Random Thoughts - Pattabhi Sitaraman

In the decade of 2004-2014, there were many financial dealings which were not in the interest of the nation. There were allegations of wrong doing against the ministers and a few cases were filed against a few of the ministers.  CBI was asked to look into many issues like the allocation of 2G spectrum, Common Wealth Games, Coal mine allocation etc.  There were allegations against the Prime Minister himself in the coal mine allocation issue. There were allegations of wrongful land deals in which the son in-law of the president of the GOP reportedly made huge profits. The BJP capitalised on these and made them an election issue and came to power with a catchy slogan 'A party with a difference'. The then prime ministerial candidate of BJP even went to the extent of claiming that 'nai kaoonga; kaa nai doonga' meaning that he would not be corrupt nor would allow any one to be corrupt.  This is the background the BJP had an unexpected mandate from the people of the country ...

Since before independence, India has had some of the best hospitals in the state sector and most of them are attached to state medical colleges.  Some of the philanthropists set up hospitals under the charitable trusts which were providing the much needed healthcare to the growing population.  Till about late 1970s, the healthcare sector had been largely under state control or under the charitable trusts set up by the philanthropists.  Hardly there were any hospital in the corporate sector and corporate hospital culture was not at all known in the broad Indian scenario.   The corporate healthcare started in India with the advent of Apollo hospitals which started its operations in Chennai in early 1980s. This spawned the mushrooming of hospitals in private sector which were funded by many investors and were listed in the bourses. The basic idea of any corporate listed in the bourses is to make money for the investors and keep the share prize high to enable th...

As a child born into a middle class orthodox family with unassailable faith in God, I was brought up with all the stories from the puranas and epics of HIndu pantheon  I was also raised to believe all the customs of the family without any questions asked. Even while preparing to go to the school for writing an examination, it was mandatory to pray in front of the pictures of the God in the small cupboard and look for some auspicious omen before stepping out of the house. Such was the rigorous training of the household that no one questioned the beliefs or the practices.    Having been born in a family of voracious readers, I had developed a passion for reading from a very young age.  Even as a child of primary school, I was well versed in various stories from puranas and the Indian epics.  Thus was laid the foundation for my development as an adult.  The independent thinking and questioning of many practices that were etched into our daily chores started ...

Early 1980s had been one of the best times of growing up in India; there was only one TV channel which was telecasting some of the best sitcoms which could be watched by all as a family together.  The news both in Hindi and English had been staid affairs with no shouting matches.  The language news channels from the local stations also gave lots of information about the happenings in the state.  The advent of the NDTV as a content supplier to the national state sponsored television channel Doordarshan was a welcome whiff of fresh air.  The world this week program that was telecast every week and later the news digests were better in capturing the imagination of the public who were brought up on staid drone of news without any visuals or if visuals were there without any voice.  This gave rise to the independent television channels that sprang up in the immediate aftermath of liberalisation, like mushrooms in the fresh summer rain. From telecasting from TV ...

On the 8th of November 2016, the Prime Minister came on National TV and announced that from the midnight of that day all the high value notes of 500 and 1000 stand withdrawn as they cease to be legal tender any more.  This created a panic of sorts of across the country and there were last minute purchases of gold ornaments, stocks of goods, transport vehicles, real estate etc  The demonetization of the high value notes sent shivers down the spine of many and there were frantic attempts to convert the demonetized notes to lower denomination legal tender. The daily changing rules as the government and the special team of officers who were directly monitoring the note ban effect changed the rules almost on an hourly basis, spelt lots of difficulties.  The government tightened the screws in exchanging the notes and limited the number of notes per day and restricted the withdrawal of the notes from the bank branches or ATMs.  However, there was no restrictions in t...