Commonality of strength

Be so strong that the other party withdraws and you don't have to fight at all. If it comes to it, then fight and win.

Same thought echoed by Sun Tzu, Jack Reacher (movie), Col. Shivender of 7 Para SF and of course, India's political and military thought process

Will India negotiate PoK from Pakistan?

Strategies in war are not clear upfront. The winner usually uses an element of surprise (timing, new paths, new technologies, new combinations, new allies, new fronts) that the enemy has not thought of or prepared for.

Similarly, a few statements now and then my the Indian establishment didn't reveal the strategy till substantial dots are there to make sense of the pattern.

The few dots:
1. Indus Water Treaty being suspended, (not cancelled)

2. "Picture toh abhi baaki hai", tweet from Former Chief of Army Staff Naravane after the initial night strike of the 9 terrorist camps.

3. Today's message from PM "Talks would on terrorism and PoK"

Can we now link these three points and see the pattern emerging?
India would resume the Indus Water Treaty only when Pakistan gives back Pakistan occupied Kashmir.

Is this what we are looking at or aiming at?

If so, this is very thoughtful, strategic and absolutely amazing!

Far more nail-biting than IPL!

This IPL season, there is one real nail biting and interesting match I am eager to witness.

The real India Pakistan match.

And how India is going to thrash the Pakistani military and its puppet govt.

India will go with Military action this time too. The question is when? Tonight or tomorrow night or day after night? The bets are on!

India has already flooded a district of PoK last night.

What is different this time is the context.

External to both these countries, the state of the 2 biggest associated countries - China and USA and the 2 running wars.

China usually supports Pakistan militarily and has been against India in multiple fronts including the trade front. But this time, if India gains some key areas in PoK, the China invested area in PoK for the Belt and Road Initiative would be for India to destroy or overtake. This would be interesting to see how China would respond: Whether it would ask India to not destroy their investment or to deter India, start a parallel military campaign on India-China border. The other change this time is China's slowly warming to India after many years of the military standoff as its trade war with USA is raging.

USA this time is very different than all the historical USA. With an indifferent Trump at its President who has very weird goals, (like making Gaza a tourist spot) and not getting USA into any new war and trying to end the Russia-Ukraine war. But, unfortunately, as usual, USA has supported Pakistan again and given USD 400 million aid to Pakistan to sustain its F-16s. Mostly, USA wants to watch the 'fun' from the sidelines and then ask India to invest more into its Apaches, AWACs, F-35s and other military platforms.

Wars are not anathema in today's world. The Russian war on Ukraine saw the first fulls scale war in history in Europe after 60+ years. The Israel-Palestine war is also running. People are not so against war and reasonably expect it in case of retribution.

This time, the Indian govt. is more determined to take action than the previous govts and is willing to make use of all the historical mistakes it has done previously and turn it around.

Best case scenario: 

1. Breakup of Pakistan into an independent Balochistan (40% of Pakistan territory) and the rest of Pakistan

2. Retaking of PoK by India

3. Destruction of China's investment in PoK worth billions and stopping China in its tracks

Only if Pakistan was not nuclear armed, all this could have been achieved with much ease.

Fingers crossed and waiting to read the books on this war and the strategies employed a few years from now.

Government's lack of application of mind

The government of India does not seem to apply its mind thoroughly these days. It makes half baked implementation policies. Not many months ago, in the middle of the financial year when the government decided to reduce the subsidies on lpg, it said 6 subsidized cylinders per household, without mentioning whether it was calender year or financial year and whether the subsidy would be provided on a pro rata basis or fresh starting from that month. 

This lack of clarity caused a lot of confusion and harassment to the customers and the sellers of the lpgs (the big 3 Oil Marketing companies). Now, the government has yet again gone the same in another place. Applicability of Service tax on air conditioned high end restaurants from April 1, 2013.

As mentioned here, http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/personal-finance/tax-savers/tax-news/new-service-tax-from-april-1-ambiguous-on-host-of-entities-like-home-delivery-chains-take-away-joints/articleshow/19313468.cms

the tax is actually to be levied on service, but where is the service element in take aways/canteens/mess, etc.? In the absence of this, many chains including McDonalds have started applying service tax on the bills on the safer side. If the government later clarifies that they are out of the ambit of the service tax and refunds the service tax collected to the companies, as there is no way to return the money back to the customer, the companies would end up making a good profit as they sieze on it.

On another angle, most restaurant business run a scam/sham of getting the customer's money by charging service charges and a service tax on the whole bill which is itself a fraud (by design or ignorance). More on this here:

http://www.business-standard.com/article/pf/how-restaurants-can-overcharge-you-113032600554_1.html

The lack of government's application of mind is helping the people give away more of their money to the already crooked restaurants.

Bollywood movies

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/media/entertainment-/entertainment/business-of-rs-100-cr-films-who-gets-what-and-why/articleshow/15700710.cms

Things to check before buying land

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/real-estate/realty-trends/planning-to-invest-in-land-heres-a-checklist/articleshow/14706132.cms

Difference between Khata and Title deed
http://www.parasgroup.in/faq/what-difference-between-khata-and-title-deed

Changing the Life insurance game in India in one masterstroke

There is a great big market opportunity for one of the life insurance players in India to become get a good big market share pie and tap the untapped markets. They need to unsettle the market just as Tata Docomo radicalised the telecom market with the 1paise/second plan. Everyone knows that there is a huge market for life insurance in India but none of the existing insurance players are taking the strategy of large volumes and lower commisions as in the best and purest form of life insurance called term insurance. Today when people talk of life insurance, people's first recall is LIC or rather LIC is the synonym of investments and life insurance together. The company which is willing to go the term insurance path can show that the benefit of low insurance costs for huge amounts of sums insured and can easily attract people. As many Indians are too stuck up with the idea of getting something back, they can show an advertisement of how somebody buys a car/bike insurance without a second thought for saving his/her bike, but when it comes to their own life, they dont seem to be concerned about the family in case of the loss of the earning member. The potent combination of low premium costs and likening it to auto insurance can get the middle class out of the rut of LIC's highly agent driven (read brainwashing) customers.

Now, only if someone out there is listening!

Way of addressing

The way some Indians address their friends indicates the area they have mostly likely spent their childhood/college time. Take for example the following addresses:

Thanks yaar

Thanks di

Thanks maga

Thanks re

From my non-scientific analysis, I have so far identified some of the places these are most commonly used. 'maga' is from Karnataka where maga literarily means son. Sentences ending with 're' are from Mumbai. Usually people using 'di' are from Tamilnadu while yaar is a commonly used in North India.

So when you hear someone talk to their friends, you can atleast make out where they have most likely been brought up in. There is no gaurantee however as people may want to sometimes portray a certain image and may use a certain style to be identified with.

Commonness in an average Indian reducing

They were the early 90s'. As far as I can clearly remember. Only one channel on the television - Doordarshan. Every Indian above 20 will have very fond memories watching this: http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=gstRrEmTcBc We all share a certain time and generation among us. We will immediately smile and start talking about Surabhi, Hum log, etc. and discuss in detail how fond certain characters, actors and times were and how these were the characteristics of a typical Indian family. Now, if I ask my cousin who is in the next generation, (a generational gap is created every 5 years) about this, I am not sure he will relate to this. The television in India in its early days celebrated diversity, propagated social causes among entertaining and informing the citizens. The songs, the advertisements and the messages were nice, soothing and creative to say the least. Some advertisements like the "Hamara Bajaj" ad became very popular. Today, with all the cable and satellite channels, we have lost the one major thing that used to bind us together in a very unique way. All I see on television is politicians promoting the killing of other Indians so openly. Regionalism has taken over nationalism. States were created only for better administration and for the locals to help maintain their unique cultural and physical ecosystems, not at the cost of nationalism. How come today there are so few songs celebrating India's rich diversity. The only ones of recent past are the "Maa tujhe salaam" from A.R.Rehman and the Jaago India campaign. The others are made to promote a vulgar cause like cricket matches. I somehow dont see the patriotic feeling, a sense of belonging to India in people watching a cricket match in unlike a national song like "mile sur mera tumhara" or "Maa tujhe salaam". I think it is high time for the government to make all the television channels including private ones to mandatorily broadcast 20 minutes a day, programs relating to national awareness campaigns and national songs which will have a wider and long term impact on the people of India than any of the other possible campaigns that the government can possibly think of. Let the awareness campaigns concentrate on family planning, AIDS awareness, patriotism, a cleaner country, dont waste water and energy and finally punctuality. Maybe this is a long pending solution to remove a lot of grassroot problems that India is unable to address by reaching the masses effectively as of now. Is it just me thinking like this or do the others also share a similar thought? What is your opinion?

Financial glut

The summarised Raghuram report on the Indian Financial reforms:

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2008/09/prasad.htm

A description of the roles and functions of the Reserve Bank of India:

http://www.rbi.org.in/scripts/BS_SpeechesView.aspx?Id=396