ŷ������

I recently read a quote on Facebook which reads: “A bad job with good boss is better than a good job with bad boss.�� This quote was liked and endorsed by a large number of people, which shows that most people think that the quote is right. I however, disagree with the quote. I have learned from my experience that you grow best when you work with the so called bad bosses. Let me explain why?


WHO IS A GOOD BOSS?There is no universally accepted definition of good or bad boss. Usually we consider a boss good, when we ‘feel�� good working with him. A boss is good for us when he may have following qualities.
1: Think Similarly:-When you and your boss think alike on most matters, you consider your boss to be good because there is little chance of conflict between you and you always feel good working with him.��
2: Interfere Rarely:-If your boss does not interfere in your work, you are very happy with him and call him a good boss.
3: Kind Unconditionally:-If your boss has the reputation to being nice and kind to everyone all the time and never punish anyone, he is bound to be extremely popular and rated as a good boss.
WHO IS A BAD BOSS?A bad boss is one who makes you ‘feel�� bad. If your boss is not good all the time, you consider him bad. If your boss has helped you hundred times but punished you only once, you don’t remember those hundred acts of goodness, but remember that one punishment. However, it may be a blessing in disguise to work under such a so called bad boss. Let us examine why?
1: Think Differently:- When the thoughts of your boss does not match with your own, you are always uncomfortable working with him. You face conflicts with your boss internally and externally. Yet the strength of your character and your ability to follow your conviction is tested only under such bosses. It has been my experience that I have learned most under such bosses because there has always been an opposite point of view from the boss, which I was often forced to accept and even implement. I always believe in giving my frank view even if that is overruled by the boss. Eventually either I or my boss would be proven to be right. I have never found my views to be always proven right or the view of the boss always proven wrong. If my views are mostly right, often the boss would start giving more importance to my views and if the views of the boss is mostly right, I would develop more faith on his decision-making and also learn a couple of new things from the boss. Hence in the process, both I and my boss learned from each other.��
2: Drive Forcefully:-If a boss does not interfere with the work of anyone, soon many power centers are created in the organization, where everyone thinks that he is the boss. ��This leads to chaos in the organization where everyone is pulling everyone else in his own direction. Soon the organization loses its direction as all its energies are dissipated in internal conflicts.�� A leader must have a vision for the organization and courage to implement it. However, every action produces reaction from people within and without, who are adversely affected by such action. An effective boss has to ensure that everyone falls in line for the benefit of the organization, which is bound to antagonize some people.�� If you are one of them, you are sure to feel bad working under such bosses and even hate them. It is better to use such opportunity to get out of your complacency mode and march shoulder-to-shoulder with your boss and prove that you are better than the rest. I can assure you that you will soon become a better leader working under such boss.
3: Discriminate Effectively:- If your boss is good for everyone, he is usually good for none. You tend to lose motivation working under such bosses because he fails to appreciate your good work and punish others for their bad work. Imagine a boss who gives 10/10 to all subordinates because he has to be good for everyone. Such a good boss is actually a timid boss who is scared of annoying anyone. Alexander the Great once said, “I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.�� If you work under such bosses, you will soon become a sheep yourself even if you had been a lion earlier. A boss who discriminate good and bad officials is usually unpopular because good people are always in minority in most organizations. If you are on the ‘wrong�� side of such boss, it is the right time to introspect. Instead of cursing him for being inhuman and unfair, focus on becoming better than what you had ever been and create excellence for the self and the organization.��
THE BAD-BAD BOSSThere are of course some bosses who are bad for everyone and it is a torture to work with them. Thankfully, such bosses are rare and they are usually fired in a good Corporate and shunted to insignificant position in government organization if firing is almost an impossible option.��
It is always a pleasure to work with good bosses but one who can perform only with good boss leaves himself at the mercy of others. Let us not pray to work only with good bosses but pray to become stronger to excel with even the bad bosses. When you are able to produce great results with good as well as bad bosses, you take control in your life in your hand and become the master of your destiny.

Let’s remember the words of Jim Rohn, an American entrepreneur, author and motivational speaker.Don't wish it were easier; wish you were better.Don't wish for less problems; wish for more skills.Don't wish for less challenges; wish for more wisdom.

The first thing about this book is that it is interesting. It is interesting in the theme, or rather the web of themes, it takes up; in the questions and dilemmas it examines and, where necessity confronts without inhibition or cant or self-consciousness; in its freedom from play-it-safe, much –to-be-said-on-both-sides conventional thinking, And it is interesting also in its assured tone and voice, its ability to engage general as well as specialist readers and, from time to time , surprise them with its findings., hypothesis, and assertions.
It is no idle boast that the book title makes when it promises to reveal the secret, or rather the webs of secrets, of that fascinating mix of the abstract and the concrete that is commonly known as leadership. Awdhesh Singh drills straight into his subject without fuss or the kinds of oversimplification combined with jargon-filled equivocation that management gurus seem so fond of when they seek to impart domain wisdom in print. Listen to the author’s no-nonsense definition of his subject matter in the Introduction:Leadership is a game that you must learn to win by using all means at your disposal. In leadership, winning is everything. It is not about principles, but only results. It matters not what a leader does, as long as he is effective. On the contrary, if you fail to achieve visible success, you are not accepted as a leader despite all your talents and commitment to the cause.I used the terms, ‘web of secrets�� and ‘web of themes��, advisedly. Leaders, the author asserts, are “quite mysterious�� creatures; they “hide more than they reveal,�� including mortal danger “like an iceberg.�� The challenge therefore is to “understand the leaders for what they are, inside out.�� As for the web of themes, the Contents pages list so many subjects that you start the book by wondering if the author is going to roam too freely across too wide a field. But reading the book, you discover that this is an ambitious work of analysis, of philosophizing, and of exposition with the aid of concrete examples, anecdotes, and some striking quotations drawn from a variety of fields. And the surprise at the end of the book is that it does deliver on the promise of the title, by yielding a debatable and testable model of what constitute leadership, what leadership is about, “inside out.�� I use “debatable�� in a positive sense, of course.
I think The Secret Red Book of Leadership works, against the odds, thanks to the clear-headed and hard-nosed way in which the author approaches a much-studied subject and also thanks to the overall plan and organization of the book. The author presents his analysis , hypothesis, findings and reflections in 34 chapters grouped under six interconnected parts, (1) The Need of Leadership, (II) Dilemma of Leaders, (III) The Necessary Evils of Leaders, (IV) The Façade of Leaders (V) Developing Leadership, and (VI) Practising LeadershipI found myself drawn particularly to Part (II), “Dilemma of Leaders�� There is a very interesting discussion of the ‘”eternal�� philosophical questions of ends and means, ends versus means, ends over means, ends as means, ends leading to other ends in a never-ending historical process. It is central dilemma for leaders. Listen to these passages from “The Secret Red Book of Leadership”“You have to decide if a ‘good end by evil means�� is better than ‘good means that lead to an evil end��. This is a difficult decision, but unavoidable in the real world. It is tough to win fairly when your opponent is using all types of unfair means��.In real life, every end is actually a beginning for another end. Hence, there are actually no ends; each end is nothing but a means to the next end. Therefore, if the end is good, it implies that the means are also good.”“A wise leader knows that ends are more important than means. It does not imply that leaders have to necessarily travel on an evil path to achieve noble ends, but if they have to traverse that route for some time, they would not hesitate to do it for a noble end. This is the ultimate sacrifice a leader must make. For a leader, there is nothing good or evil; he tries to stay above these distinctions. He aims only at the result and achieves them for his followers—by all means, be it good or evil��.These are provocative assertions; you may agree or disagree with the author. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, a great leader by the standards of any age, had a quite different view of the matter, as the author points out at the outset. But the point is that you need to approach this perennially debated issue on its own merits, by closely examining the principles at stake as well as their relationship to the real world. You can test the prepositions advanced in this book in relation to the life histories of great leaders, transformers of institutions and societies such as Henry VIII, Oliver Cromwell, Robespierre, Napoleon, Abraham Lincoln, Lenin, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Deng Xiaoping, Gandhi, Nehru, Netaji and others from more recent times. But you cannot resolve the problem by falling back on conventional wisdom, especially when it comes to figuring out how great or true leaders have thought about and handled this perennial dilemma.Equally interesting is The Secret Red Book’s examination of the connectedness, and indeed inseparability, of good and evil and what it means for leadership, “inside out��. To understand the background to this fairly brief chapter, you need to read to another publication, a slim volume comprising twenty essays by the author titled “Good and Evil: Two Sides of the Same Coin�� and published earlier this year. But let me not give away the argument here, nor the reasoning leading to the conclusions presented in the other chapters, on key questions revolving around the constitutive elements of leadership such as “Burning desire to Lead and Achieve��, “The Hunger for Power,�� “The Propaganda War��, “Developing Imagination,��, “Developing Courage��, “Creating Trust,�� and so on.What’s left, you might wonder. What’s left, in a figurative as well as literal sense, is what has possibly been the defining question for leadership down the ages, “Leaving a Legacy.�� The qualifier “great,�� or its equivalent in other language, is one of the most overused and misused words in any language. But no one, I think, can reasonably dispute the author’s conclusion that “a leader become great when”—and let me emphasize, only when he or she—“leads large number of people to a common goal based on a common ideology�� Great leaders leave great legacies that influence future generations.”I hope these remarks have kindled in you a real interest in the web of themes, questions, and dilemmas brought together and examined in the book being launched today, and a desire to buy the book and read it seriously and critically.��

(Mr N Ram delivered this keynote speech during the ��launch function of "The Secret Red Book of Leadership" in Chennai on 18th December 2014. Mr K Srikkant (Former Indian Cricket Captain) and T S Krishnamurthy (Former Election Commissioner of India) were the Honorable Guests of Honour for the function. )��





About Mr N Ram Mr. N. Ram, Chairman of Kasturi & Sons Ltd., Publisher, The Hindu and Group Newspapers, and former Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu, Frontline magazine, Business Line daily, and Sportstarweekly of The Hindu group of publications, has been in the media field since 1966. His areas of special journalistic interest include Indian politics; aspects of India’s foreign policy and nuclear policy; external pressures on India’s economic and political sovereignty; issues of corruption and abuse of power; the challenge of communalism and fundamentalism in India; the Sri Lankan ethnic crisis and India’s interaction with it; freedom of expression issues, and the role of media in society. Ram led The Hindu’s investigation into the Bofors arms deal corruption scandal; and before that (in 1980-81), did an extended investigation and analysis of the conditionalities of India’s controversial SDR 5 billion Extended Fund Facility (EFF) arrangement with the International Monetary Fund. His investigation of the Bofors scandal, in association with Chitra Subramaniam and others in The Hindu, was recognized by Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism during its centennial celebrations in 2012 as one of�� ��50 Great Stories reported, investigated, produced, filmed, edited, photographed, anchored, and/or tweeted by Columbia journalists�� over the century (). Honours and awards include the Padma Bhushan (for journalism), 1990; the Asian Investigative Journalist of the Year Award from the Press Foundation of Asia (1990); the B.D. Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism (1989); the National Citizen’s Award (1995); XLRI’s First JRD Tata Award for Business Ethics (2002); and Sri Lanka Ratna, Sri Lanka’s highest National Honour conferred on non-nationals (2005). Ram is co-author with Susan Ram of the biography, R.K. Narayan: The Early Years, 1906-1945, Penguin India, New Delhi, 1996; and the author of Riding the Nuclear Tiger, a Signpost publication, LeftWord Books, New Delhi, 1999. His research publications include studies of ``The Nuclear Dispute: An Indian Perspective’�� and ``An Independent Press and Anti-Hunger Strategies: The Indian Experience,’�� the latter published in a book, The Political Economy of Hunger, Volume-1: Entitlements and Well-being, ed. Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1990. A 15,000-word essay, ``The Great Indian Media Bazaar: Emerging Trends and Issues for the Future,’�� has been published in India: Another Millennium? edited by Romila Thapar, Viking, Penguin India, New Delhi, 2000.��________________________________________________________________________________
Have you ordered�� "The Secret Red Book of Leadership"?If not, order it now to avail the benefit of special discount and free home-delivery at
Flipkart: Amazon.in : Aatmic Science: ��

It is quite fashionable for everyone today, particularly the business houses and corporate to criticize Government in democracies. Michael Mandelbaum, an American Professor and author aptly said, "Criticizing government is a God-given right - at least in democracies". We find the media, common man, intellectuals and even judiciary criticizing government every day. Criticizing government is the favourite pastime in India. Politicians and government officials are often portrayed as inefficient, corrupt, ruthless and insensitive people who are destroying the country.
Recently investment bank Goldman Sachs has estimated that if civil services can be reformed and the bureaucracy can be merit-based rather than seniority-based, India could add nearly a percentage point to its GDP growth rate. Goldman Sachs used the World Bank's latest Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) data to reach at the estimates. The Figure below shows the aggregate indicator of Government Effectiveness in last 20 years. The dotted lines indicate the margin of errors.

It is evident from the figure that the government effectiveness has almost remained stable at around 50% in last 20 years even though there had been several changes in the Government at Center and State in the given period. This indicates that political parties may change, government officers may retire and replaced by new ones, but the governance remains as it was earlier-ineffective and inefficient.
It is easy for the private businesses and corporate houses to criticize Government functioning and show-off their efficiency, but little are they aware of the extra-burden that Governments in India has to carry, while they are free. If you ask even the best athlete to carry a 50 kg load on his head while participating in a race, he surely can't match an athlete who has no load to carry or carries a much smaller load.
If any corporate thinks that they can be more efficient than government in the similar situations, let them take the five challenges of governments in India.
1. Social Justice Challenge
It is easy for the private corporate to hire a person based on merit while government has to provide reservations to the weaker sections of the society. The reservation is usually 50% of the intake and applicable even in course of promotions. It is difficult to avoid reservations in India, which is provided by the Constitution of India. All attempts of government to bring reservations in private sectors have been met with severe resistance by the corporate as they know the impact of reservations on efficiency. Yet they expect governments to be as efficient as themselves.
Whether any corporate can dare to provide 50% reservation and still provide efficiency at par with governments?
2. Salary-Gap Challenge
A typical feature of government is that the difference between the salaries of the highest paid government employee and the lowest paid employee is very high. In the Sixth Pay Commission, the lowest salary was fixed at Rs 7000 per month while the highest salary was Rs 80,000 per month, which is less than 12 times to the lowest salary.
However, the story is quite different in corporate. For example, the newly-appointed Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka has been given an annual salary of USD5.08 million (over Rs. 30 crore) and USD2 million in stock option. Since the entry level salary of Infosys is around 3 lakhs per annum, the top man is paid more than 1000 times more salary than the lowest employee. In most of the corporate, the ratio is more than 100 times.
Can any corporate dare to reduce the salary-gap to match the government level of 1:12?
3. Employee Protection Challenge
A private sector is not only free to hire any person but also free to promote, demote and even sack any person at will. Many corporate can sack their employees even by giving one day notice. However, all the employees of the Government of Center and State are protected by the Constitution (Article 311), which provides-‘No employee shall be dismissed or removed or reduced in rank except after an inquiry in which he has been informed of the charges against him and given a reasonable opportunity of being heard in respect of those charges'. Every government employee can approach the Tribunals and Courts to challenge the order of the Government and get the order quashed.
Can any corporate dare to provide similar level of employee protections to its people?
4. Transparency Challenge
All actions of government are transparent and subjected to scrutiny by various constitutional authorities like Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, CBI and various courts. Any Citizen can get the information of the government files under RTI Act. The details of all government employees are available on their website.
On the contrary, there is no transparency in private sector. No private sector top officials name can be found in their websites. They can give their contract to anyone, employ anyone, promote anyone and sack anyone without owning an explanation to anyone. What about the corporate governance? Whether, the shareholders of the company are not entailed to know what is done in their company and why?
Whether the corporates are willing to accept audit of their company every year by a statutory body like CAG and disclose all the information to the citizens under RTI?
5. Democracy Challenge
A good government is one which is of the people, by the people and for the people. In government, all the heads of executives are elected by people. However, most of the corporate are owned by families in India, who pass on their company to their children like a personal property. The shareholders have no role in selecting the Chairman, Managing Directors, Directors or the CEOs. Unlike corporate, the political parties have to go to the public for their votes every five years. Unlike shareholders, all citizens have equal power of voting in democracies and they are equal stakeholders in democracies.
Whether the corporate is willing to choose the office functionaries amongst their shareholders by voting &giving them equal rights?
Understand, Not Criticize
Dale Carnegie, the author of classic "How to Win Friends and Influence People" said wisely, "Any fool can criticize, complain, and condemn-and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving." Instead of criticizing, why not try to understand Governments for what they are and try to find ways to improve it. If you ignore the extra burden that governments carry in democratic societies, you fail to understand them properly. A story of Mahabharatha illustrates this point.
During Kurukshetra war, when Karna's arrow used to hit the Arjuna Chariot, it used to merely shake the chariot a little bit. However, when Arjuna's arrow used to hit the Karna's chariot, it used to go behind many yards because of the impact of Arjun's arrow. Yet Lord Krishna always praised Karna more than Arjuna. Once Arjuna showed his displeasure to Lord and asked why he praised Karna more than him. Lord Krishna said - ‘In your chariot, Lord Hanuman is sitting on top of your chariot. I, the Lord of Three Worlds' is sitting with you. Yet Karna could shake your chariot with the power of his arrow. That is why he deserves more praise than you'. If only, people can understand the extra responsibilities Governments have to carry, they can appreciate the functioning of the government. If the efficiencies of Indian bureaucracies are less, it is because they have to carry much more burden than the governments of developed countries. Unless, these burdens can be lightened, efficiencies can't go up.

Originally Published on Taxindianonline.com on 1st December 2014

The Transparency International (TI) has recently published the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) for 175 countries. India is ranked 85 with a score of 51.72 on a scale from 0 (perceived to be highly corrupt) to 100 (perceived to be very clean). It is easy to see that India is perceived to be among the most corrupt countries of the world and that calls for close introspection and deep analysis of the state of governance in our country.We are often disturbed by perceptions of others about us even though perceptions are not truths but often reflect the biases and prejudices of the perceiver.Two salesmen were sent to an African country by a shoe manufacturing company to scout new markets where they could sell their company shoes. The salesmen spent a couple of weeks there, then came back to report their findings to their manager.The first salesman said, 'There is no market in that country. I did not see anyone wearing shoes there.'The second salesman said, 'There is a huge market for shoes in that country. I did not see anyone wearing shoes there.'It is interesting to note that both salesmen observed exactly the same facts but they perceived the truth in just the opposite way. It is easy to see that one salesman was a captive of the past while the other has the vision for the future.How Corrupt We AreWe Indians are a confused lot. On one extreme we feel extremely proud of our ancient civilization, culture, non-violence and spirituality but on the other end, we are ashamed of our caste system, the poverty of our masses and corruption in Governments. Our media is full of stories of corruption, crime, rape as if nothing good is happening in our country. Most people believe that government officers and politicians are corrupt beyond any hope of redemption and that nothing moves in this country without bribes.The perception, however, vary dramatically when you switch sides. If you are in government, you can see many officers who are honest and lead a simple life. I personally know many officers who retired as Member and Chairman, the top position of the revenue service, and still live in a two/three bedroom apartments in a not-so-posh colonies. However, the public perception is fueled by the exceptionally corrupt officers, whose rag-to-riches stories are flashed all over the newspapers and electronic media.Our perceptions often become our reality as we don't want to change them which give us sadistic pleasure and moral superiority. When 99% of the people in India are not part of Government, it is easy to sell the fallacy of corruption as the remaining 99% of the people feel better when government officers are defamed and condemned.Let us try to understand the truth as it is without praise or condemnation. It is here that the data provided by "Transparency International" becomes of a great value. We can trust this data more than our own perceptions of corruption in India-which are biased and subjective.The Missing Link of CorruptionBefore we proceed any further, please answer the following question-The height of boy A is 4 feet and the height of boy B is 5 feet.Which boy is tall?You must have answered the questions within a fraction of a second- 'Boy B is tall.'You may not even realize your mistake in answering the question, without knowing the full facts. I now give you the additional information-The age of boy A is 5 years and the age of boy B is 15 years.I am sure that your answer is different now. You now realize that boy A is exceptionally tall (for his age) while boy B is quite short (for his age).We are immediately able to correct our answers once we know that boys between the age of 5 and 15 in the growing-age. Our earlier answer was wrong because we presumed that both boys were of the same age. We know for sure that after 10 years or more, the boy A would become much taller than boy B.In the same way, there is an important factor which is missing, when we decide about the issue of corruption in any country. The most important factor that affects corruption is the economic development of the country, which can be measured by the per capita income (GDP) of the country. Let us now take a complete view of corruption by analyzing the data provided in Table 1.Table 1: Integrity and Prosperity Scores of Least and Most Corrupt Countries Country CPI Rank Integrity Score Per Capita GDP GDP Rank Prosperity Score Denmark 1 100.00 59129 6 97.31 New Zealand 2 99.43 40516 21 89.25 Finland 3 98.85 49055 12 94.09 Sweden 4 98.28 58014 7 96.77 Norway 5 97.70 100579 2 99.46 Switzerland 5 97.70 81276 4 98.39 Singapore 7 96.55 55182 8 96.24 Netherlands 8 95.98 50816 11 94.62 Luxembourg 9 95.40 112473 1 100.00 Canada 10 94.83 52037 10 95.16 India 85 51.72 1509 146 22.04 Venezuela 161 8.05 7576 77 59.14 Yemen 161 8.05 1516 145 22.58 Eritrea 166 5.17 544 177 5.38 Libya 166 5.17 10702 64 66.13 Uzbekistan 166 5.17 1878 137 26.88 Turkmenistan 169 3.45 7157 79 58.06 Iraq 170 2.87 6594 86 54.30 South Sudan 171 2.30 1289 150 19.89 Afghanistan 172 1.72 679 170 9.14 Sudan 173 1.15 1941 134 28.49 I have taken the data of the per capita income based on IMF staff estimates for the year 2013, made in April 2014. This data is available for 185 countries while the data of Transparency International is for 175 countries. Hence, in order to rationalize the two data sets, I have taken the percentile score of integrity (based on CPI score) and prosperity (based on Per Capita Income) for the purpose of comparison.It is evident from the perusal of Table 1 that ALL the most honest countries are those who are also the richest. In fact the poorest country figuring in top 10 of the CPI rank is New Zealand which is richer than 89.25 percent of the countries with per-capita-income of USD 40516. The average per capita of top 10 honest countries is USD 65908. On the bottom of the Integrity list are the countries which are mostly poor with average per capita of USD 3987-a good 16 times lower than that of the top nations.It is, therefore, evident that integrity and prosperity have a positive correlation.It is not possible for any country to become honest unless it is prosperous.It is remarkable here that even though India is poorer than 88% of the countries but it is more honest than 51.72% countries of the world.Let us try to understand why it is not possible for nations to become free from corruption unless they achieve a certain level of prosperity.Lack of Money is Root of All EvilYou must have seen the news regarding the placements made by Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) and Indian Institute of Management (IIM) students. There are hundreds of students who were offered more than a Crore rupees of salary by multinational companies for the international jobs and more than 30 lakhs of salary for Indian jobs. Some of these graduates would become CEO of the private sector companies soon and earn a salary of several crores per annum in India itself.Now compare these salaries with the salaries of the top civil servants like IAS, IPS or IRS officers, who are selected through the prestigious Civil Services Examinations (CSE) conducted by UPSC. On the average, 4-5 lakhs candidates appear for the examination for around 1000 positions. Aspirants must complete a three-stage process, with a final success rate of about 0.2% of the total participants. Thus getting into Civil Services is far more difficult than getting into IITs and IIMs. There are thousands of civil servants in India who have IIT and IIM degrees.Yet the salary of a civil servant is hardly Rs. 5 lakhs per annum with an annual increment of just 3%. Most newly joined IRS officers have to arrange for their own accommodation with the small HRA. They have no vehicle at their disposal. Yet, these officers are expected to maintain the highest level of integrity and perform their job without any fear or favour.It is wisely said: If you pay peanuts, you will get monkeys. Yet no country has taken this dictum as seriously as Singapore, which has consistently occupied the position of the most honest country of Asia. In October 1994, Government issued a White Paper entitled "Competitive Salaries for Competent & Honest Government", where it was recommended that salaries of Ministers and senior Civil Servants be pegged at 2/3 rd the average income of the top 4 earners in 6 private sector professions. The annual pay of the Prime Minister of Singapore was set at USD 3,072,200 (Rs 15 Crores approx) in 2010 and all other Ministers and bureaucrats are also paid the salary which was in tune with the salaries paid in the corporate for the commensurate work.Lee Kuan Yew, the first Prime Minister of Singapore, who is widely recognized as the founding father of modern Singapore said in 2000 -" Singapore will remain clean and honest only if honest, able men are willing to fight elections and assume office. They must be paid a wage commensurate with what men of their ability and integrity are earning for managing a big corporation or successful legal or other professional practice. If we underpay men of quality as ministers, we cannot expect them to stay long in office earning a fraction of what they could outside. With high economic growth and higher earnings in the private sector, ministers' salaries have to match their counterparts in the private sector. Underpaid ministers and public officials have ruined many governments in Asia. Adequate remuneration is vital for high standards of probity in political leadership and high officials."If we adopt the similar yardstick for Indian Ministers and top civil servants and judges in India, their salaries should be several crores per annum. However, even the Prime Minister of India draws a meager monthly salary of Rs. 1.6 lakhs, which is even less than the salary of many fresh IIT/IIM graduates. The salaries of top bureaucrats and Judges are no better.It is impossible for any Government in India to pay such high salaries as we simply don't have such revenues as the developed countries have at their disposal. Hence, unless the economy improves, we can't expect the government servants and common people to display the same level of integrity as expected from them.The Measurement of CharacterWhile it is easy for politicians to give slogans and promise to remove poverty and corruption within days of coming to power, it is difficult to fulfill such promises. Often citizens develop distrust and contempt against the politicians who can't keep their promises. Yet citizens too have to share the blame as they tend to vote for a party, which makes maximum promises, rather than a party which promises what it can truly deliver.The path of economic growth is slow. At present, the per capita income of India is only USD 1509, yet people try to compare India to a developed country �� whose per capita is often USD 30,000 or more. We must know that it is going to take time grow from USD 1509 to USD 30,000. Even if we take an annual growth rate of 8% per annum, it will take at least 40 years to reach to the level of a developed country presuming that they don't grow at all.�� With the growth rate of 6% per annum, the time needed is more than 50 years to become a developed country. There are unfortunately no short cuts for removing corruption, though we are often tempted to believe that stricter laws and severe penalties can curb corruption. One of the best examples is the case of China where corruption is punishable with the death penalty if the sums acquired illegally go beyond a certain threshold. China executes more people in the world than rest of world put together. Yet they have failed to tackle corruption. As a matter of fact China is placed much worse than India at number 100 even though its per capita incomes of USD 20925, which is 14 times more than India. The other totalitarian country Russia performs even worse being ranked136 in honesty even though its per capita income is USD 14591.The Character of IndiansThere is no doubt that integrity is extremely important for the growth of a nation. Hence, if a country is relatively more honest than the nations of similar income level, it has better chance of development. The nations whose people are able to resist the temptation are more likely to succeed in future than those who are giving in to temptation.I have tried to measure the Character of nation by assigning the "Character Score", which is derived by comparing the Integrity Score with the Prosperity Score. If people can resist being corrupt despite being poor, they certainty have higher character than those who give in to corruption despite being rich. Let us now see where India stands on the 'Character Score' chart.Table 2: The List of Major Countries based on their "Character Score" Country CPI Rank Integrity Score Per Capita Income GDP Rank Prosperity Score Character Score Ethiopia 110 37.36 518 178 4.84 32.52 India 85 51.72 1509 146 22.04 29.68 Zambia 85 51.72 1845 139 25.81 25.91 Mozambique 119 32.18 593 174 6.99 25.19 Nepal 126 28.16 692 169 9.68 18.48 Sri Lanka 85 51.72 3204 123 34.41 17.31 Pakistan 126 28.16 1275 152 18.82 9.34 United Kingdom 14 92.53 39372 23 88.17 4.36 Japan 15 91.95 38468 24 87.63 4.32 Germany 12 93.68 44999 18 90.86 2.82 Denmark 1 100 59129 6 97.31 2.69 Bangladesh 145 17.24 1033 159 15.05 2.19 Luxembourg 9 95.4 112473 1 100 -4.6 United States 17 90.8 53001 9 95.7 -4.9 Myanmar 156 10.92 1113 156 16.67 -5.75 Brazil 69 60.92 11173 61 67.74 -6.82 Israel 37 79.31 36926 26 86.56 -7.25 Iran 136 22.41 4769 99 47.31 -24.9 Italy 69 60.92 34715 27 86.02 -25.1 Argentina 107 39.08 14709 51 73.12 -34.04 China 100 43.1 20925 39 79.57 -36.47 Russia 136 22.41 14591 52 72.58 -50.17 Venezuela 161 8.05 7576 77 59.14 -51.09 Iraq 170 2.87 6594 86 54.3 -51.43 It is hearkening to see that India is almost on the top of Character Score, just behind Ethiopia. There is no country in the world which is as honest as India with the same level of economic development. Ethiopia, the only country which excels India, is much smaller with a population of merely 85 million as compared to 1250 million inhabitants of India.Proud to Be IndianIt is evident that the future of India is bright as Indians are better in resisting temptations as compared to people of other nationalities. The same conclusion was drawn by the world famous experiment called "The Marshmallow Test" conducted in the late 1960s by Walter Mischel at a Stanford University nursery school.In the experiment, 4 and 5-year-olds were presented with a difficult choice. They could eat one treat i.e. Marshmallow (Sugar candy) immediately or wait for 15 minutes longer to be rewarded with two.Years later, Mischel followed up with children in his original study and discovered a surprising link: The kids who had waited for two treats (resisters) had higher SAT scores, greater workplace success, a lower body mass index and they were less likely to take drugs.The effect of high character is quite visible for India which is constantly improving its ranking in the honesty front. We have improved over 9 points in a single year as we climbed from 94 in 2013 to 85 position this year. However, it would be unreasonable to believe that we can occupy the top position soon as we have long way to go to remove poverty in India and become a developed nation. What we need is patience, constant economic growth and confidence in our values.
[Published Originally on Taxindiaonline.com on 27th December 2014]

“Any fool can criticize, complain, and condemn—and most fools do��, said Dale Carnegie in his classic ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People��. “but it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.�� We Indians have mastered the art of criticism. We have the ability to criticize anyone and everyone for one reason or other. Just switch on any channel on electronic media randomly at any time of the day and you can rest assure that on the channel the so called experts are busy in their business of criticizing and condemning someone important as if everything is so bad with everything in India that we must be in perennial state of shame to be born as Indian.Condemnation is addictive and once you get used to it, it becomes almost imposiible to live without condemning others. It is more intoxicating that even the most powerful drug which gives you a high so quickly. It reminds me a story of a jawan who was used to be drunk quite oftenAn army jawan was in the habit of getting drunk too often. He faced suspensions and other punishments but did not improve and his drinking habit got worsened. Everyone gave up.One day a kind hearted senior army officer tried to reform him and he called him to his office and said very kindly, "Dear Friend, you have suffered so much in your life due to your habit of drinking. If you give up drinking, you can one day become a Colonel."The jawan saluted the officer smartly and said, "I know that Sir. But when I am drunk, I do not consider myself less than a General."Emmet Fox, a New Thought spiritual leader of the early 20th century said so wisely, ‘Criticism is an indirect form of self-boasting��. When we are criticizing others, we are on the top of the world as we feel that we are better than the person whom we are criticizing. So you can imagine the high of the critic who has chosen to criticize the Prime Minister of India or even better, the President of United States of America?The Futility of CriticismIt is very difficult, even impossible, to appreciate or accept appreciation, once you have been addicted to criticism. I have myself discovered it recently, when I published an article ��
Now let us look at the hard facts rather than individual opinions. The list of the top 10 countries, based on the rape per 1000 population, are as following:-1 ������������������������ Lesotho ���������������������������� 0.844�������� 2 ������������������������ New Zealand ���� �� �� 0.315�������� 3 ������������������������ Belgium ���������������������������� 0.299�������� 4 ������������������������ Iceland �������������������������������� 0.286 ������ 5 ������������������������ Norway ���������������������������� 0.203 6 ������������������������ Israel ������ ������������������������������ 0.166�������� 7 ������������������������ Finland �������������������������������� 0.141�������� 8 ������������������������ Chile �������� ������������������������������ 0.12 ������������ 9 ������������������������ Mongolia ���������������������� 0.118�������� 10 ������������������ Ireland ������������������������������ 0.102 Don’t be surprised, if these names appear familiar to you. You have already seen these names on the top of CPI list of Transparency International as the least corrupt country. So the bad news for critics of India is that Indian are not on the top on rape list. We are not even the top 50 countries of the world. Kindly visit the site and check the information yourself.The fact is that the annual rape rate in India is just 0.02 per 1000 people in 2012 (Source: ). ��So, we have enough reasons to celebrate Indian values and Indian males now, once we know the full fact of the case. However, instead, we are busy criticizing India all the time.Why Perceptions Are So Deceptive?We are too often fooled by our intuition which is full of biases and prejudices. Psychologist called such error of judgment as "Availability Bias". When Media give disproportionate coverage to negative events and ignore everything positive, our perceptions tend to become much more negative than reality. Psychologist defines ‘Availability Bias�� as a human cognitive bias that causes people to overestimate the probability of events associated with memorable or vivid occurrences. Because memorable events are further magnified by coverage in the media, the bias is compounded on the societal level. (Kindly visit to know more about ‘Availability Bias��).Seek Only TruthThere is no doubt that criticism sometime plays an important role in improving individuals and organizations. However, relying on criticism alone without appreciation can starve the soul of individuals and cripple the nation. ��We as Indians must learn to appreciate what is good in us rather than always talking about what is bad in us. Charles Michael Schwab, an American steel magnate, under whose leadership, Bethlehem Steel became the second largest steel maker in the United States said, ��I have yet to find the man, however exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than under a spirit of criticism��.Once we focus on appreciation, we may soon realize that we are one of greatest nation of the world and that it is not without reason that India is considered to be spiritual guru of the world. ��Let us learn to appreciate ourselves and others using criticism only when it becomes absolutely necessary. ��

What gives you happiness? Is it what you have or what others have? If our possessions would have made us happier, we should have been the happiest generations as we possess far more things now than ever before. Yet you find most people quite unhappy despite being more prosperous and enjoying more freedom that ever before.We may be talking about ‘equality�� and ‘justice�� all the time but the fact is that we actually wish to have more than others or have more power and higher position than others to feel happy. If we become twice as rich but our neighbour becomes four-times richer, we feel miserable. You may remember the following Aesop’s Fable.

Two neighbours came before Jupiter and prayed him to grant their hearts' desire. Now the one was full of avarice, and the other eaten up with envy. So to punish them both, Jupiter granted that each might have whatever he wished for himself, but only on condition that his neighbour had twice as much. The Avaricious man prayed to have a room full of gold. No sooner said than done; but all his joy was turned to grief when he found that his neighbour had two rooms full of the precious metal. Then came the turn of the envious man, who could not bear to think that his neighbour had any joy at all. So he prayed that he might have one of his own eyes put out, by which means his companion would become totally blind.This story tells us the root cause of all the conflicts and pain in the world. We are all filled with greed and envy. We are unhappy not because we are earning less, but because others are earning more. We are unhappy not because our spouse, children, friends and organization are not good, but because others are better. Hence, we behave like the envious man of the story and try to destroy others by crime, corruption and constant criticism.It is impossible that everyone has more wealth, power and prestige than others. Hence, it is impossible to imagine a world where everyone can be happy. The development of a country and growth of economy can never solve the human problems of pain, misery and frustration. We can be happy only at individual level when we learn to appreciate what we have rather to bother about what others have. At the social level, however, people are bound to suffer as they can’t avoid comparing themselves with others.

How do we know what we know? Do we know what we are required to know or we are just collecting useless information, which we may never use? There is no doubt that the present generation is far more educated than ever before, but that does not mean that they are also more knowledgeable than the previous generations. We might have acquired lots of information and learned many tricks in our schools and colleges, but that would have made us even dumber.

A fox was boasting to a cat of its clever devices for escaping its enemies.‘I have a whole bag of tricks,�� he said, ‘which contains a hundred ways of escaping my enemies.’‘I have only one,�� said the cat; ‘but I can generally manage with that.’Just at that moment they heard the cry of a pack of hounds coming towards them, and the cat immediately scampered up a tree and hid herself in the boughs.‘This is my plan,�� said the cat. ‘What are you going to do?’The fox thought first of one way, then of another, and while he was thus debating, the hounds came nearer and nearer, and at last, the fox in his confusion was caught up by the hounds, and soon killed by the huntsmen.Most of us are like the fox, who know so many things but when it comes to application of the knowledge, we fail miserably. Albert Einstein has wisely said, “The only source of knowledge is experience��. Just like you can’t know the taste of mango unless you taste it, you can’t know the truthfulness of any information unless you use it. Hence, the real knowledge is one that can be put to use and the knower has personal experience of the same. ��We may call such knowledge as ‘First Hand Knowledge��.The second type of knowledge is “Second Hand Knowledge��, which is the knowledge which we have never experienced but someone else claims to have experimented it and shared the knowledge with others. You can never be sure about the authenticity of such knowledge until you decide to use the knowledge in your personal life and experience its truth.�� We are getting plenty of such knowledge from numerous sources like friends, electronic media, social media and print media all the time.You may convert the second-hand knowledge to first-hand by using it yourself in the real-life. The problem with the modern world is that we have too much of second-hand knowledge but little first-hand knowledge.�� We know so many things, which are not authentic and yet believe them to be true without putting them to practise. People can discuss and debate about them without ever practising them. ��Hence, when a real-life situation comes, they can’t decide the right course of action. Just like many people are suffering due to excess of food, many more are suffering due to excess of knowledge. In the words of Einstein again, ��'A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So is a lot.”When our second-hand knowledge becomes far in excess of our first-hand knowledge, we lose equilibrium of life and suffer due to non-application or wrong application of knowledge. Try to know only what is needed and useful o you rather than wasting your time for accumulating knowledge for the heck of it, without knowing what to do with it.

We know that 10 is less than 20. We also know that 0 (Zero) is less than 10. But is there a number which is less than 0?If you are a student of science or mathematics, you would quickly say that any negative number (like -1 or -10) is less than 0. We are used to hear prefixing of ‘minus�� or ‘negative�� before a number to represent something which is less than even ‘zero’—while zero actually means nothing.But how can anything be less than nothing?Let us understand that a negative number is just a mathematical hypothesis, which does not exist in the real world.��
��Can you have (-) 10 students in a class or a negative population of a country? Can the age of a child be negative? Can the height of a place be negative?
The real world has no negative but only positive. Yet anything can be made negative by comparing it to something greater just like any line can be made smaller but drawing a bigger line next to it. Even when we use terms like sub-zero (minus) temperature, it is only a matter of convention. What we call Zero degree centigrade is actually (+) 273 degree Kelvin. Every student of physics knows that negative Kelvin temperature is impossible.
How we create artificial negativity can be understood by the example of the Coordinate Geometry. We define the right side and the upside as positive, which makes the opposite as negative. You could have done the other way round also reversing the concept of positive and negative.
You may be wondering why I am talking about negativity of physics and mathematics on my blog.
It is because; we tend to associate the knowledge of one field automatically in another field. We have borrowed the concepts of mathematics and science in psychology also. We have developed what we call ‘negative feelings�� which is supposed to be opposite to the ‘positive feelings��. We are advised to shun the negative feelings or negative attitude of life to life a positive life. “Be positive�� seems the mantra for all successes, joy and happiness because everything positive is good and everything negative is bad.We are quite familiar with many negative terms like hatred, depression or injustice; whose positive terms may be love, happiness or justice.

I, however, find that the so called negative terms are not negative of anything but different realities (like man and woman) which complement each other. You can’t have one without other either individually or jointly.

For example, your hatred and love are not opposite and it is not always bad to hate. It is not wrong to hate injustice, brutality, crime, dishonesty and the people who often indulged in such activity. If you are don't have hatred for them, then perhaps you are too insensitive and in all likelihood you also don’t have the passion to love. Hence hatred per-se is not bad as it can teach us ‘what is not to be done�� just as love often teaches us ‘what is to be done��. These two emotions are like red and green signals of the traffic light to ensure smooth flow of traffic on busy crossings.I believe that there is nothing negative in this world and God/Nature has created everything for a purpose which is positive. It is our limitation that we don’t understand the design of the world and hence prefer one to another—calling one as positive and other as negative.
_________________________________________________________________________________

Have you per-ordered�� my book "The Secret Red Book of Leadership".If not, order it now to avail the benefit of special discount and free home-delivery at
Flipkart: Amazon.in : Infibeam: Aatmic Science: Amazon.com :

Once upon the time there was an old farmer in a village living with his small family. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,�� they said sympathetically.“Maybe yes; Maybe No,�� the farmer replied.



The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful,�� the neighbors exclaimed.“Maybe yes; Maybe No,�� replied the old man.The following day, his son tried to ride one of the wild horses and he was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune.“Maybe yes; Maybe No,�� answered the farmer without showing any emotion.A few days later, military officials came to the village to induct young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out.“Maybe yes; Maybe No,�� again said the farmer.�� This famous Zen story reveals the unpredictability of life in the world. Every day we hear horror stories of crime, murders, and accidents and often conclude that there is no guarantee of life and that most of things are not in our control. Since the life is uncertain, many people like to enjoy the present and often give in to instant gratifications following the philosophy of ‘Eat, Drink and Merry��. They follow the lifestyle that provides them instant pleasure even if it is harmful to their body and mind. They believe that it is foolish to bother about future which is so uncertain. Contrary to the popular believe, our life is far more certain now than ever before. Even though the media is filled with negative stories like crime and death, the real world is far safer and civilized.One of the best methods to prove that the chance of causality is extremely low now is to find out the insurance premium. For example, the term premium for Rs One Crore (10 Million ) is around�� Rs 6000 per annum only.�� This means that the possibility of being killed in next one year for any person is less than 1 in 1667 or 0.006%.�� In reality, the actual figure must be much lower as the insurance companies must be making some profit also. Thus, in reality, even in the span of 10 years, the causality rate can’t be more than 1 in 250. The rest 249 survives to suffer the consequences of the actions of immoral and illegal life taken today.It may be better to live a healthy life and follow moral and legal principles as if you are going to live forever. The role of chance is quite negligible in the real-life once you analyze it statistically and study it rationally. Einstein has rightly said. “God does not play dice with the world.�� Let us shape our future by taking the command of life in our own hand rather than remaining always confused with “May be yes, May be no.��

��I am privileged to receive following�� review from Padma Bhusan Shri Kamal Haasan, Actor/Director, regarding my book "The Secret Red Book of Leadership".
This is a unique book which reveals the real personality of a leader. There are numerous stories, anecdotes and jokes that make you remember the messages easily and keep you absorbed in the book. The book answers many questions of life about leadership and success.
‘The Secret Red Book of Leadership�� makes you understand what the secret of leadership truly is, and helps you in becoming a leader in the chosen field of your life.




Pre-order your copy of the book at discounted price and free homes delivery at
Flipkart: Amazon.in : Infibeam: Aatmic Science: Amazon.com :