and ISO are around and have also enjoyed degrees of success. As this is not a paper on improvement methodologies we will leave that discussion to another day.

To lend credibility to the above iterative thought process and model, it must hold up under multiple scenarios. Let’s examine two hypothetical situations in the upcoming blogs... Wait for the next blog.