Written by +Nitish Garg 

With the continuous flashing of Breaking News, I realized a change in Undramatic Hindi News Channels. An accused in a rape case was sentenced to death by hanging by Majesty John Singh Khan in Raipur High Court. The country had never thought of such decision.

Last day only, a police officer had slapped an MLA for beating up a common man on the road. The Officer arrested the minister and lodged a case against him for misuse of the power. Number of Mahabali’s and Goons in our legislative system is way too less than that are behind the bars. Streets are now safe 24×7.

While catching up with the latest of the world, I heard a knock on my door. To my no surprise, it was Shaurya, my friend. He had a book, titled Quran.

“Ahh, so you finally got it.” I exclaimed.

“Yeah, and I hope you are ready to hop in.” he asked.

“Let’s go.” I replied, picking up my bag.

Shaurya and I are college friends. Since the very first day of the college, we both have a great bond. We had never thought of getting employed by the same company after the college as well. Now, we both work at Kingfisher Sports Management as Marketing Officer and Sales Manager. Well, Kingfisher is world’s second largest sports company next to Sahara Group only, another Indian company. Indian Origin brands are making their mark in every field throughout the world. The Micromax and Karbonn are competing for the top position in the market of Mobiles and Tablets almost on par with the American brands. Chinese companies on the other hand are trying to copy every bit of Indian Ideas. Besides, Indian Democracy being largest, it has also developed good influence over major portion of the world.

Car pooling was nothing new. Shaurya got his car to pick me and Shaun to our office. Other than girls, we had politics and corporate to chat about. But that day Shaun had something else to talk about. He told us about the dowry system Indians had 300 or more years ago. I did not have any idea about it other than the bookish knowledge. He also added that women were sold like any other commodity in the market. I was surprised to hear such sorry state of women back in the time. Someone surely had worked hard to abolish that state of women. Now, they are free to do anything at anytime.

“You know what I recently read a new word ‘Religion’.” Shaurya said while keeping car on right track.

“How is it spelled?” I asked him. “What does it mean?” I added in the same breath.

“R-E-L-I-G-I-O-N. The word means ‘an institution intended to influence people in the Name of GOD. It’s like a terrorist group which intended to create havoc in the mindset of people.’” Shaurya explained.

“They must be a fool to believe in such an institute.” Shaun replied.

“Guys, I am planning to try for a Government Job. What do you think?” Shaun asked changing the topic abruptly.

“Aahaann, and that’s the reason you are working on history and other influential topics. Well, if you work hard surely you’ll clear it.” I replied.

“Here we are.” Shaurya said, while parking the car. That’s how my day starts. That’s my Thirty First of February, a daily routine. A state where politicians mean leaders and administration means public employees. A state where women are actually be respected. A state where we don't know meaning of Religion, but God through Hearts. An India which is actually is called as Super Power State.

Note: It’s a Routine of India which has never happened, and possibly won’t happen in near future, unless we all do something revolutionary. 

Characters (Shaurya, Shaun and Gulfam), their work life and this story are work of Fiction and An Idea.

Nitish Garg, Marketing and Finance Professional, gets time to express his views through Poems and Short Stories. He has composed songs for three Bands: Brahma Satya, Ethnic Ragas and Atmatattva. Because of his fragrance of Poems, his college friends gave him his Pen Name “Gulfam”. You may visit his blog pen and paper or you might like his work below.

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Image by Caribbean Photos

Written by +Apoorva Nangia 

“Yatra Naryastu pujyante, ramante tatra devta”, which means God resides where women are worshipped.

Who is a woman? Have we ever asked ourselves? Yes & the answer is she is a mother, a sister, a lover, a wife & also a fighter. Why am I saying she is a fighter? Do we have an answer?

The answer comes out from the fact that since decades she has been struggling for her presence, her aura to be felt by all, but every time she tries it, she is unable to get the recognition which she actually deserves.

From the time of Ramayana, we have seen the struggle of a woman, how goddess Sita had to give agni pariksha to prove her loyalty & integrity. This really pops a question in my mind after having made so many sacrifices; did she really need to prove her love & purity? If yes, then why? Why always a woman has to prove her loyalty why aren’t men not questioned? And the answer is simple that we have never thought this way as our society is so patriarch that we forget to question & raise our finger on men.

Now let’s have a look in medieval India. Women have gone through innumerable social evils such as sati pratha, dowry system, domestic violence, female feticide etc. These evils are just the numbers, one can never imagine the pain which a woman undergoes, self-respect, her soul are all shattered due to the injustice towards her. Our society has always treated women as inferior even after having known her value in family & society. A woman is selfless, she always thinks of her family before anything else & what she receives is negligence, disrespect, & what to not damage her completely.

Even today women are treated as sex toys that anyone can use anytime. The increasing number of rape cases in India proves that the evil thinking towards women is still prevalent & deep rooted. Female feticide is also one of the long lived evils of our society & it has taken more dangerous shape as the time passed.

Despite all the struggles, Indian women have made their mark in almost every field. Here I would like to mention about IPS Kiran Bedi who is the first Indian woman IPS officer. She has totally changed the image of women not only in India but all around the world. After so much of social taboo about women joining the force she has made great efforts to be at this position. Also it has always been said that it is very tough for women to work in corporate & maintain work-life balance which is why most women quit their careers, yet one example is Mrs. Chanda Kochhar , the CEO & MD of ICICI bank has proved this a misconception. Mrs. Sonia Gandhi being an Italian has managed to handle & lead an altogether different cultured economy. Mrs. Indira Gandhi, who became premier of India in 60s and strongly managed the diplomacy with US, USSR and China during 1971 Indo-Pak war, many western nations are yet to have a woman premier. Mrs. Meira Kumar, the first Indian Lok Sabha speaker has stunned everyone by her compassion & skill. The list may go on Late Kalpana Chawla, Ms. Sunita Williams, Ms. Indira Nooyi so on & so forth.

And the truth will always remain the same that women are an integral part of any society. It is always rightly said that if the women of a nation are respected & valued, the nation will prosper as a matter of course.

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Photo by IANS

Indian companies have become matured, while tough competition remains within the domestic market of the country, Indian companies are exploring more markets and adding more dimensions of competition. In the last decade we saw growing number of acquisitions by Indian company not only of smaller brands but also of much bigger and prestigious brands. In our previous article we discussed how the former colony India has been acquiring more businesses in the UK and "Indianizing" them, becoming the largest employer in the private sector of the UK. It is observed that Indian companies in a collective manner targeted UK businesses more actively, it could be unintentionally or may be some kind of nationalism. Indian companies are now equally active in the rest of the geography in the race to secure resources and technology.

In a report by Columbia University, India has gushed as the world’s 21st largest outward investor, having more than US$75 billion in foreign investment in the last decade. In another report by the Reserve Bank of India, during 2009-10 alone, the investments by domestic Indian companies in overseas joint ventures and wholly-owned subsidiaries stood impressively at US$10.3 billion.

Year 2000. One of the first major overseas acquisition by an Indian company was the acquisition of popular UK brand Tetley. Tata Tea in 2000 acquired Tetley for US$407 million. At the time of acquisition Tetley had three times the turnover of Tata Tea in India, but now it is the front runner brand of Tata Global Beverages and has made its successful presence in over 70 countries offering nearly 500 different varieties of popular tea.

Year 2003. In the year of 2003, one of the key Korean based commercial vehicle company, Daewoo was acquired by Tata Motors. Daewoo was famous for the cars Cielo and Matiz. After the acquisition Daewoo cars disappeared from Indian markets. Today Tata Daewoo is in the heavy vehicle business with its manufacturing and assembly mainly in Korea, India and Pakistan (Afzal Motors).

Year 2005. The confidence in the management of the Tata boosted so high that one by one it acquired more companies in US, South Africa and East Europe making it world's second largest branded tea maker. US herbal and green tea brand Good Earth was bought by Tata Global Beverages in 2005.

In another move in the automobile industry Tata Motors bought one of the largest manufacturer of bus and coach cabins in Europe, Hispano Motors Carrocera in 2005. Apart from their main plant in Zaragoza, Hispano also has another facility across the Mediterranean sea in Africa, Casablanca, Morocco. Their combined capacity is to produce nearly 2.000 unites per year. With this acquisition Tata also brought a number of jobs by bringing manufacturing of Hispano bodied buses in India at ACGL plant in Goa. These buses are known as Tata Divo.

Why doesn't Tata launch these buses in India? Variant of Tata Hispano Globus can be seen plying on the airports which lack functioning aerodrome facilities. Photo by Motor India

Later, in the same year Tata made another acquisition in the UK. UK-based Brunner Mond group and US-based General Chemical Industrial Products were back to back bought by Tata Chemicals.

Year 2006. Another US based beverages firm Eight O' Clock Coffee was bought for US$220 million. Tata also successfully established itself in the tea markets of other small countries like Czech Republic, where it owns JEMČA which is the biggest selling tea brand in the country.

In a move to secure resources around the world, Indian companies are actively spreading their arms. A study by Ernst and Young reports that the Indian companies have advanced in recent years and have invested appreciably in securing mineral resources. For the first time, in the year 2010, India-based companies scored over Chinese counterparts in the acquisition of foreign mineral assets. To support the statement, Indian companies had invested US$4.64 billion in 2010 to acquire businesses outside India, while Chinese overseas investments declined by more than half to US$4.45 billion.

Year 2007. Tata, just after one year of making its dominating presence in the tea markets of US and UK, moved on to the next big thing, Steel! In the year 2007, ambitious Tata Steels bought a company five times bigger than itself for US$12.1 billion. At that time Corus was ranked eighth largest in the world. This pushed Tata Steel from 65th position in the world steel production to a comfortable 5th position. In an another move in the metallurgy industry by another Indian company, Aditya Birla Group acquired Canadian Novelis, an aluminum producing company, for around $6 billion by its flagship company Hindalco Industries. This acquisition has made Hindalco world's leading aluminium rolled products producer.

Year 2008. India made notable acquisitions in the sector in which it is considered the world leader, IT sector. Indian company HCL acquired UK based enterprise solution provider Axon in mid 2008. Overall Axon group and its subsidiaries has constituted 14% of HCL Tech's revenue of Rs 16,030 crore and net profit of Rs 1,646.5 crore proving impressively beneficial. HCL, Infosys, and Tata Consultancy Services have till date acquired large number of companies or established their centres around the world and maintain world dominance when it comes to IT.


In the same year, in one of the most surprising deal Tata Motor's acquired prestigious British Jaguar and Land Rover auto brands. Still very few are aware that Tata Motors owns these super luxurious British automobile brands since 2008. Tata never renamed it as Tata Jaguar. Buying from the cash strapped Ford, Tata has now recorded massive net profit in JLR section.

Year 2009. When most of the Indian private companies were surprising the world with one after the other big acquisitions, state run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) also expanded its arm, and this time again it was UK! In January 2009, ONGC bought U.K. firm Imperial Energy for $2.1 billion. It was one of the biggest foreign acquisitions by ONGC Videsh (OVL), which is the overseas arm of ONGC. OVL successfully holds stakes in various parts of the world, notably the Gulf, Latin american and Siberia.


Year 2010. In mid 2010, In one of the largest coal mines deals by an Indian group, Adani Enterprises, in a cash and royalty deal, acquired the Australian coal assets of Linc Energy for US$2.7 billion.

In the same year, Bharati Airtel, India's largest telco also became world's fifth largest telecom company after acquiring African assets of Kuwait’s Mobile Telecommunications Co., Zain. Apart from its massive Indian subscribers, this deal provided Bharati Airtel additional 180 million customers in 18 countries and annual revenue of $12.4 billion

Flowing in the spirit, Sahara India Pariwar in late 2010 controversially bought iconic Grosvenor House hotel in London for 470 million pounds (around Rs 3,250 crore), which gave it a considerable stronghold in the global hospitality business. Sahara India Pariwar had been losing businesses in India, Sahara airways, one of them. Sahara is also known for sponsoring various Indian and Bangladeshi sports team.

Talking about sports, Venky, flagship company of Venkateshwara Hatcheries Group bought Blackburn Rovers, 135-year old English premier division football club which however could not keep club's fans happy.


Pedro Moreno de los Ríos, partner at Parangon Partners explains "One of the great advantages of Indian executives, compared with their Chinese counterparts, is their knowledge of Anglo-American culture. Another advantage is the greater openness that India has enjoyed when it comes to foreign capital". He further added, "Indian managers tend to have an international approach, and “India is [even] exporting managers to China.”

Peter Cappelli, George W. Taylor Professor of Management at The Wharton School and Director of Wharton’s Center for Human Resources says, “They [Indian Companies] are aware that there are markets that have not been exploited, and they want to take advantage of them, but not if foreigners get one hundred percent of the profits,” explains Peters. He further adds, “That way, they guarantee that India will not be sold off to foreigners.” He says India and Indian companies are giving more important to their development and are open to foreign companies to gain expertise, technology and funding while maintaining control. “India wants to create its own companies and brands, while China leaves the road wide open to foreign companies,” says Peters.

India, which is third largest economy in terms of GDP (PPP) knows that it needs a stable economy if it is dreaming of becoming a super power in every manner. A strong economy, jobs, education, food security and political stability will help India excel in the path which it has already chosen. A number of foreign acquisitions like these have helped Indian companies gain expertise, technology and management lessons which will help this country shape even more global brands in the future. Companies like Tata, Birla, Reliance and Jaypee are also determined to structure better education in India through their state of the art institutions of technology. Foreign acquisition did bring some jobs to India and more importantly India has secured and has been securing some of the key resources field around the world, that will keep feeding its giant economy in a long run.

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Russia Spy Anna Chapman

Earlier this week the breaking news exposing the spy wars revealed to public that Ryan Christopher Fogle, who was working under the guise of a third secretary at the US Embassy's political department in Moscow, was detained. Fogle was caught red-handed trying to recruit a Russian intelligence officer for the CIA.

Nabbing of a CIA agent definitely would embarrass America specially when Secretary of State John Kerry would have met Sergei Lavrov in Sweden. Sergei Lavrov would have been smiling inside his mind that his spy agency caught the other's agency's covert operation red handed. Almost as early as by  mid 2011, the Russian spy agency FSB was acquainted that the CIA was active with a mission to get or place an informer within the Russian special services. Sergei Lavrov would know how this embarrassment feels as he had faced his days when Russian spy Anna Chapman and others were found contriving illegally in America over three years ago.

Russia has said that the acquisition of the american CIA intelligence officer raised serious questions on its peace process and relationship with the United States. “We hoped our American colleagues would listen to us, given that we also presented to them precise information about CIA officers making recruitment attempts in Moscow and who exactly was doing that,” An FSB operator told Russia Today.

In an another interesting espionage mission around seven years back, UK spied on Russians with a fake rock. The rock was kept on a pavement and contained an electronic equipment controlled by British diplomats to receive and transmit information. It spied on common Russians. FSB, claimed that the rock was used by the British security services to gain information on anti Putin protests and make masked payment to such human rights organizations and NGOs. Russia later banned the foreign funding of Russian NGO's which resulted into closing of many foreign organizations.

In this case the CIA officer, operating as the third political secretary didn't execute his camouflaged actions efficaciously, and it is an appreciable success for the FSB, Russia's domestic security service and counter intelligence.

Fogle looked like a naive officer who would have been a fluent Russian speaker. What mistake he would have done could be failing to follow certain  'Moscow Rules'. It beseeches you to keep changing or vary your pattern, methods, behaviour and stay within your cover consistently alert to what is happening. This mistake caused him and CIA along with the USA a big embarrassment. Moscow Rules were the set of rules developed during cold war for those foreign intelligence officers who were working in Moscow. It was named after Moscow because Moscow had a reputation of harsh locale for arrested intelligence operators who were exposed.

Moscow Rules

1. Assume nothing.
2. Never go against your gut.
3. Everyone is potentially under opposition control.
4. Don't look back; you are never completely alone.
5. Go with the flow, blend in.
6. Vary your pattern and stay within your cover.
7. Lull them into a sense of complacency.
8. Don't harass the opposition.
9. Pick the time and place for action.
10. Keep your options open.

Political Impact

Russia and USA are involved in Spy Wars and espionage missions against each other as early as the time of second world war. Although, Russia and the US were allies against Germany, the western powers specially, the UK, were wary of the rise of communism and socialism and increased their intelligence gathering activities in Soviet Union.

Russian Foreign Ministry has expressed its disappointment over this spying scandal stating it would undermine Russia's efforts for cooperation. However, it is unlikely that any big political or policy change would come in the near future. Three years ago when Russian spy Anna Chapman was detained, who later was received in Russia as a high profile celebrity, hardly affected the two countries. Both the countries know that they are executing espionage missions and covert operation on each other's soil. The one who is able to catch these with its strong counter intelligence, would win the diplomatic row. There will be exchange of tough words for sometime before relations come back to normal. Fogle will be replaced by CIA with a more effective Russian speaking intelligence officer persevering with the spy wars trying to prove their superiority over each other. 

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