Clean Chit Funds (CCFs)

Lesson 1:

First you amass huge funds by whatever means, and then get as many people as possible to give you a clean chit each.  Now the fortune you have made becomes a Clean Chit Fund.

The rating given to such a fund is CCF followed by as many plus signs as the number of chits obtained. If there are no clean chits but only fingers pointed at it, the CCF rating is followed by as many minuses as the fingers.  If there are both, each plus cancels out one minus and vice versa.

If the CCF holder is from an illustrious family, the initial of family name may be prefixed to the CCF rating.

Lesson 2:

Sometimes smaller funds amassed in ways similar to those stated in lesson 1 can be termed CCF even if they are not able to procure clean chits.  The ceiling amount for such small CC fund is stated to be 71 crores by highly placed sources.  Other requirements for such funds to be classified as CCF include the head of such a fund being supported by a highly placed and respectable dignitary.

Lesson 3:

It can be shown as a corollary of the profound Zero Loss Theory that CCFs, by their very nature, carry very little risk and do not require skills for managing them that are too complex.  This has been exploited for the very laudable purpose of upskilling people in lowly professions.  Drivers, gardeners and orderlies now have an opportunity to acquire directorial skills in such Funds.

Lesson 4:.

Interestingly, both sources and uses of CCFs are, more often than not, the same, namely, natural resources.  But some CCFs do choose to deploy funds in accounts abroad with a view to diversification.  In this case the customercentricity displayed by a particular bank has been commented upon by none other than the highly credible head of a recently launched political party.  The bank is said to have gone out of its way in helping CCFs in opening and funding accounts abroad.  They have made doing so easier than opening a no-frill account in a Public Sector Bank for receiving cash transfers from the Government.  This has led to much customer delight.

Mirror Neurons, Dalai Lama and a few questions

Recently watched this video on youtube. Ramachandran briefly talked about his work on mirror neurons seeking a response from Dalai Lama. Dalai Lama asks a very insightful question.  It goes somewhat like this - "Do the mirror neurons fire in your brain merely by looking at another person being subjected to a sensory experience, or must you be watching attentively for this to happen?"  Ramachandran says you must be watching attentively. This means that if you are watching mindlessly, it may not happen.

The two videos give rise to many other questions.  I am listing the questions in the hope that some of you who may have explored this body of knowledge in depth, will be able to reply.

• Is vision central to the working of mirror neurons?  What happens to a blind person who can not see what is being done and to which part of another person's body, if the other person does not provide any auditory clues like a sigh or a cry of pain?  What if he does?
• Will the mirror neurons also fire if you are not watching the real action but a video of it?  Cinema goers  may feel that empathy is more pronounced in this case.  Is it merely because of the focused attention or do the dramatization, the closeup look and the appropriate background music also help?
• There are means other than vision through which we can make another person feel some of what we are feeling.  For example a blood curdling shriek, or a recording of it, may evoke the same horror in the listener that the person who shrieked felt or acted out.  It would seem that both sight and sound can do this. Is there any other way in which the empathetic feelings be evoked in another person?
• Can the mirror neurons make me feel the Buddha kind of peace if I keep attentively looking at an idol of meditating Buddha?  That is, can mirror neurons mimic the inner feelings of the observed person as reflected on his face?
• When another person is touched he can also feel the texture, temperature of the object touching him as well how hard it is pressing against his skin. Can these feelings get conveyed to the attentive observer?
• Many people are reported to have had out of body experiences (OBE).  It may be taken that though they were receiving sensory inputs of sight and sound, their whole body was anesthetized.  It will be interesting to ask them if they felt all the sensations of the people whom they saw while having this OBE.
• What happens if you have your hand anesthetized and watch it being tickled?

Beware of Credit Card Frauds

As I was taking my car out on the second day after Dipawali, i.e., 15-Nov-2012, I was distracted by my phone which announced arrival of 15 messages.  I thought these must be delayed Dipawali greetings and that I could defer viewing them.  But then I opened the message box on impulse.  Out came the Jack-in-the-box and hit me with full force.  All the 15 messages were for successful transactions on my credit card!  All the transactions appeared to be carried out on the Internet and they were all done within the span of one hour with the midnight hour of 14th and 15th November in the middle.  The last transaction was for Rs.200/= for draining out the credit limit to the hilt.

So I parked the car right outside my house and went back in.  A lot of telephone calls were made to Bobcards and umpteen mails exchanged.  I also visited two websites where several of the transactions were made and left complaint notes using a form available on them.  One of them promptly acknowledged the message and also charged back the amount saying that investigations showed that it was a fraudulent transaction.  The other asked me to request my card company to talk to them.  All these messages were passed on to Bobcards.

It seems that my password for internet card transactions was reset by the miscreants and then used for the fraudulent transactions.  Now the Verified-by-Visa (VBV) implementation by Bobcards definitely lacks security.  So if you have forgotten your password or are a miscreant who has got the card number, CVV and expiry date but doesn't has the password, the only additional piece of data required for resetting the password is cardholder's date of birth!  All these data are available with the card company and its service providers and if a staff is so inclined he can easily carry out the password reset operation.  I inquired with some other banks' customers.  They have given me to understand that they have to use an OTP (One Time Password) for password reset.  The OTP is sent to them on their registered mobile number.  This security check is missing in the Bobcards implementation, and this weakness is sure to attract cyber criminals in hordes.

So be careful with your Bobcard.  I am relying on the following (picked up from the Visa website):

Zero Liability

Shop anywhere with absolutely no risk

Your peace of mind and protection are paramount to Visa. Visa's Zero Liability policy is our guarantee that you won’t be held responsible for fraudulent charges made with your card or account information

In fact Visa goes on to say:

Count on quick resolution and provisional credit if your card is lost or stolen. ¹

If your account is compromised, Visa is committed to setting things right without further aggravation or inconvenience to you. Visa’s cardholder protection policy requires all financial institutions issuing Visa products to extend provisional credit for losses from unauthorized card use within 5 business days of notification of the loss.

Performance Quotient (PQ)

When you don't have or don't care to have systems to reliably measure individual employees output, how do you carry out an appraisal?  Well it is pretty simple.  Just substitute input for output and take into account the chemistry between reviewer and reviewee.  The precise formula for performance appraisal is as follows:

Performance Quotient = [{Sum over appraisal period of (Leaving Time - Reporting Time)} multiplied by 100 divided by (number of days$ in the review period*24)] plus (percentage of your liking for the reviewee)

In this system the organization may expect a performance quotient of 100 or more.

Again there are some bosses who prefer the simpler formula:

Performance Quotient = [{Sum over appraisal period of (Final Leaving Time - 0)} multiplied by 100 divided by (number of days$ in the review period*24)] plus (percentage of your liking for the reviewee)*1.5

$ You may choose total number of days or number of working days in consultation with HR.

Note: For using the formula correctly, all time must be in 24 hours format.  Also for an employee who chooses not to quit the office at all a checkout and check-in are automatically performed at midnight.

People get the government they deserve: or is it the other way round?

It is said that people get the government they deserve.  This must be true of societies that are cut off from the rest of the world and offer little mobility to their denizens.  However the present age of jets zipping across global village, instant communication through various data and voice networks and universally accepted globalization, has made the saying stand on its head.  Today capital and talent moves from areas with bad governance to those with good governance.

Thus if you govern well you will attract the best human resources and your economy will bloom.  The quality of your governance will ultimately be reflected in the society / country / population that you govern.   By the same token, you neglect governance you will be left with a poor economy and poorer human resources.  And even if you are a country with an iron curtain and don't allow movements, the capital and talent will simply rot and turn putrid.

"Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him." -  Matthew 13:12

My dear netas, you stand advised.

The Office Jerk

The Office Jerk lost all work-life balance,
Family nagged him and it didn't make sense.
He asked the boss for lighter duties,
Only to be rebuked for his impertinence.

The Office Jerk had no family to go back to,
So he decided to turn it into a virtue.
He pretends to work till very late hours,
And expects poor staff to do so too.

The Office Jerk in advance was told the decision,
and tasked with finding for it a suitable reason.
All the while keeping his responsibility in mind
For he also had to make a strong recommendation.

The Office Jerk got close to number one,
But he did not meet the promotion criterion.
So the HR was asked to re-engineer it
Till OJ came out as the most suited one.

The Office Jerk, his BOD* was to meet in London,
For the good old boardroom was not much fun.
Wondering whether he could tag along,
Was told that that was out of question.
* Board of Directors

The Office Jerk, in staff expenses he found a rise,
He figured out the reason after a few tries.
It was his FreqFlier boss' foreign jaunts,
This fact he was asked to carefully disguise.

The Office Jerk, once he went overseas,
To attend a seminar with exorbitant fees.
Learning, if any, is already gone, but
Thrilling are all-paid tour's sweet memories!

The Office Jerk, his computer literacy was low,
And yet, "Best laptop for me", he told them so;
And for operating the god-damned thing,
he must have a secretary in the tow!

The Office Jerk had this very funny notion,
He thought that hard work could get him elevation.
But he was unaware of management's worry:
Who will do their work if donkeys got promotion?

The Office Jerk when young he was told
To show deference to the experienced and the old;
Now old himself, OJ is dismayed to find
That the day belongs to the young and the bold!

The Office Jerk made a serious presentation,
Late in the afternoon, the board lacked concentration.
OJ was asked to make an executive summary,
and give it to the secretary for annotation.

The Office Jerk, his perforev# fell due,
The HR wanted a 360 degree view,
The boss didn't like him, staff despised him,
And the peers didn't give him what he thought was due.
#performance review

The Office Jerk finally became number one,
Decided it was time to have frolic and fun,
So he charged around like bull in a china shop,
and had his entire staff on the run.

The Office Jerk, his boss was a bully
and treated OJ like an office coolie,
At last OJ tried to confront him
But it took just a growl to scare him fully.

The Office Jerk, finally got promotion,
Of his new role he had little notion.
So he decided to be at his formal best
and to always write a terse notation.

The Office Jerk, his promotion was due,
Aspirants were many but positions were few,
OJ dyed his hair and put on his best suit,
And yet why he failed, he is without a clue.

The Office Jerk, in work he was mired,
One find morning he got retired.
Now at home with no escape,
There too the chap is not much admired.

The Office Jerk, he just ran amuck,
Wanted to put in his papers and have no truck,
Couldn't find papers in the paperless office,
So had no choice but to go back to work.

The Office Jerk, may his tribe increase,
His employer wanted his salary to freeze.
He went out with a placard and a mike,
The employer just shrugged, so he went on a strike.

BARFI

Even if you have not seen the film, by now you must know that it is about a lovable kid who is called Barfi because his mother longed for a look alike of the boy featured in Murphy ads.  The mother promptly dies soon after giving birth to the boy: the film breaks the news in a pretty light vein.  Now the image of a boy in an ad is naturally deaf and dumb and for that matter devoid of all senses.  Barfi turns out to be merely deaf and dumb but quite lively otherwise.

The film is an attempt to take a leaf out of Raj Kapoor's book.  The film is even set in a period dating back several decades.  Barfi, born to a chauffeur, grows up to be a handsome boy who has little inhibitions in flirting with girls.  He manages to gatecrash into upper class parties as part of his chase.  Girls fall for him including an autistic one living away from her upper class family and spoilt parents.  She rediscovers Barfi on her way to her family residence as her grandfather lies on the deathbed.

The story continues to unfold in an enchanted fairyland where mothers still long for their lost love, and daughters don't bat an eyelid before walking out, empty handed, of a smooth well settled marriage for the sake of love.  This is a world where the hero has the guile to stage a kidnapping for the sake of money instead of simply asking for it.  And yet he doesn't have the faintest idea of exigencies and demands the exact amount of doctor's fee for ransom.  In this world a handicapped man with an empty pocket and an autistic girl without even so much as a change of dress elope together, ward off other derelicts who in this world limit themselves to just ogling, find employment and a roof in a metro while managing to retain their good looks and humor all the time.  Just to reassure the viewers that this world is part of the real one, there is a scene where the autistic girl demands assistance for doing "soo soo."

In this romantic world love alone triumphs.  Finally the hero gets old and haggard and gives up the ghost.  The autistic girl, though seemingly unaware of the death, lies down beside him and attains death (at will?)  A romantic dying together that will be remembered down the generations.

NB:  Once you have witnessed this strange world, our anxiety laden preparations for leisure travel and furious preparations for a relocation will look truly neurotic and insane. :)