Rakesh Reddy Kandula

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins

Karthik bought this book for me saying that I would definitely like it and yes he was absolutely right. Its a very good read. It talks about a new breed of people called Economic Hit Man’s (referred to as EHM’s from now) who can go to any extent in exploiting the poorer oil rich countries for the benefit of United States. Their strategy is fairly simple - convince the poorer countries to accept development loans and then to make sure the development projects were given to U.S. companies so that the money would be back to U.S. And then when the countries are neck deep in debts, they start exploiting them by taking favours like military cooperation, political support, access to natural resources like oil supply or control over water bodies/canals, etc.

The author John Perkins himself was an EHM and throughout the book he talks about all the dirty deeds done by him as an EHM. Another interesting aspect mentioned in the book is when the EHM way does not work out in any country, the next level is to use the CIA (termed as jackals in the book) to carry out any assasinations and the final approach would be U.S. military intervention when everthing else fails. Was it not for this book, I guess we would have never known that such kind of events actually took place. It shows how deceptive the news we get through newspapers, raidos & televisions can be. The underlying facts are not always evident directly.

The book starts with how the author’s childhood, education, etc., has contributed to his becoming an EHM. Then he starts describing his assignments, success stories and the way the poorer countries were forced into debts and ultimately driven into extreme poverty. The book gave me a clear picture of many of the events that occurred in the last few decades. Though nothing can be done about them now, knowing the inner details has given me a new perspective of looking at things, to actually look at the hidden side of the events. This reminds me of the book Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. The EHM’s in the disguise of Economists are set out to exploit the weaker nations.

Out of all the events described by the author, what I liked the most are - Panama Canal & Saudi Arabian issues and the two Presidential deaths (Ecuador & Panama) which were the best examples of CIA assasinations. War on Iraq was the best example where in both the EHMs and the jackals failed and ultimately U.S. had to resort to military intervention. Another example wherein both the EHMs & jackals failed was in Venezuela. But there was no military intervention due to the war on Iraq and Afghanistan issues. On the whole the book covers some of the major events from the 1960s to 9/11 attacks on WTC.

One more interesting aspect that I found in the book was the reasons why the author had actually chosen the EHM way. It was basically because of his childhood experiences, his brought up and his inner frustrations. As the author grew up he always wanted to try out what all he had dreamed of as a child but could not do because of restrictions at home. It was his vindictive nature that actually led him to accept the role of EHM. The benefits of being an EHM lured him to accept it and in a way he was actually trying to overcome all the frustrations that he had since childhood. I have seen this kind of a behaviour in real life as well wherein people just do something to actually take revenge against what they could not do till then. They get into things for the wrong reasons and end up in troubles. What they do not realize is that they are actually doing more harm to themselves than to anyone else.

And to end this long post I would like to mention about the non-profit organization called Dream Change started by John Perkins to transform global consciousness.

2 comments October 31st, 2008 at 05:03pmIST

The Last Lecture

Read the book “The Last Lecture” by Randy Pausch today. The book is more or less about his childhood dreams, how he realized them, his family & kids and how they were trying to get things in proper shape before his time would come. But most of the points that he talks about apply to everyone in general. I found quite a few interesting things in it. Though we know most of the stuff that he mentions, its a good read.

For those of you who don’t have any clue about who this Randy Pausch is and what is this last lecture about, here is a brief introduction about him and the background of the book…………..Randy Pausch was a professor in CS department of Carnegie Mellon University. At the age of 47, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and had few months to live. That’s when he had delivered his last lecture in CMU titled “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” and then he came out with this book. He says all this was for his children so that when they grow up and he would not be with them then, the lecture and the book would tell them who his dad was, what he wanted to tell them when they grew up, etc.

Now coming to what I liked in the book, it goes like this - The first point that I liked the most was when he says “When you’re screwing up and nobody says anything to you anymore, that means they’ve given up on you“. The moment I read this it reminded me of my good old friend Jayant . The book says - Critics are often the ones telling you they still love you and care about you and want to make you better. I think that’s 100% true and its only your good friends who would take time and the pains to tell you that you are not doing the right thing.

Then I liked his concept of head fake . Not the literal meaning of a head fake in football but the one that he defines as - the one that teaches people things they don’t realize they’re learning until well into the process. And the best example of head fake that he mentions of is the Alice software developed in Carnegie Mellon. Another interesting one was when he mentions about the attitude of Shatner a.k.a Captain Kirk of Star Trek. He was a man who knew what he didn’t know, was willing to admit it and would not leave until he understood that. I strongly feel that this is the kind of attitude that everyone should have. Have the courage to admit what you don’t know.

Then I liked the attitude of Disney World workers. Ask them “What time does the park close?” and they would answer: “The park is open until 8 p.m.” And then when he talks about brick walls (hurdles) that come in our life, he mentions that they actually give us a chance to show how badly we want something. And then he says don’t ever obsess over what people think about us. That would save a substantial amount of time in our life. Just carry on with your work not bothering about what others might be thinking about it. That said I don’t mean we need not care about others….it just means that dont worry about what people might be thinking about our capabilities.

Another point that appealed to me the most was - Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted. At every failure that we might encounter in life, its worth considering the above phrase. I would say, failures are also definitely essential in life. A person who had failed would definitely know how to avoid future failures.

There are many other good points mentioned in the book….but I won’t be writing about all those here now……..just a few other points worth mentioning before I would end this post are - Always be prepared for the worst-case scenario……..have a contingency plan for when everything goes wrong. And lastly he mentions, sometimes all you have to do is ask and it can lead to all your dreams coming true. Just ask and more often than we would suspect, the answer we will get would be positive. Particularly this last point that I mentioned now and the point about brick walls definitely have got relevance to what is currently going on with me . I think atleast some of the people who might read this post will definitely agree to it . Lets see how am I going to tackle the brick wall that’s infront of me right now .

Add comment October 5th, 2008 at 10:15pmIST

Boeing versus Airbus by John Newhouse

Found this book just by chance in a bookstore in garuda mall in bangalore. Its really interesting and for any aircraft enthusiast its a very good read. I am a big fan of Air Crash Investigations in NGC and also any other program related to aircraft manufacturing, etc. Now I even got two small toys….one is a space shuttle and another one is an airplane that I always have in my backpack (You can see the pics below).

This book has given me a good insight into the aviation business and how the two aircraft manufacturing biggies (Boeing & Airbus) compete in getting the deals. It also talks about the effects of the engine manufacturers, the wing designers, government aid, political influences that go into the making of a single aircraft. I could know about what other players existed before and how only two of the companies ended up being on the field.

The chapters that interested me the most were the ones with the details of engine makers, toyota manufacturing techniques, how airbus competed boeing with its A320….. the equivalent of Boeing 737, the Airbus A380, etc. One of the most interesting parts in the book was the one about the potential challenge from Asia especially China. I was surprised to know how Chinese government tries to get its political interests in any commercial deal with other countries. Also the japanese market scenario was quite interesting. It also mentions about the Indian market and the huge growth that is expected in the Indian aviation industry. The emirates case was also a good one. Finally, the book ends with the different scandals that Boeing was involved with in the military segment aircrafts. I was really surprised to know about corruption at such a high level even in US defence sector.

One point worth mentioning here is that Boeing definitely has the advantage of US government support in selling its aircrafts. This is definitely evident considering the Japanese market where Airbus has got just about 1% market share. And in the Indian context this is evident from the purchase of 68 Boeing planes (that includes 23 777’s and 27 787’s apart from other smaller aircrafts) in 2006 just after President Bush agreed to sell civil nuclear technology to India in July 2005. Same is the case with Chinese market as well. And just after reading this book my respect for SIA (Singapore Airlines) has further increased . I would always personally rank SIA in first position.

The way Boeing has made many mistakes like taking the markets for granted and being stubborn has helped Airbus a lot in grabbing the market share. But ofcourse now its the same scenario in the Airbus stable as well . Boeing has also the advantage of using the latest technology developed by US military research, thereby reducing its costs in coming out with newer aircrafts. But at the same time even Airbus has got a lot of government aids from the European Union that helps it in getting the launch aid for any new aircrafts that it comes out with.

There are quite a few other interesting points in the book but that would make this post too long . I would definitely suggest anyone interested in aircrafts to read this book.

Add comment October 2nd, 2008 at 02:03pmIST

Back in action again

Its been a long time now since I posted anything new here. The last post I made was on September 2nd and since then there haven’t been any updates. There have been several comments in my latest post asking me why aren’t there any new updates . I never knew there were so many people checking this place. Anyways was actually a little bit busy since the last few weeks. So, could not post anything. In fact I still have the draft of quite a few posts that I was thinking of posting since 3 weeks but could not complete them.

I even saw many movies recently but couldn’t update about them as well. Anyways now you will all see some regular posts here again as before. Thanks to all those who were curious to know why there haven’t been any posts recently . And the funniest thing is that all of them know the reason .

4 comments September 29th, 2008 at 03:37pmIST

A funny read

Got a nice mail forward…… could not resist posting it here……

As a daily habit Pintu was reading newspaper.

Suddenly he asked his father, ” Dad! What does it mean by ‘Governance System’ ? ”

“It’s like…” father said while thinking, “See! I earn and bring money to home, mean’s I am a ‘Money Holder’. Your mother decides where and how to spend that money and that means she is ‘Government’. That maid in our home is doing all the household works, so she will be ‘Labour Class’. You are a ‘Common man’ or ‘Public’. Your kid brother is ‘Future’ or the ‘Next Generation’, understand?”.

That day Pintu slept with all those thoughts. In the middle of the night he woke-up because his kid brother was crying. He wetted the matrices so he was crying. Pintu went to woke-up his mother. She was in deep sleep so Pintu went to the Maiden’s room to wake her up. But there his father was sleeping with the maid. So he came back with frustration.

Next morning father asked Pintu, ” Hey Pintu Darling! You understood the ‘Governance System’? “.

Pintu replied, “Yeah Dad, I understood! When Money Holder is exploiting Labour Class, our Government is sleeping. Future of our nation is crying for not getting their basic needs fulfilled and in all this Common Man is suffering!”

6 comments September 2nd, 2008 at 03:20pmIST

Bangalore Traffic Police changing for the good

Was surprised today to see a mail in our company mailing list with the subject “Traffic Tickets in Bangalore“. That person was given a traffic ticket for “No Parking” violation. Initially I thought it might be just a one-off case…. but after googling up a bit, I came to know that bangalore traffic police are indeed issuing tickets for traffic rules violation…. as of now I think its mostly for parking violations only. The cops just give the ticket and we need to go to the police station to pay the fine. No towing of vehicles, no bribes and no arguments. But I guess its being implemented only for cars and two wheelers are still towed away . You can check out the experiences of some people here. Looks like things are changing slowly.

This actually reminds me of another new initiative by bangalore traffic police where in they send sms to people about traffic updates. You can check out the blog entry made by jayant about this here. I think as of now, its only airtel subscribers getting these messages. Whatever it be, atleast things are changing now and lets just hope that traffic situation in bangalore would just get better.

Add comment September 2nd, 2008 at 03:04pmIST

Bought a Nokia N-81

An update from my side is that yesterday I bought a new Nokia N-81 graphite gray colour 2GB version. I was eagerly waiting for iPhone to be launched in India. But looking at its current price in India (Rs.31000 for 8GB and Rs.36100 for 16GB) , I had to look for other options and finally decided to buy an N-81. So, far I am happy with its performance….lets see how it turns out to be .

Update : Its been just six days since I bought the phone and it had crashed (restarted on its own) twice and hanged once (could not even switch-off and had to remove the battery) . Maybe time to go for a firmware upgrade. Apart from this I did not face any other issues as of now. I keep installing new free applications and am loving it.

Add comment August 25th, 2008 at 01:21amIST

Phoonk

Another attempt by Ram Gopal Varma to scare the audience. But the fact is that this one isn’t scary at all. All those weird camera angles and sound effects went in vain…….they really don’t seem to make any difference at all. In fact all that made the audience laugh instead…….for a while I was wondering if I came to a horror movie or a comedy movie . But anyways, the movie wasn’t all that bad and its definitely much much better than varma’s previous movie contract.

The story is a very simple one. It basically revolves around a construction engineer rajeev an atheist and his family. His daughter becomes a victim of black magic (kaala jaadu) and the movie is about how he saves his daughter. The struggle between science and superstitions has always been there and in this movie its the superstition that wins. I would have liked the movie more if it would have been the other way round . But ultimately its all about what sells in the market .

On the whole I would say its worth watching once and definitely not at all scary atleast not when compared to RGV’s movie bhooth. The child who becomes the victim of black magic has perfomed very well. Even the other characters in the movie have given good performances. I think its a good come back by RGV after the hopeless movie contract. Hope his next movies would be of his original standards .

2 comments August 25th, 2008 at 01:17amIST

TRAI allows IP Telephony termination to PSTN in India

Finally some good news for people who would like to use IP telephony to make long distance international calls legally from India. You can check out the press release from TRAI here. It was just one year back that MTNL has started offering the VoIP services to its subscribers in Delhi and Mumbai. The subscribers then had to get a Analog Telephone Adaptor which would be connected to ADSL modem. Call rates to US, UK, Canada, etc were just Re. 1 per minute and there were various subscription offers like lifetime plan or pre-paid services, etc. Now, TRAI has removed any sort of regulations on using IP telephony (calls can be terminated on PSTN and not just a pc) by any subscriber. This move is definitely going to slash the ISD rates in India. And to me this SPA3102 from Linksys looks to be one good option to go for as suggested by one of my colleagues. The press release mentioned above has got more details.

Another good news for subscribers:
Very soon we will get to choose the cheapest STD and IST tariffs irrespective of the service provider. The subscribers will be having freedom to choose carrier of their own for making long distance calls. TRAI initially had a plan to implement carrier access code (CAC) but due to resistance from telcos, it wasn’t implemented. With this new directive, the subscribers will have to buy pre-paid long distance package from any of the operators and then just dial-in a set of numbers to get on to that service provider’s network. More details on this can be read from this economic times article.

With all these new initiatives it looks like in the coming few months, long distance calls from India are going to reduce drastically.

Add comment August 19th, 2008 at 04:35pmIST

What a day it was!!!!

Continuing the previous posts related to my bangalore to hyderabad ticket woes, finally it was august 14th, the day on which we were supposed to leave from bangalore. And as expected before, it was a day full of suspense, tension and lot of drama . Nothing was clear till the last moment. Coming to how it all went through………..

I was checking our ticket status from office and till 3.50 pm i.e, 2 hours 20 minutes before the departure time, the charts were not yet prepared. I thought it was time for me to leave office so that if by any chance the tickets would get confirmed, I should be able to make it to the station in time. And being a long weekend traffic at marathahalli was hopeless. Somehow I managed to reach home by 4.20 pm and still the charts were not prepared. I asked the other two of my friends who were supposed to travel along with me to start. I was checking till 4.45 pm and still no sign of charts being prepared . So, finally I left home at 4.45 pm and took an auto to the railway station. And I told 3 people to keep checking my pnr status. I was getting continuous updates from them that still the charts were not prepared and on top of that the traffic was too much. It was 5.30 pm now, 50 minutes before departure and it still says charts not prepared . And when I had covered more than half of the distance, I get a call from my friend that the tickets were not confirmed and he is not coming to station. Immediately I asked the auto driver to go to kalasipalyam so that I can try for some bus tickets. Then the third friend almost reached the railway station and then I informed her that tickets were not confirmed. So, she asked the driver to go back to her place and I reached kalasipalyam. There I was trying for bus tickets and the situation was so bad that even the place in driver’s cabin was sold out and then they were selling tickets for sitting on a stool in the bus . Then I got hold of some agent and he said he will try for tickets and that’s when I get a call from the first friend that two of our tickets have been confirmed. It was 5.45 pm then and train was at 6.20 pm.

This is where the real fun started . I was at kalasipalyam and had to reach majestic. Another one had to start from his guest house in koramangala and the third one was still in auto going towards koramangala from majestic. I just told them to somehow make it to cantonment station atleast (as the train would reach cantonment by 6.40 pm, they would have another 20 mins) and by that time I can talk to the TC if he would allow 3 of us to travel as we already had 2 confirmed tickets. I took an auto and just told him to somehow take me to the station in the fastest way he can. The station wasn’t too far from that place but there was too much of traffic on the way. Finally I reached the station just 5 minutes before the departure time. By then it started to rain also and I was literally running to catch the train. Finally reached the platform and there was a TC standing over there surrounded by some 12-15 people trying to get a confirmed berth . I told him our status and he asked me to get in and we can see what can be done later. So, I told my friends that we can get in and they just need to reach cantonment station in time. Finally, both of them reached cantonment just in time to catch the train. Both of them had their own adventures in the auto . Somehow, three of us made it.

Now the tension was about what would the TC say . We were eagerly waiting for him and that guy turned up after some 2 hours. He didn’t even care to see if the third passenger was there or not. He just saw that two tickets were confirmed and that’s it. He says if you people can adjust, you can continue. That was some relief to us. He was too busy to say or do anything more. Actually this third person’s ticket is supposed to be cancelled automatically once the charts have been prepared. All the tickets that are booked online and in waiting list after the charts are prepared, will be cancelled automatically and the money would be refunded back to the account. Its almost ticketless travel and on normal occasions the fine would be around 500 or 600 rupees . But this day the situation being too bad, the TC didn’t even care about all this. Now, we don’t know if that money would be refunded back or not as two of the tickets were confirmed. Whatever be it we were ready to pay the fine also and were happy that we are going to hyderabad somehow .

Now comes the worst part of the journey. Two of us sharing the same upper berth . I was sleeping in the same posture for almost 7 hours and by 5 am in the morning I felt as if my back is going to break. That’s when I woke up the other guy and got down. I couldn’t sleep properly for the whole night and on top of that my back was paining like hell . And then the news is that train is late by more than one hour. This was the only thing pending . Whenever I travelled by this train, it reached on time always and this was the first time it got delayed. Looks like whatever can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time, in the worst possible way (perfect scenario of murphy’s law).

And finally I reached hyderabad. Never felt so happy coming here. I feel like I had achieved something this time and that’s true infact. Managing to reach hyderabad in such bad conditions is a real achievement for me .

4 comments August 15th, 2008 at 09:29amIST