FOR A HAPPY MARRIED LIFE—RESPONSIBLE PARENTING

Bikash Choudhury

After one and half decade of completely blissful married life; I wish to share a few secrets of this venture for the uninitiated or those young men who are having a tough time in adjusting to sharing their god gifted life for once with another young woman. The secret numbers one; never ever criticize or speak any thing negative about your in-laws in front of your better half even if you are in the side of truth & reality. The secret number two; always appreciate the parents, siblings of your wife and even their old mongrel even if there were no merit or very little substance. The secret number three; praise the beauty of your sweet heart profusely with all the adjectives available in the Chamber’s English dictionary from hair down wards and give compliments to her culinary skills even though some times you find it hard to swallow the food from your throat downwards and feign innocence about lack of appetite or hunger with equal intensity. Fourth one is for those who have natural skills with English words in conveying ‘ideas’ full time or freelance; write some thing good about your father-in-law and make an attempt to get it published in a news paper central column; in fact this author now makes an attempt in this direction to confirm the arrangement of receiving unrequited love and gastronomic delight for the rest of the life. My father-in-law is a very intelligent person who pursued his passion in sports to a career of life time and therefore kicked the engineering education in the middle and joined the prestigious Laxmibai National College for Physical Education, Gwalior. He completed his post graduation from the institute with distinction and joined Kendriya Vidyalya, GoI as a sports teacher. In between he married an ambitious and academically oriented rich girl and they had four daughters and one son; all of whom are now very successful in their respective field. One outstanding aspects of his personality was his attitude towards his four daughters in a social environment of unnecessary desire and concern for a male child. He did not give into such predominant social bias against girl child and left no stone unturned to give a good life and education to all her daughters, prodded them to excel in life and enjoy life to the full; which has eventually turned her daughters into loving and confident professionals on their own right with ability to take decisions about their family independently which is now recognized and respected by their spouses. This could be the result of years of conditioning and dispassionate grooming by the old man of his daughters not any different from a son. The moral of the story remains; that, if you groom your daughters without any gender bias; then, you are actually developing a few self confident adults; responsible & mature citizens for the country. Women constitute almost fifty percent our population and if majority of them become productive; then, our country could straight away become an economic super power. It is now all depends on responsible parenting.            

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LOVE-LY ENCOUNTERS

Bikash Choudhury

After graduation passing out ceremony enthusiasm and excitement was over from the recesses of mind; it hunted all our friends then, what next? Before, taking up post graduation studies; we decided to form a self help group for personality development in the grab of a debating society at Human Life Centre in Bhubaneswar. We would meet in the after noon on Sundays to discuss about National and International affairs and also about socio-economic issues. The debates were as passionate as it was electrifying some times with inputs from members from diverse fields stormed the venue of our meeting and kept us waiting for this confabulation next week end. With word of mouth of publicity, our group membership grew in leaps and bounds in following months and years. A couple of beauty with brains also joined our group which was by then aptly named ‘Quality Circle’. Some of our adventurous and dynamic members planed to organize a Quiz Competition in the foot steps of infamous Quiz Master Mr. Sidhartha Basu who much later conceptualized and broadcasted “Kon Banega Karod Pati”. Soon our group was able to rope in “Sun Times” the popular English news paper to sponsor the event and rest became history as this event caught the imagination of young students of Bhubaneswar city and also to an extent entire State of Orissa, as it was called then. Tides always followed by a lull; that did not escape our group as many of us could not keep up the tempo and temperament of organizing a State level event for long; though, some time later we were able to publish a magazine “Quality Reporter”. As luck would have it cupid struck our secretary and he could not resist the temptation of entering into matrimony at a very tender age; which was a grand spoiler for our group Quality Circle. If that was not bad enough, I was also taken in by a young and erudite member of our group from the opposite sex and able to drop a hint here and a glance there, to keep it discreet from the public eye. It is often said ‘isq and muska chupa ne se nehi chuupta’. Little later it occurred to some of our members that I am up to some thing in the sly; however, unfortunately by the time my efforts were bearing fruits at the other end; my mind was seized up with the concerns of career and future economic stability and prevented me from responding to a green field opportunity. This was not only one encounter that I lost; though it was the most memorable one to remember and even joyfully recall over a cup of cappuccino among friends and family. The other two were also equally interesting events in life of a man when he was ‘desired’—a lovely feeling to savor with Kebabs and a green dip. I was then working in Chennai with a educational consulting firm as its marketing manager and I was very impressed with the work of a young, dynamic and hard working instructor little less than half of my age from opposite sex; and, it is always hard for me to keep off my admiration for sterling qualities of this young girl in her early twenties. I later gifted her book ‘Algorithm of Enterprise’ in appreciation of her good work; which, she took it otherwise literally and send me a sms on a rainy day to enjoy nature with her. Unfortunately, my wife first saw that message and shown it to me for clarification; where none was needed or offered. But, even a secret desire or a fling if any for an adventure was terminated on that rainy morning in its bud. One more sms followed the next day “one must have some body to live and die for” which I responded with a curt message to terminate any scent of liaison like this “Mathematicians should better remain Mathematicians than turning a poet”. The message got across appropriately and she asked for a transfer to another location soon after bringing curtains to the second prospective liaison. And, third one was a chance encounter with a beautiful and wealthy architect in her office at Chennai and it could be termed as ‘love at first sight’. Those who have experienced could understand the feeling of such an encounter between two adults from opposite sex; none the less the feeling was great that would take your body, mind and soul in a trance; but, the situations in life remain unpredictable and at times melancholy. Again, unfortunately in a week’s time of such a sweet encounter; I had to take a flight back to Bhubaneswar for good to respond to an emergency of a sad and accidental demise in the family inking a final blow to love-ly encounters.                  

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FIRST STEP TOWARDS DIGITAL INDIA

Bikash Choudhury

In 2014 people generally thought; if, we replace the corrupt, inefficient and indecisive fractitious UPA Govt. with a more decisive Govt. with majority support in parliament then our economic recovery could be just an instant noodle away. In the summers of 2014 2^nd NDA Govt. took office under the dynamic leadership of one of the most popular political leader of recent times, Sri Narendra Modi; and, his govt. did surprise many political analysts as he and his Govt. started ground running from the day-0 with his foreign policy master stroke of inviting the SAARC leaders to the swearing in ceremony; and, many others progressive socio-economic policies followed from his stable like Jandhan Yojana, Mudra Bank, Gold Monetization, Make in India, Namami Gange and Digital India. However, calling spade a spade; our economy has not bounced back as it should in spite of a very responsible and proactive govt. with much faster decision making at the political level. One popular argument was that the last decade under Manmohan Singh was so bad that our economic automobile is now making loud noise before actually starting up and marching with acceleration. And, other view point was the volatile Global economic condition is taking a heavy toll of bouncing back of Indian economy. Can we console ourselves with this hypothesis; while Indian Industry, Investors and Consumers do not display enthusiasm or optimism for so long? What is that our union and state government should do that would build a tempo in our economy with starting of a fresh investment cycle, employment growth and consumers returning to the markets for repeating the circular spin in the economy that could genuinely lift the spirits and momentum of our economy.

                 A simple policy prescription could be to cut cost, improve efficiency, leverage assets, mobilize the surplus in bottom of pyramid and the cycle should return a very vibrant economy in the short term—again, these are one of those ‘cetris paribus assumptions’ meaning other things remaining unchanged or equal, just a simple technique to let off the poor economist. However, this author would stand by his suggestions either way.     

          Digital India program alone has the capacity to make good with our economy in the short run. By one stroke we can change the way our bureaucracy functions, decisions and executions takes place in our Govt. system where discretions are abused, executions have plenty of time over runs with attendant cost escalations and valuable information stored in the silos which can’t be used effectively to create value for those on whose money our government system runs—that is our poor peoples money. World over is using Indian prowess for Software Development and IT infrastructure management that has seen an export of over $ 80 billion USD. However, our union or state govt. has not utilized our inherent strength to design and develop proprietary software for the use of our all State Govt. and the central Govt. so that all governmental transactions from Delhi to District Head Quarter could become paperless digital operation that could cut time, cost, leverage data bank for optimal decisions and manage the resources of Government that would create huge surplus for deployment at bottom of pyramid. For that to happen; our central govt. should out source the task of developing a “Government Resources Planning Software” to our private software services companies as National Informatics Centre (NIC) is not equal to the task. Further, each Govt. office from Delhi downwards could become part of one single computer network in just 18 months time if left to private hardware vendors of our country and govt. could pay the service providers on number of transactions or number of terminals for month that could save huge capital expenditure for the Government. This exercise need to be taken up in war footing to capture its benefits in its entirety. Once this task is completed; our Governmental system could use sophisticated technologies like Data Analytics, Project Management and many others that could bring huge improvement in efficiency at much less cost. It could also release 25-35% of Government personnel for redeployment or VRS while pruning the salary bill of all Governments in the country. This could be the first step towards “Digital India”.        

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BHUBANESWAR SMART CITY

BHUBANESWAR SMART CITY

                                                    

1. Bhubaneswar could be designed as a smart green city.

1. Roof top solar panels for energy production on each homes/offices/commercial structures of the city.
2. Rain Water Harvesting structures on each homes/offices/commercial structures of the city.
3. All roads in the city Rain Water Harvesting compliant.
4. Green Belt in both sides of the road and artificial forest on vacant Govt. lands supported with Bird Nests for smart ecological balance.
5. Private run urinals/toilets in each 500 meters of all such main and interior roads so as to completely prevent open urinals and defecation with severe penalty in cash and kind.
6. All swamp lands and water bodies protected and renovated for public use.
7. City should sport solar powered street lights and traffic signals.
8. City should proactively promote Kitchen Gardens in each home.
9. City should facilitate composting of Bio wastes originating from homes.
10. City should treat its sewerage discharge 100% by 2020.
11. City should preserve, protect, develop and promote its rivers to attract tourists. 

           

2. Bhubanswar could be a SMART CITY with a difference.

1. Scientifically designed and efficiently executed methods and systems to keep the city Clean and Hygienic 24x7.
2. Roads designed to drain out rain waters from the surface after the rains.
3. Technology enabled traffic management system with uniform traffic rules, practices, optimum traffic infrastructures and adequate road users’ awareness and education on a continuous basis.
4. Technology enabled public parking facility at all crowded locality/business areas and clearly demarcated places parking in all residential and commercial areas and road junctions.
5. Uniformity in road side vendors in all areas of the city in their structure and appearances.
6. Auto stands in all areas should be prominently demarcated with appropriate security and surveillance.
7. City should have a metro rail network by 2025    

New Asset Category for Mutual Funds

                                                            Bikash Choudhury

What is common to Harsad Mehta and Lalit Modi? Former made the investing in equity and the Mumbai Stock Exchange very popular and controversial at the same time and the later monetized the craze of cricket in India through Indian Premier League in short IPL. Many other sports have gone through the same path successfully. Indian Art needs a benefactor like that to make the Mutual Funds in the country and the young investor communities sit up and take a view of Indian Art as an asset category that could create immense value in short to medium term and substantial amount of wealth in the long haul. Indian Art scene is full of news and promise as it commands huge following and attracts bids with mind boggling figures in International Auctions. That apart, the traditional International Art collectors like Qatar Govt., and New York Art Museum with deep pockets have shown considerable interest in collecting Indian Art across various mediums to show case Indian ethnicity, its diverse & rich culture, colors and a mindset of its own to their discerning guests, art lovers and art collectors. If Indian Mutual Fund Industry could invest 0.01 to 0.05 of their resources in Indian Art for next five years; then, it could create a new asset category with substantial returns. Investment in Art would be as complex & challenging exercise as it is with equity. Mutual Funds allocate their resources in equity with a portfolio of Small Caps, Medium Caps and Large Caps; identically, in Art they have to create a portfolio of assets in Art with Small Budget Art Work--- collections of emerging artists, Medium Budget Art Work--- collections of nationally recognized artists, Large Budget Artwork--- collections of internationally famous artists. Mutual Funds have to recruit professional investment managers and Asset Management Company as they do for their equity portfolio. This would create a new opportunity for Mutual Funds to make money while developing a new discipline of excellence that would deliver a new excitement and drive in the market place. At the same time it will allure a mass of new and young investors with double income and considerable amount of disposable funds for investment. Mutual Funds need to recruit domain experts, tie up with art galleries across the country and abroad for buying and displaying their portfolio of Art from time to time. Further, they could set up auction house to monetize their own investment and for other individual art investors to facilitate developing an eco-system for a new asset category that hold immense promise and performance. This will have a far reaching socio-economic impact while monetizing the creative talent pool of the country in a scale and a size that has not been seen before or can be predicted; but, two things are for sure this mammoth exercise could ignite the creative spirit in the country and a novel way for value creation.

Pastoral Township into Cosmopolitan City

Transformation from a Pastoral Township into Cosmopolitan City

                                                           Bikash Choudhury

While waiting at the meeting point in front of Pal Height Mall in Bhubaneswar lighted a cigarette to cut the boredom and pain of waiting for some body. To my surprise my mind traveled back 35 years in time while looking at the brightly lit up four lane road now with LED lamps, constantly moving traffic in both directions and evening shoppers lazily strolling into the Mall for a bite at newly opened KFC. As my memory was telling me this four lane road was non-existent then in 1978; when, my father bought a piece of land not far from where I am standing now. We moved to occupy our newly built house in 1980 consequent upon the transfer of my father from an interior district head quarter. All five siblings were agog with excitement to live in our own home in the State Capital City, Bhubaneswar. Our new home was located at the edge of a residential area called Acharya Vihar about 2.5 kilometers from the nearest bus stop. There was a small bridge on the NH-5 behind our home a small stream of water continue to flow and empties itself  into a down stream lake at Vani Vihar. The barbed fencing of central poultry farm with very thick under growth was just finishing in front of our home. My father had planted hundreds of Banana and coconut trees facing the National Highway; that earned the place the sobriquet of Banana Farm little later as cycle rickshaw pullers at the bus stop would immediately understand the location if any body says “Kadali Bagicha” in Odia language. There were very few houses in the vicinity and still fewer traffic. We used to count how many cycles and two wheelers in our fingers; though National Highway was occupied by long distance cargo vehicles from Howdah to Madras and the other way round. We notice some innocuous cargo being transported in huge tractor trailer with 34 wheels; that we came to know later as boilers. We used to take the muddy road from the National Highway to reach our home. Then Bhubaneswar was considered as a one horse town.  Then Unit-1, Master Canteen and Ashoka Market complex constituted the main market of the town and Entire Township depended on those areas for shopping and recreation. In the centre of the town there was huge open space in front of State secretariat called parade field which was later converted into Indira Gandhi Park after her death. Then Bhubaneswar was cute little city with wide roads lined with tall trees, traffic was so miniscule that in half an hour you can tour the entire city in a two wheeler. Now 35 years later that pastoral town has converted itself into a growing cosmopolitan Metro City with population over one million. City now boasts of globally acclaimed institutions like IIT-Bhubaneswar, AIIMS, NISER, XIMB, and Institute of Physics, two multi disciplinary Private Universities like KIIT & SoA and countless private engineering & business schools. All major ICT organizations have opened shop in the city to take advantage of skilled manpower. You can buy any globally reputed brand car from of the shelf; as Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Land Rover and Jaguar make car show rooms littered in different parts of the city. You can also fly in and out of the city from Biju Patnaik International Airport.  Social life has taken a high with youngsters trooping into discotheques to shake a leg after a busy day. Food joints have moved places and all kinds of food from Badapao to Pizza, Pasta to KFC are now available at your door steps. Chinese fast food joints and Momo shacks are popping out of each street corner that city dwellers are lapping it up as you would notice long queue at each of those of places. City has swelled its waistline to 40 kilometers dia. All major roads are four lanes with LED lighting, all parts of the city now well connected by town bus &women specials and city is thriving with traffic, life and charm of its own. Soon it could become one of the preferred destinations to live and work in the eastern part of India.                      

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Indian Surfing Festival-2015

   Bikash Choudhury


Indian Surfing Festival was organized from 6th-8th February 2015 at
Ramachandi Beach near Konark Temple. This was the fourth edition of
the festival which has generated quite an interest in the State and
across the country. Having missed the previous three editions of the
festival; on the last day of the festival I set out with my wife and a
niece in tow. After nearly two hours of travel from Bhubaneswar we
reached the Lotus Resorts near Ramchandi Beach, the host of the
festival. By the time we reached the main draw of the festival were
over and we are left to soak ourselves with the ambience of the
festival which was a look alike of Kalangut Beach Festival of Goa with
all the colorful huts on the beach, Bamboo Installations, Art Display,
Camp Fires, High Voltage Music and generous spread of food & drinks.
First, three of us bathed ourselves on the soft and kind rays of the
setting sun on the beach font. After a while we reached for the food
court on the beach to challenge our taste buds with some Pasta and
Fish Fry with Potato Fingers and followed by some fresh filter coffee.
The net result was Intoxicating experience of life time. Only regret
was though the Surfing Festival was supported by Tourism Department of
Govt. of Odisha and a Bhubaneswar based Software Company MindFire
Solutions; not many Odia families were seen at the festival. My guess
was at least 1000-2000 Odia families could have visited the Indian
Surfing Festival for recreation and entertainment for their Bachha
Party; that could popularize this festival and create buzz across the
country for its further development. Local Public support and
participation is crucial for any tourism and cultural products. All
employers in the twin city and other parts of the state should
encourage their associates to take leave and visit their tourist and
cultural interest in the State; to Ignite their Creativity while
reflecting substantially in the financial statement of the
organization and improving the Research & Development profile of the
State over a period of time. Shall we?