Inside the mind and heart of Venkatesh Sridhar

Hey guys,
Tried out a helmet yesterday. Borrowed it from my friend and whoa what a difficult thing it was. I mean the helmet was heavy, I personally felt that my neck would have snapped if I had been in an accident. I wonder why they think that a person has more survival chances if he wears an helmet when the helmet is so bulky and the neck can be snapped.

It wasnt the funny part. I was on the flyover and the strap that holds the helmet broke free and since I was driving quite fast the helmet was blown off by the wind and it landed on a girl’s lap inside the auto rickshaw right next to me. The gal shrieked and threw the helmet out. Though I would have appreciated if she would have given it to me direct or atleast thrown in my direction…..

Was a very eventful ride .. my first one using a helmet ever since the Mumbai police made it mandatory for people to wear helmets though I rarely found people wearing one. There are lot of practical difficulties. The lack of availability of helmets, cashing in on the moment by the helmet dealers. The rates rise by the hour virtually. The HC did not think about all these difficulties when it passed the order and wanted an immediate implementation of the order. Though the Govt. did not try and convince the HC to give it some more time so that the Helmet manufacturers could increase the production to meet the demands. Plus, the Govt. if it had any brains should have made it mandatory for bike manufacturers to sell Helmets alongwith the bike, that would certainly help bring the situation under control.

Well I know it may seem a bit pessimistic … but I dont see any reason for optimism. You know the biggest difference that is between India and China is that India is democratic. A democratic nation should not be autocratic atleast in theory which is not the case in India as every one knows and the other difference is that we have an established judiciary system .. a hallmark of every democracy and an stronger banking system compared to that of China. Recently, the judiciary system was slapped in it’s face by the Govt.

In 1987, the Govt. of India and ITC went to court over a dispute on the amount of excise duty payable by the latter to the former. The GoI claimed that the ITC should pay more excise duty than it had paid as it claimed that vendors sold cigarette sticks at a higher price than the MRP printed on the pack. ITC’s contention was that it had no control over what the vendors which is not only logical but also true legally. I will explain how. ITC has no control over the pan beedi shop who are the biggest sellers of cigarettes in India. How is it logistically possible for ITC to do so, in fact it is the responsibility of the Govt., it has an inspector for all these things who is supposed to see if any goods are being sold over MRP. Now, the Govt. failed in it’s job and was trying to pull up ITC for it’s own failure.

That was the logical part here comes the legal part. According to the Contracts Act, at the point of sale the title of the goods is transferred to the buyer thus in effect, ITC has no control over the pack of cigarette it has sold. It is now the property of the panwala and what he does with it will not in any manner affect ITC as it has no legal right over that pack and thus cannot be held liable.

Isn’t that simple? Yet, it took the Indian courts 17 years… yes!!! 17 years,… can you imagine so much waste of time and money. And the Supreme Court of India finally decides on the case and awards the judgement in favour of ITC.

The Govt. has to cough up the duty it took from ITC. What should it have done? It should have returned. The verdict was passed in Oct 2004 and in January 2005, ITC moves the SC and says the Govt. hasnt coughed the cash as yet. The SC asks the Govt. to refund the money within 15 days else it would have to pay interest. Now what should the Govt. have done … paid up right?

WRONG!!! The Govt. wanted to teach ITC a lesson and it passed an ordinance with retrospective effect from 1984 in which it decreed that excise duty payable would be calculated on the selling price regardless of the MRP and then sends a notice to ITC giving it 10 days to cough some Rs. 400 cr+ amount or else interest will be charged at 15%.

The Govt. wont respect the court’s decision and that the SC of this country, which is the most respected judicial institution in this nation. And to say that we are better than China in this respect is a big sham.

I don’t have much to comment on the Indian Banking system eventhough there are plenty of loopholes and there are many banks and FI’s who cheat gullible consumers out of their hard earned money and the Govt. doesn’t have a regulation in place for all this.

And then compare the Chinese determination to be the world’s largest economy with India’s Vision 2020. We want to be a developed nation by 2020 and what steps are we taking towards it…. NONE!! Instead now in the recent requests made by the Communist parties have gone and requested the Finance Minister to increase the tax rate and also for them a 9.5% rate of interest is not enough for the Provision Fund. What does Left think of itself? In trying to be the so called ‘MESSIAH OF THE POOR AND UNDERPRIVILEGED’ they are actually on the way to destroy our economy. What I hate about the Left is it’s hypocrisy. Sitaram Yechury gave a speech about how the poor people have not benefited of globalisation and all that and then sits into a very posh car ( could not see the model on tv ) and he is talking about globalisation not reaching the downtrodden?

So, net net I think China stands a better chance than India. What do you say?

The caste system was introduced in order to prevent chaos from ruining the very fabric of society…. there was a time when there was no division and because of this there were conflicts between religion and kingdom then there was a separation of everything based on the RESPONSIBILITY entrusted to the person. The Kshatriya was responsible to ensure that the Kingdom would be safe and secure. The Brahmins were supposed to learn and utilize their knowledge for the betterment of the society. The Vasishtas were responsible for trade activities and the Shudra’s were for labour activities. There was no reason for ne1 to be superior at that time but as time went on it evolved into a caste system and led to suppression of the Shudra’s due to the unsocial attitude of the brahmins who did not want to share their knowledge for the fear of losing their importance in society. This can be proved when there are so many stuff that was invented by our rishis never written down and kept as a secret. I remember during the time of my poonal the gayatri mantra was whispered into my ears as it is a secret mantra. So, it has arisen out of this need to find social relevance because the brahmins would no longer have been important if they had shared their knowledge. This is the main reason for the split and I would certainly like ppl to comment on wat they think abt this.