Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Real salaries of software engineers lowest in 15 years: Credit Suisse

The lure of attractive salaries, quick promotions, foreign posting and job mobility attracted lakhs of young students to India's top outsourcers, making India the back office of the global IT requirements.

Some of those charms faded over the last few years as the global economy saw sustained slowdown, but more recently, India's big outsourcers have bounced back as global demand picked up. What's missing, however, is the usual exuberance among employees associated with a change in environment.

"This time the usual acceleration in wage pressure that accompanies improving demand seems absent... We note the bargaining power of companies with respect to entry-level employees is at its peak with real wages at their lowest in more than 15 years," Credit Suisse said in a report.

The global investment bank conducted a detailed research on employment and salary patterns of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) employees and concluded that the average wage hike (7 per cent) for offshore employees in 2013-14 was at multi-year low. TCS is India's biggest outsourcer with nearly 3 lakh employess.

Entry-level salaries at TCS (adjusted for inflation) are at the lowest in 15 years, Credit Suisse found. In 1996-97, a TCS fresher was offered an entry-level salary of Rs. 1.45 lakh. This year the entry-level salary rose to Rs. 3.16 lakh, but adjusted for inflation, that amount is equivalent to a mere 1.15 lakh.

Here's what putting pressure on salaries and hiring.

1) Capacity of engineering colleges in 2013-14 rose to a whopping15 lakh as against 6 lakh in 2006-07.

2) India is projected to grow at the slowest pace in over a decade in 2013-14. The sharp slowdown has meant reduced competition for engineering talent from other sectors, Credit Suisse says.

3) The fear of Immigration Bill and recent visa controversies has forced IT firms to hire more staff on client sites.

4) Changes in business model: Companies can improve utilisation because of increasing contribution from 'non-linear' models and some amount of automation, Credit Suisse says.

5) IT companies are increasingly turning to non-engineering graduates as the process of software development has become less complex in certain areas, Credit Suisse says.

A combination of these factors has led to a glut in number of graduates vying for software jobs. And unless the there's a sustained recovery in global and domestic economies, the much aspired job in Bangalore and Hyderabad could soon lose its charm.

Monday, November 25, 2013

Recruitment at financial firms

A kinder, more restful capitalism

Banks try to assuage the misgivings of the best and the brightest









GOLDMAN SACHS, explains Lloyd Blankfein, its boss, is for people “interested in serving something greater than their own personal interest”. This message is conveyed to potential hires in a short film shown at recruiting events and posted on the “careers” page of the bank’s website. The film suggests that life at Goldman is mainly about getting socially useful projects off the ground. Volunteering for charity features prominently. Making money for the firm or for those who work there is scarcely mentioned. “That’s why you come and work at Goldman Sachs, because you can make a difference in the world,” the promo concludes.
Thus financial firms are selling themselves to would-be employees this recruiting season, which is well under way at universities around the world. The firms in question, aware that the financial crisis has taken a toll on their reputations, are at pains to correct students’ misapprehensions. “You may read certain things in the newspapers,” announces one evangelist, “But I’m here to tell you all what it’s really like to work for us.” The usual buzzwords—“passion”, “solutions” and “client-first”—pop up. All the presenters stress that their firm is different from the “others”.

Yet the events make clear that high finance is not about high living. According to one university careers-adviser, since the financial crisis students have become more interested in the ethics of their future employers. Banks have cottoned on, placing much more emphasis on social responsibility in their recruitment presentations. Prospective applicants learn that working for a bank will help the global economic recovery and remedy social injustice.
No expense is spared. Your correspondent, in attendance at some events, sipped fine wine and nibbled exquisite canapés (the salmon fillets served by Sanford Bernstein, a research firm, stood out). Four-course dinners are not unheard of.
Big financial firms are also promising to treat their recruits better. Bank of America promised to review working practices after the death of an intern in August. Earlier this month Goldman announced that its junior staff will no longer work between Friday night and Sunday morning—though they should still “check their BlackBerrys on a regular basis”.
In spite of the low esteem in which the public holds the finance industry, it seems to have no trouble attracting talented youth. Some 9% of the class of 2013 at Yale went into finance, as did a quarter of economics students at Oxford. Three of the ten biggest hirers of university graduates in Britain are banks, according to the Complete University Guide, a statistics website. Goldman has received more than 20,000 applications for its 350 entry-level slots in Europe this year.
Whether the new hires believe the banks’ spin, or sign up in spite of it with old-fashioned self-interest in mind, is unclear. Not all are high-minded: one guest at a recruiting event admitted attending solely for the free booze.

Monday, November 18, 2013

Logistics@Amazon

If you've ever ordered anything from Amazon, this is interesting.
 
Needle in a haystack. They know where it is.
 

As the worlds largest online retailer, Amazon needs somewhere to put all of those products. The solution? Giant warehouses. Eighty to be exact. Strategically located near key shipping hubs around the world.

The warehouses themselves are massive, with some over 1.2 million square feet in size (111,484 sq m). And at the heart of this global operation are people (over 65,000 of them), and a logistics system known as chaotic storage.

 


Chaotic storage is like organized confusion. Its an organic shelving system without permanent areas or sections. That means there is no area just for books, or a place just for televisions (like you might expect in a retail store layout). The products characteristics and attributes are irrelevant. Whats important is the unique barcode associated with every product that enters the warehouse.

 

 
Every single shelf space inside an Amazon warehouse has a barcode. And every incoming product that requires storage is assigned a specific barcode that matches the shelf space in which it will be stored. This allows free space to be filled quickly and efficiently.
 
At the heart of the operation is a sophisticated database that tracks and monitors every single product that enters/leaves the warehouse and keeps a tally on every single shelf space and whether its empty or contains a product.


 

 

There are several key advantages to the chaotic storage system. First is flexibility. With chaotic storage, freed-up space can be refilled immediately. Second is simplicity. New employees dont need to learn where types of products are located. They simply need to find the storage shelf within the warehouse. You dont need to know what the product is, just where it is. Lastly is optimization.

Amazon must handle millions and millions of orders. That means that at any given moment there is a long list of products that need to be picked from the shelves and prepared for shipment.

Since there is a database that knows every product required for shipment and the location of each product inside the warehouse, an optimized route can be provided to employees responsible for fulfilment.

 


Since Amazon deals with such a wide variety of products there are a few exceptions to the rule. Really fast-moving articles do not adhere to the same storage system since they enter and leave the warehouse so quickly. Really bulky and heavy products still require separate storage areas and perishable goods are not ideal for obvious reasons.

 

In this storage system a wide variety of products can be found located next to each other. A necklace could be located beside a DVD and underneath a set of power tools. This arbitrary placement can even help with accuracy as it makes mix-ups less likely when picking orders for shipment.

Overall its a fascinating system that at its core is powered by a complex database yet run by a simple philosophy. Its Chaotic Storage. There
​'​
s no better way to put it :)

Saturday, November 16, 2013

Is there an afterlife? Science can prove there is, quantum physicist claims

LONDON: It's a question pondered by philosophers, scientists and the devout since the dawn of time: is there an afterlife?


Is there an afterlife? Science can prove there is, quantum physicist claims
Professor Robert Lanza says biocentrism explains that the universe only exists because of an individual’s consciousness of it — essentially life and biology are central to reality, which in turn creates the universe; the universe itself does not create life.




While the religious would argue that life on earth is a mere warm up for an eternity spent in heaven or hell, and many scientists would dismiss the concept for lack of proof — one expert claims he has definitive evidence to confirm once and for all that there is indeed life after death.

The answer, Professor Robert Lanza says, lies in quantum physics — specifically the theory of biocentrism. The scientist, from Wake Forest University School of Medicine in North Carolina, says the evidence lies in the idea that the concept of death is a mere figment of our consciousness.

Professor Lanza says biocentrism explains that the universe only exists because of an individual's consciousness of it — essentially life and biology are central to reality, which in turn creates the universe; the universe itself does not create life. The same applies to the concepts of space and time, which Professor Lanza describes as "simply tools of the mind".

In a message posted on the scientist's website, he explains that with this theory in mind, the concept of death as we know it is "cannot exist in any real sense" as there are no true boundaries by which to define it. Essentially, the idea of dying is something we have long been taught to accept, but in reality it just exists in our minds.

Professor Lanza says biocentrism is similar to the idea of parallel universes — a concept hypothesised by theoretical physicists. In much the same way as everything that could possibly happen is speculated to be occurring all at once across multiple universes, he says that once we begin to question our preconceived concepts of time and consciousness, the alternatives are huge and could alter the way we think about the world in a way not seen since the 15th century's "flat earth" debate.

He goes on to use the so-called double-slit experiment as proof that the behaviour of a particle can be altered by a person's perception of it. In the experiment, when scientists watch a particle pass through a multi-holed barrier, the particle acts like a bullet travelling through a single slit. When the article is not watched, however, the particle moves through the holes like a wave.

Scientists argue that the double-slit experiment proves that particles can act as two separate entities at the same time, challenging long-established ideas of time and perception.

Although the idea is rather complicated, Professor Lanza says it can be explained far more simply using colours. Essentially, the sky may be perceived as blue, but if the cells in our brain were changed to make the sky look green, was the sky every truly blue or was that just our perception?

In terms of how this affects life after death, Professor Lanza explains that, when we die, our life becomes a "perennial flower that returns to bloom in the multiverse". He added: "Life is an adventure that transcends our ordinary linear way of thinking. When we die, we do so not in the random billiard-ball-matrix but in the inescapable-life-matrix."

Professor Lanza's theory is explained in full in his book Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe.

Monday, November 11, 2013

I never knew HAIER was such a good company

Haier and higher

The radical boss of Haier wants to transform the world’s biggest appliance-maker into a nimble internet-age firm



“NO URINATION or defecation in the working area.” That admonition was among 13 rules that managers felt necessary to post on the walls of a shambolic fridge factory in Qingdao in the early 1980s. After several senior managers failed to turn it around, in 1984 the municipal government of the Chinese city appointed a young employee, Zhang Ruimin, as the firm’s boss. The gamble worked. Since then a lousy local firm has turned into the world’s biggest appliance-maker.
Most think of Chinese companies as peddlers of cheap, undifferentiated kit or mere copycats. In contrast, Haier is recognised globally for reliability and marketing know-how. Mr Zhang had spent time in quality-obsessed Germany, where he observed that even manhole covers were precisely made and numbered. It made a deep impression. Incensed that a fifth of the products his plant turned out were defective, in 1985 he handed out sledgehammers and joined employees in smashing 76 faulty fridges in public view. That won him national celebrity and was the start of the firm’s transformation.

Haier became China’s biggest fridge-maker in 1999 in part by acquiring lots of loss making local rivals. Mr Zhang looked for firms with strong products and markets but inept leadership—“stunned fish”, he calls them—that could be turned around by superior management. His un-Chinese obsession with quality and branding helped, earning his products a premium even during periodic price wars. He also emphasised top-flight service, rare in China, promising that machines would be free if not delivered within 24 hours.
Now comes Mr Zhang’s latest radical notion: eliminating the firm’s entire middle management. But surely it is barmy to tinker with a successful business model? A close inspection of the firm’s rise reveals that Mr Zhang has never adhered to conventional wisdom.
Mr Zhang also defied Chinese notions of how to expand overseas. Rather than go first to less competitive regions like South-East Asia and Africa, Haier long ago pushed into America and Europe. Mr Zhang wanted the firm to learn how to meet the demands of the world’s most sophisticated consumers. Haier’s quality exceeded norms set even by Japan’s exacting standards bodies.
By listening closely to demanding consumers, his firm’s fast and frugal engineers came up with clever products like mini-fridges built into computer tables (for students), freezers with a slightly warmer compartment (for keeping ice cream soft) and horizontal deep freezers with two tiers of drawers (for Americans too lazy to dig to the bottom). Haier also developed new niches, such as affordable wine fridges, ignored by Western rivals obsessed with economies of scale. It is now pioneering wireless charging of appliances.
The results of Mr Zhang’s unconventional strategy have been breathtaking. Haier’s revenues have shot up fourfold since 2000, topping 160 billion yuan ($26 billion) last year (see chart). Pre-tax profits rose more than sixfold over the same period. It was judged the eighth most innovative firm worldwide, ahead of Amazon among others, in a ranking drawn up last year by the Boston Consulting Group. And now KKR, a private-equity giant, is investing in the firm. It has stumped up $500m for a 10% stake, if the rumours are correct.
Most bosses would be satisfied with such a record, but not Mr Zhang. Though in his 60s, he still works nearly every day and he rarely takes a holiday. And far from resting on his laurels, he is occupied reinventing his business. The point of killing middle management is to make the firm more responsive, he says: “In the past, employees waited to hear from the boss; now, they listen to the customer.”
Previously, the firm’s 80,000 or so workers toiled in traditional and distinct areas like manufacturing, sales and so on. Now, they are organised into 2,000 zi zhu jing ying ti (ZZJYTs)—self-managed teams that perform many different roles. Each is responsible for profit and loss, and individuals are paid on performance. In the past, managers relied on internal support services for, say, research or marketing. To encourage open innovation, the firm insists the new ZZJYTs must attract outside partners and resources.
If ambitious employees spot an opportunity, they are free to propose an idea for a new product or service. A vote, which can include not just employees but suppliers and customers, decides which project goes ahead. The winner also becomes the project’s leader. He forms his team by recruiting from across the company; employees are free to join or leave ZZJYTs. Mr Zhang says the goal is “a free market in talent, so the cream rises.”
He explains why such disruption is necessary: “If we don’t challenge ourselves, someone else will.” If that sounds like talk straight out of Silicon Valley, in a sense it is. He is convinced that if Haier is to flourish in the internet age, it must become a services company. He even thinks it can mine user information to become a “big data” firm, to serve customers even better.
How exactly does Mr Zhang intend to strike a balance between the chaotic entrepreneurial energy released by the ZZJYTs and the need for corporate control at the top? “We don’t need to balance!”, he says with a smile. “An unsteady and dynamic environment is the best way to keep everyone flexible.” If you doubt his seriousness, just consider the catfish.
Yang Lin, who started at the firm 12 years ago as a technician, won the contest to become the head of the team for automatic top-loading washing machines. He works extremely hard, he says, not only to earn his bonus but also to stay ahead of the catfish. That is what the firm calls the person with a rival idea who came second in the voting. He works on the victor’s team but watches for any chance to unseat him.
Does this upset Mr Yang? “I can’t run things like an emperor,” he reflects, “but I don’t mind. In fact, I’m a catfish to other teams myself.” It’s fish-eat-fish at the heart of the world’s most successful white-goods firm.

Sunday, November 10, 2013

Marvel Food : SOYLENT

Eat to live? That is so yesterday



The lab-grown burger bankrolled by Google's Sergey Brin may not have come to India but another Silicon Valley food innovation — Soylent — has. A liquid meal being touted as the future of food, Soylent has made several Indian techies give up eating. 

Twenty-seven-year-old Shirsendu Karmakar was fed up of thinking what to eat, from where and then how to clean up the mess while he was clocking almost 18 hours of work a day (he has a regular 10-6 job and then works into the wee hours on his dream start-up). A bachelor, living with three others, food was a nuisance rather than a sensory pleasure. "Why should I have to think so much about food every time I feel hungry? I am not living in the 20th century. 

There should be a default response for hunger," says Karmakar who lives in Delhi. Then he re a d ab o u t Soylent on Hacker News and it was as if his wish had come true. He read up the recipe, cooked a two-week batch, and in September started drinking Soylent instead of eating regular food. He has been on and off it. "I usually make a two-week batch. Then I take a week's break for cooking more and then again I am on it for two weeks," says Karmakar. 

Achal Agarwal's reasons for going off food were similar. "Food took up so much mental space and time that I wanted to see how my life will change if I removed food from the equation," says 27-year-old Aggarwal who is co-founder of Airwoot, a Delhi-based social customer support company. He went off food from September 15 to October 1. "I had only five conventional meals during this 45 day period," says Aggarwal. He adds that not eating also reduced his carbon footprint, as he is not using fuel to procure food and cook it. "Now I look at eating food as a leisure activity to be pursued when I have time," he adds. The first few days he had to battle cravings but over the time his system got used to the new food. 

An interesting and ironic spin-off of going without food for 30-year-old Harsh Batra, director of EthosData Limited in Delhi, has been renewed respect for food. "Now when I have regular food, say once a week, the experience is amazing. Never has food tasted so good," says Batra who has been taking Soylent since September. His motivation was convenience and better sports performance. Batra works out every day and plays cricket, and after the first month of consuming Soylent he says his performance on the pitch improved remarkably. The effect, however, didn't last. Now, he is looking for a sports scientist who can tweak his Soylent formula to enhance sports performance. 

All these three men decided to ditch food after reading about the potion that Rob Rhinehart, a San Franciscobased techie, had developed because he wanted nutrition without the hassle of food. The 25-year-old studied the recommended daily requirements of nutrients for a healthy male, as listed by the Institute of Medicine, and came up with a formula, which is a cocktail of carbohydrates, fats, proteins, sugars, vitamins and minerals. It's in powder form but consumed as a drink like any other protein shake. The name 'Soylent' is taken from a 1964 novel 'Make Room! Make Room!' by Harry Harrison. In the book Soylent is made from soy and lentils as a cheap food for the masses. 

While Soylent may do little to address the problem of food security, for Rhinehart it has emerged as a sound business proposition, securing $1.5 million in seed capital from venture capital and angel investor firms in Silicon Valley. 

Rhinehart experimented with Soylent for 30 days in January-February this year and blogged about it. In o n e p o s t he wrote: "Monthly I was spending about $220 on groceries, and another $250 eating out for lunch and the occasional dinner. Consuming only Soylent costs me about $50/month." Like Rhinehart, Batra has been painstakingly logging details of his Soylent experiment on Facebook. He regularly uploads his blood test results. "My cholesterol levels were always high but now I see an improvement. However, my liver function count has come below the healthy range," says Batra, whose girlfriend has also started taking Soylent. "She wants to lose weight," he adds. Consuming Soylent does lead to fat loss, as you are not eating fatty foods. He carries his jar of Soylent to dinners and parties with friends and family. "It has become a great conversation starter," says Batra laughing. Since Soylent currently does not have the FDA's approval to sell outside the US, Indians are making their own formula by sourcing locally available ingredients. Consuming Soylent costs roughly Rs 500 a day — quite economical considering the spiralling prices of vegetables and groceries. 

Nutritionists may be divided on the risks of giving up food but for Karmakar the experiment has worked out well so far. He says it has helped him stave off allergies. "The level of allergens in my blood came down," says Karmakar. Aggarwal reported fewer headaches. His colleague and co-founder of Airwoot, Saurabh Arora, says that during the 45-day period Aggarwal performed better at work. "He reported fewer errors and submitted his code earlier than usual," says Arora. 

Dr Devashish Saini, MD internal medicine, says that as long as the body is getting all the essential nutrition the means should not be a problem. "The human body has the capacity to adapt to new ways of metabolism. For example, astronauts take food in form of pills. There may be issues with satiety though," he says. 

Taste is a sacrifice that Soylent drinkers say they are ready to make in order to revolutionize the idea of food.

Good teachers have a surprisingly big impact on their pupils’ future income







THERE are few policy questions to which improving the quality of education is not a reasonable answer. Yet assessing teachers is far from straightforward. Pupils’ grades or test scores may reflect any of a host of influences, not just the standard of instruction. Neither can one take for granted that good teaching, however it is measured, will translate into better lives for its recipients. In two new working papers , Raj Chetty and John Friedman of Harvard University and Jonah Rockoff of Columbia University deploy some statistical wizardry to tease out the value of teaching (see sources below). Good teachers, they find, are worth their weight in gold.
School systems often try to assess the quality of their teachers by measuring “value added”: the effect a given teacher has on pupils’ test scores. Research is divided on whether this makes sense. Critics reckon that pupils with particular backgrounds—from richer families, for instance, or with more attentive parents—wind up in classrooms with better teachers. If so, the teachers who excel in assessments of value added may simply be teaching more privileged pupils. Messrs Chetty, Friedman and Rockoff try first to settle this debate.

The researchers then go hunting for bias: the possibility that good teacher scores actually reflect the lucky circumstances of their pupils. Using data from income-tax records, the authors show that the characteristics of pupils’ parents, such as family income, do not generally predict how teachers perform. They also use changes in the average quality of a school’s teaching staff from year to year (from the movement of a particularly good teacher to a different school, for instance) to check their findings. When the average quality of teachers in fourth grade falls from one year to the next, for example, the performance of the fourth-graders also drops as expected.
To do so, the economists draw on a substantial data-set from a large, urban American school district, which they do not name. It covers 20 years of results and takes in more than 2.5m pupils. The data include teacher assignments and their pupils’ test scores from third to eighth grade (ages eight to 14, roughly speaking). The authors dig into the mountain of numbers to calculate the effect each teacher has on their pupils’ performance, after adjusting for demography and previous test scores. Previous scores, they reckon, do a good job of capturing the various external influences pupils bring to the classroom, from how well-nourished they are to how good their former teachers were. The authors also control for “drift”, or the fact that more recent test scores are better reflections of a teacher’s effectiveness than older ones, perhaps because the quality of an individual’s teaching tends to change a bit over time. In the end they produce a value-added score for every teacher in their sample.
A bias-free measure of teacher quality allows the economists to wring fascinating conclusions from their data-set. They find, for instance, that the quality of teachers varies much more within schools than among them: a typical school has teachers spanning 85% of the spectrum for the school system as a whole. Not only do teachers matter, in other words, but the best teachers are not generally clumped within particular schools.
Across schools, however, better pupils are assigned to slightly better teachers on average. The common practice of “tracking” pupils (filtering good ones into more advanced courses) could be to blame, the authors reckon, though they abstain from drawing firm conclusions. Whatever the cause, getting more effective teachers to instruct better-performing pupils naturally exacerbates the gap in achievement. Making the best teachers work with the worst pupils could go a long way toward minimising the yawning differences in attainment within a school system, the authors contend.
At the very least, that change would be lucrative for the pupils who benefit from it, according to the researchers’ second paper. They compare their measure of teacher quality against pupils’ fortunes as adults, after again controlling for pupils’ previous test scores and demography. (Pupils from the earliest years of their sample are now in their late 20s.) Unsurprisingly, exposure to better teachers is associated with an increased probability of attending university and, among pupils who go on to university, with attendance at better ones, as well as with higher earnings. Somewhat more unexpectedly, good teachers also seem to reduce odds of teenage pregnancy and raise participation in retirement-savings plans. Effects seem to be stronger for girls than for boys, and English teachers have a longer-lasting influence on their pupils’ futures than maths teachers.
The authors reckon that swapping a teacher at the bottom of the value-added spectrum with one of average quality raises the collective lifetime income of each class they teach by $1.4m. That rise would apply across all the teacher’s classes and over the whole of his or her career.
Pay peanuts, create monkeys
Given the stakes, the salary rises needed to coax teachers into accepting rigorous assessment and performance-linked pay—often hard sells in unionised school systems—seem a bargain. Performance bonuses designed to retain good teachers make less sense. Since 91% of teachers in a third year of teaching stay for a fourth, most of the expense of a bonus programme is wasted. Replacing teachers who score badly is cheaper and more effective, provided that administrators can get around strict union rules on sackings. Though not easy, school reforms that identify good teachers and assign them to struggling pupils should pay off handsomely.

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

THE ENDURING RELEVANCE OF SARDAR VALLABHBHAI PATEL ::: NANI A. PALKHIVALA

THE ENDURING RELEVANCE OF SARDAR
VALLABHBHAI PATEL

NANI A. PALKHIVALA

            I FEEL PRIVILEGED and hon­onred to be asked to deliver the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Memorial Lecture this year. The series started in 1955, and eminent men have spoken in the past decades on various matters of vital importance and significance.

            Looking to the state of our democ­racy today, I thought no topic would be of greater importance than the endur­ing relevance of Sardar Patel. More than ever before, we need to recall what he stood for and tirelessly strove to create. “My life is my message.” said Mahatma Gandhi, and Sardar Patel could have said the same.

            To question the enduring rele­vance of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel to India today is like questioning the rele­vance of the sun to the solar system. You cannot conceive of a solar system without the sun, and you cannot con­ceive of modern India without Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.

            In recent world history, two events have thrown up a striking galaxy of talent. The first was when the thir­teen colonies in America were fighting for their independence. From 1776 to 1783 the United States of America (as it came to be known later) produced an extraordinary cluster of outstanding men who were the founders of the great republic. In the twenty-five years between 1922 and 1947. India had a comparable galaxy of talent – no inferior to that which America produced ­and our leaders combined talent with sterling character. Undoubtedly Sardar Patel was in the top rank.

            Sardar Patel was one of the founders of our Constitution. Luckily the Constitution was drafted by the Constituent Assembly which was not elected on the basis of adult franchise. First-rate minds were hand-picked from all parts of India–for their knowledge, vision and dedication. After three years of laborious and painful toil, they completed the drafting of the Constitu­tion which a former Chief Justice rightly described as “sublime”. It was the longest Constitution in the world, till the new Constitution of Yugoslavia came into force a few years before the dismemberment of that ill-starred country.

            Consider the sharp contrast be­tween India in 1947 and the British Colonies in America after their success­ful war of independence. They started with every conceivable disadvantage. They were just a loose alliance of thir­teen sovereign states bound only by articles of confederation. The thirteen Colonies had no unified nationality, no head of state, no central government, no central judiciary, no national cur­rency, no common system of taxation. In the summer of 1787, the delegates in Philadelphia drafted a document only seven Articles long, which, with its twenty-seven amendments, has lasted more than two centuries and continues to be the fundamental laws of the world’s most powerful democracy.

            The story of Sardar Patel’s life is easily told. The traditional date of his birth is 31st October 1875. But really speaking, nobody knows the exact day on which he was born. The traditional date is what he gave for his matricula­tion examination and he never changed it -  rather typical of the constancy which characterized his mental make-up.


            Sardar Patel was born to parents who were deeply religious. It is remark­able how frequently the children of deeply religious parents fare well in life. Vallabhbhai himself became the archi­tect of modern India, while his brother, Vithalbhai, was the first Speaker of the Central Legislature. Vallabhbhai was a very affectionate man, though there were not many occasions when he displayed his affectionate nature. He has a very fine sense of humour. Mahatma Gandhi was gone on record to say that during the sixteen months when he was in jail, he was kept in peals of laughter by Vallabhbhai who was a co-inmate.

            Vallabhbhai never courted pub­licity. He never projected himself any­where but quietly did his work. He was a true Karmayogi. After he became a widower at the age of thirty-three, the only love in his life was his motherland to which he was passionately devoted.

            He has three great ambitions. First of all, he wanted to consolidate India. In the five thousand years of its history, India was never united it had always been a group of different states. Vallabhbhai wanted to bring into exis­tence a united, homogeneous India when it become a republic in 1950.

            The Times (of London) said that Vallabhbhai’s achievement of the inte­gration of the Indian States would rank with that of Bismarck and probably higher. The Manchester Guardian rightly said:

            “Without Patel, Gandhiji’s idea would have had less practical influence and Nehru’s idealism less scope. Patel was not only the organiser of the fight for freedom but also the architect of the new State when the fight was over. The same man is seldom successful as rebel and statesman. Sardar Patel was the exception.”

            While launching the PEPSU Union at Patiala, Sardar Patel said:

            “This is the first time in history, after centuries that India can call itself an integrated whole in the real sense of the term ... We must work with unity. If we falter or fail, we shall consign our­selves to eternal shame and disgrace.

            His second ambition was to en­sure the survival of a united country through the instrument of a strong civil service. He conceived of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in place of the Indian Civil Service (ICS); and it was he who also conceived of the Indian Police Service (IPS). Both these services are very much extant today and have enabled India to survive as a democratic state, while the fortunes of political parties keep changing.

            His third ambition was to make India economically strong, prosperous and progressive. This ambition was not fulfilled. After the death of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel on 15th December 1950, the Government consciously dis­carded the economic policies of the Sardar and adopted a sterile form of socialism which was the bane of India till the present Government started its new policy of liberalization.

            The nation has not realized the greatness of Vallabhbhai as it should have done. If Vallabhbhai had not lived. India would not be what it is today. He aimed at integration in two ways – not only territorial integration, but the in­tegration of the different communities by developing a sense of national iden­tity. There were 554 Indian States which comprised two-thirds of India, while only one-third was British India. He brought all of them together, while continuing to remain on terms of mutual affection and respect with the former Rulers. When the Russian leader Khrushchev visited India in 1956, he expressed his surprise that India had managed to liquidate the Princely States without liquidating the Princes.

            Sardar Patel was also the Chair­man of the Minorities Sub-Committee of the Constituent Assembly. He sought to forge communal integration. He made different communities give up their claim for separate electorates.Even the spokesman of the Parsis had in mind a separate electorate. But Val­labhbhai merely smiled at the ridicu­lous idea and the matter was, not dis­cussed again. The Parsis were a micro­scopic minority, but the Muslims, the Sikhs and the Christians were in substantial numbers. Even in those days the Sikhs demanded Khalistan. Sardar Patel dealt with the problem with great understanding. He went to the heart of the Sikh hinterland. He talked to the Sikhs in Amritsar and impressed upon them how we all have to live together as brothers and sisters. The passionate plea of Sardar Patel worked. In a powerful speech he made at Patiala in October 1947 he said that we should not involve ourselves in end­less disputes and that we could not afford to follow the mirage of “stans” like Khalistan, Sikhistan or Jatistan. He pointed out that such separatism could only turn India into “Pagalis­tan”, a land of lunatics.

            He was a true leader, in the sense that he did not flatter the people but plainly told them where they were wrong. In August 1947 he said again in ringing words how and why India could not be divided. India, he said, is one and indivisible. You cannot divide the sea or split the running waters of a river. He said this not merely to the Muslims and the Sikhs but also to the Hindus when the RSS made a strong plea that India should become a Hindu state. His words were:

            “We in the Government have been dealing with the RSS movement. They want that Hindu Rajya or Hindu culture should be imposed by force. No Government can tolerate this.”

            Valabhbhai was not against any­body except the fanatic. If you were a fanatic he was against you, whether you were a Hindu or a Muslim or a Sikh. It is wrong to portray him as being anti-Muslim. Vallabhbhai, as the Home Minister, had the courage to ban the RSS. That conclusively shows how totally secular and non-communal Sardar Patel was in his approach. He told the Hindu Mahasabha:

            “If you think that you are the only custodians of Hinduism, you are mis­taken. Hinduism preaches a broader outlook on life. There is much more of tolerance in Hinduism than is sup­posed.”

            In his speech in January 1948 at Calcutta, Sardar Patel warned the country that there could never be any serious talk of a Hindu state. India had elected to be a secular state. He sol­emnly declared:

            “If the Government could not act as trustee for the entire population ir­respective of caste, religion or creed, it does not deserve to continue for a single day.”

            In 1947 when people were jubi­lant that we attained swaraj, there were two persons who struck a note of dis­sent – Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel. The response of Sardar Patel to independence gained in 1947 was memorable:

            “What we have is not swaraj, but only freedom from foreign rule. The people have still to win internal swaraj, abolish distinctions of caste or creed, banish untouchability, improve the lot of the hungry masses, and live as one joint family – in short to create a new way of life and bring about a change of heart and a change of outlook.”

            To Sardar Patel, the unity and integrity of India was of paramount importance. He shared the view of the Indian thinker who, when he was told that the British divide and rule, gave the profound response. “No, it is not the British who divide and rule. It is we who divide and they rule.” That is why he was against the creation of lin­guistic States. In December 1949, the Working Committee of the Congress directed that a separate Andhra State should be created forthwith. In spite of this directive, Sardar Patel took no ac­tion. On the contrary, he criticized openly this directive of his own party. At a public meeting in Trivandrum in May 1950 he said:

            “Some people say they want provinces on a linguistic basis like Andhra, Tamil and Kerala. What will be its effect in the North or in the West nobody cares to consider. We should cease to think in terms of different states or provinces. Instead we should think that we are Indians and should develop a sense of unity.”

            While the unification and inte­gration of India was his greatest achievement, only next in importance was his creation of a strong and independent civil service. He trusted and respected the officers and gained their affection and deep regard. This put the civil servants on their honour to work for him to the limit of their capacity and never, as far as humanly possible, to let him down. H.V.R. Iyengar in his “Administration in India - A Historical Review” relates one typical incident:

            “On one occasion. I took a decision in his absence and reported it to him afterwards. He told me that if he had been consulted he would not have taken that decision. I was very un­happy about this, but he asked me not to worry and said that every human being makes mistakes. When the mat­ter subsequently came before the Cabi­net he told them that the decision was his, and there the matter ended.”

            In Sardar Patel’s words, “The most dangerous thing in a democracy is to interfere with the Services. “If today the police force is wholly demor­alized in most States, it is entirely due to the political interference by ministers and other politicians in the discharge by the police of their professional duties.

            The greatest tragedy of India has been that Sardar Patel’s economic poli­cies were not implemented. His realism and pragmatism in economic matters were foolishly ignored after his death, as I have said earlier.

            Sardar Patel never posed as a socialist. He had no property of his own, except his personal belongings. Once an ardent socialist approached him with an appeal to abolish inequal­ity of wealth and cited as an instance that X was master of several millions. The Sardar let him expatiate on the dis­tribution of surplus wealth. When he had finished, Sardar Patel coolly looked at him and said:         

            “I know the extent of X’s wealth. If all of it were distributed equally among the people of India, your share would be about four annas and three pies. I am willing to give it to you from my own pocket if you undertake to talk no more about this.”

            He wanted to purge capitalism of its ugly face. But he realized that wealth has to be created first, before it can be distributed.

            So long as Sardar Patel was alive, there was no nationalization. He said:

            “Some people want us to nation­alize an industry. How are we to run nationalized industries if we cannot run our ordinary administration? It is easy to take over any industry we want to, but we do not have the resources to run them, enough experienced men, men of expertise and integrity.”

            Sardar Patel started the Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC) because he wanted a fair deal to be given to labour. But he was not in the popularity contest and he had no patience with people who were. He was against the mindless calls for strikes made by trade union leaders who lived in a thought-free zone. He said in Cal­cutta in January 1948:

            “Regarding strikes, I feel that it is deplorable that they have been made so cheap. They are now props of lead­ership of labour and have ceased to be a legitimate means of redressing griev­ances of labour ... The maxim should be “produce and then distribute equitably”. Instead they fight before even producing wealth. It is to restore sanity and a fair deal between labour and em­ployers and to give a correct lead to labour that we set up the Indian National Trade Union Congress.”

            To Sardar Patel, the plighted word was sacred: he never broke his word. He had a sense of honour and good faith which successive govern­ments so sadly lacked. He never dreamt that the promise contained in Article 291 of the Constitution to give privy purses to the Princes would be broken later. The aggregate amount of privy purses guaranteed to the Rulers of different States came to an insignificant sum of less than Rupees Five Crores. Rulers died in normal course, and the privy purse was reduced when their successors were recognised as Rulers. Yet, the then Government abolished privy purses disregarding the constitutional mandate. Referring to the guarantee regarding pensions to the covenanted services, which was to be embodied in Article 314, Sardar Patel said in the Constituent Assembly on 10th October 1949:

            “Have you read history? Or, is it that you do not care for recent his­tory after you have begun to make history? If you do that, then I tell you we have a dark future. Learn to stand upon your pledged word...Can you go behind these things? Have morals no place in the new Parliament? Is that how we are going to begin our new freedom? Do not take a lathi and say  “Who is to give you a guarantee? We are a Supreme Parliament.” Have you supremacy for this kind of thing? – To go behind your word? – If you do that, that supremacy will go down in a few days.”

            Like Article 291, Article 314 was also brazenly deleted after the Sardar’s death.

            In 1950, the last year of his life, Sardar Patel repeatedly expressed his total disillusionment with the debased standards of politicians and the mal­functioning of Indian democracy. On 27th May 1950 at Porbandar (Gandhiji’s home town), in a mood of introspection, he said:

            “We have not digested Gandhiji’s teachings. We are merely imitating. We have adult franchise but do not know how to use it. If we continue to indulge in personal jealousies and power-hunt­ing, we shall turn into poison what Gandhiji had got for us.

            “During the last three years we have worked in a manner which has brought us only shame. We have strayed from the right road and must get back to it and understand Gandhiji’s teachings and apply them in life.”

            The last Independence Day mes­sage which Sardar Patel delivered was on 15th August 1950. His eloquent words deserve to be taught and read in every school and college. They come from the deep anguish in his heart, and require to be quoted in extenso:

            “Certain tendencies and develop­ments in our administrative and public affairs fill me with some disquiet and sadness of heart. The country can realize the feelings of one who has spent the major part of his public life in witnessing epics of sacrifice and selfless endeavour and feats of discipline and unity and who now finds enacted before him scenes which mock at the past.

            “Our public life seems to be de­generated into a fen of stagnant wa­ters; our conscience is troubled with doubts and despair about the possibilities of improvement. We do not seem to be profiting either from history or experience. We appear helplessly to be watching the sickle of time taking away, the rich corn, leaving behind the bare and withered stalks.

            “Yet the tasks that confront us are as complex and taxing as ever. They demand the best in us while we face them with indifferent resources. We seem to devote too much time to things that hardly matter and too little to those that count. We talk, while the paramount need is that of action. We are critical of other people’s exertions, but lack the will to contribute our own. We are trying to overtake others by giant strides while we have hardly learnt to walk...

            “On this, the third milestone of our career as a free country. I hope my countrymen will forgive me, if I have tried to turn their searchlight inwards. In my life, I have now reached a stage when time is of the essence. Age has not diminished the passion which I bear to see my country great and to ensure that the foundations of our freedom are well and securely laid. Bodily infirmity has not dimmed my ardour to exert my utmost for the peace, prosperity and advancement of the Motherland. But ‘the bird of time has a little way to fly, and lo! it is on the wing’.

            “With all the sincerity and ear­nestness at my command and claiming the privilege of age, I, therefore, appeal to my fellow countrymen on this solemn and auspicious day to reflect on what they see in and around themselves and with the strength and faith that comes from self-introspection, sustain the hope and confidence which an old servant of theirs still has in the future of our country.”

            He had the strength to speak out bluntly and fearlessly, to his own party. At the Nasik session of the Congress on 19th September 1950, he said:

            “The goal of Purna Swaraj must claim our constant attention. The ques­tion which every Congressman must ask himself, or herself, is whether we have met this claim or demand. If we are honest with ourselves and true to our conscience, I am afraid, the reply must be in the negative. The greatest danger to the Congress comes from within rather than without.”

            Our greatest tragedy is that the lessons taught by this outstanding Indian patriot and statesman who unquestionably ranks in the world class, are so little remembered today.

            Winston Churchill said that one of the marks of true greatness is the impact which a man makes on his con­temporaries. By this test, Sardar Patel must be regarded as one of the greatest Indians of this century.

            “Jawaharlal is a thinker and Sardar is a doer,” said Gandhiji at the Karachi session of the Congress in 1931. The Sardar was also a thinker but not an impractical visionary.

            Lord Wavell wrote in his diary that Sardar Patel “is certainly the most impressive of the Congress leaders and has the best balance.” The Sardar shared Wavell’s belief that India can be governed firmly or not at all.

            President Rajendra Prasad wrote in May 1959:

            “That there is today an India to think and talk about, is very largely due to Sardar Patel’s statesmanship and firm administration ... Yet we are apt to ignore him.”

            The India of today is certainly not the India of Sardar Patel’s dreams. After five and forty years of independence, the picture that emerges is that of a nation potentially great but in a state of moral decay. We suffer from a fatty degeneration of conscience and an unchecked dissolution of values. We have no sense of shame or shock that under a first-class Constitution we run a third-class democracy. The country with the noblest cultural heritage has become the most criminalized and the most violent democracy on earth.

            What a transformation could be effected if we relearn the values which Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel stood for! The environment will change beyond recognition when we install dharma on the throne again. The country is crying aloud for moral leadership, fearless and forthright, which will tell the people - as Sardar Patel did - what does not flatter them and what they do not want to hear.

            Just as we celebrate 15th August as the Day of Independence, we should celebrate the anniversary of Sardar Patel’s birth - 31st October - as the Day of Inter-dependence: the dependence of the 26 States upon one another, the dependence of the numerous castes upon one another, the dependence of our manifold communities upon one another, in the sure knowledge that we are one nation. A regenerated India, freed from petty squabbles, violence and communal bitterness - and cured of the cancer of divisiveness - would be the greatest monument to the Sardar’s memory.

* This is the text of the Patel Memorial Lecture delivered in 1992 by Sri Nani Palkhivala, the renowned jurist, expert in finance and for­merly Ambassador to U.S.