Studying Public Policy in the Indian Context

Since my undergraduate days, I've been interested in current affairs. Moving to USA, this interest grew into a passion for public policy especially after seeing how the policies and the processes associated were different in these two countries. In the past few years, I've tried to build my knowledge about the Indian  context of public policy, and a resource I greatly depended upon was Pragati (a magazine) http://pragati.nationalinterest.in/

I admire the people behind Takshashila, the institution and the group of bloggers behind Indian National Interest. During the days of lokpal struggle, I noticed their view point was different from mine. I reflected that mine was more emotional while their argument was mostly based on what works within policy context. I knew it was time for me to develop a strong foundation if I ever want to be part of the process as a bureaucrat, politician, think tank member or just as an informed citizen. When Takshashila offered a graduate certificate in public policy, I knew this was the best opportunity. I wrote the essays, and submitted the application during the last month of my MBA at CBS.

While partying in Puerto Rico, I got the good news that I'm in. Now, I'm a member of a class of 50+ students from various walks learning public policy over the summer. 

For the very first assignment on the course on Intro to Public Policy Analysis, we were asked the following questions. My answers are embedded (thrilled to get an A and start on the right foot!). The expectation is not to base it on value judgments but rather focus on the policy context.



It is not uncommon for thugs belonging to political parties to engage in violence. Such violence could range from enforcing “bandhs” to carrying out organized riots. If a thug is affiliated to a ruling party engage in acts of violence, is the state responsible?

Conclusion:
No, the state is not responsible.                                                                                  
Assumptions:

·        By “responsible” we mean the state deserves punishment.

·        The event is hypothetical or in other words, yet to happen.

Arguments:                                                                                                                                          
Based on the textbook definitions we know that State is a political union under one government. The ruling party and the government are two separate entities; even if it’s not a coalition. As such, if a thug engages in a violent act, s/he is responsible for the action and should face the consequences based on the rule of law. Also, the ruling party should take disciplinary actions against the individual in the hope of reducing the occurrences of such incidents.  In case the event has already happened and one believes the government has somehow tried/managed to undermine the rule of law then I’d believe the government deserves punishment, may be a PIL to the Supreme Court could trigger the proceedings in such a situation.

The Indian Army stages a Flag March in an area suffering from political violence. The purpose of the Flag March is to deter violence by showing its presence (and implicitly, its superior capability to use force). Peace is restored, in effect, by terrifying the population. Is this ‘state terrorism’?

Conclusion:
Yes, it is state terrorism.
Assumptions:

·        The Army’s intent to use force is established 100%

·        The people involved are all citizens of India

Arguments:   
Terrorism is defined as the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims. The state by showing intent to use force, is clearly trying to intimidate its citizens. The reason for this action may be to establish the rule of law again in the territory, however that has no bearing on whether it is terrorism or not. If one starts enveloping context around terrorism, then this definition will be a relative one which I don’t agree with. Terrorism is terrorism, regardless of who employs it and for what reason.                                                                                                                                                                 

David Pogue on Consumer Technology

A great thing about academics at CBS is its interesting courses offered by practitioners/adjunct professors.

This semester I'm taking a course by David Pogue, the famous technology columnist from NYTimes. The course focuses on consumer technology and why products become a hit or a flop. If the first lecture is any sign of what's in store, this is going to be a riot! Our first assignment was to write our own take on a consumer technology product that flopped. Here is what I wrote.

                             Google Wave -A Tsunami that never came

When I first heard about the Wave I was hooked on. Who wouldn’t when Google introduces it by saying something like, “how would email look like if we invented it today?” Wave was supposed to take over the world like a tsunami; no one at Google anticipated that it would be on life support within a year of releasing to the entire population. Reflecting back, one can identify many reasons why this failure materialized.             

What is a Wave?  
     Amazon.com makes their product managers write a press release even before first line of code is written. The idea is that if you can’t explain in simple terms what the product is and what you’re trying to solve, then something is wrong. When we look at Wave, this is the description we see - A wave is equal parts conversation and document. A wave is shared. A wave is live. It doesn’t take too much effort to figure out this is not the best written product description for a general population.  A product is not a laundry list of features. When a software product is introduced and especially when it’s something as forward looking as Wave, more thought should have given in coming up with a simpler one or two liner describing the product focusing on what it’s trying to solve or what it is offering new.                                
                                                                                                                                                   
Who uses Wave?
Wave was first previewed for developers early May 2009 and 100,000 invitations were sent out five months later. The product was opened to general public about one year later. For a product that was supposedly targeting communication and collaboration, this was a doomed release strategy. The hype in the technology community around Wave was huge around the time it was introduced. Everyone wanted to desperately get access. In hindsight, this moment should have been capitalized by Google. Instead only 100,000 invitations were sent out and that focused mainly on the developers. A better strategy would have been to identify specific communities of users/networks so that if I were given access, chances are at least some of the people whom I need to communicate/collaborate with a lot also have access. This didn’t happen till about a year later when everyone could sign up. In that one year period, the limited number of people who got access didn’t have a real use case to use the product. If only, those who got access could also import all their top Gmail contacts into Wave automatically, this was going to be a non-starter.  And that’s exactly what happened and by the time general population received access, this mistake continued. None of their current contacts in Gmail were added automatically; instead everyone had to sign up individually

How to use Wave?  
 “We built this and then put it out there to see what users would do with it”, remarked Google. This was a risky strategy and unfortunately didn’t work out for them. Regular users required at least one compelling use case and the community whom astonished at the product for its technical finesse, were not a critical mass for the product to succeed. These regular users of Gmail and other Google products were taken aback by the complexity of the product. The Wave managed to wash them away into the middle of an ocean and they had no compass either. It’s interesting to compare and contrast the case of Apple Ipad in this scenario. There was no compelling use case for this product on introduction either but the masses embraced it and created the use cases. The difference in outcome can be directly attributed to the simplicity of the Ipad in its user interface which was essentially lacking in Wave. In this aspect, ironically the wave indeed became an unmanageable tsunami within a few minutes of collaboration with multiple users and required its own time machine (Wave replay feature) to understand how it all happened in the first place.   

Overall, though Wave is a technology marvel and definitely worth a lot of potential, in its current form failed miserably as a product. I’d argue that the complexity in its design which essentially contributed to the convoluted marketing message and the wrong release strategy were the main causes for its failure. Google has done the right thing by making many of Wave’s great innovations open source and I expect this Wave will continue to evolve and someday a new Wave will be born and ready for the masses!

Sneak peak into the future

When you are deep inside this bubble called  investment banking recruiting it's difficult to plan ahead for the upcoming semester. Nevertheless, we still had to bid for courses we wish to take in the 2nd semester, and more importantly decide the destination for spring break!

Bidding for courses is a new phenomenon for me and it does become difficult to come to terms with it at times (especially when you lose!) . Even though there is great diversity in backgrounds and interests among the class of 2012, there are still many courses that fall into the trap of a supply/demand equation. For instance, Professor Greenwald's course on Value Investing is legendary around here. When you stick a rumor (or fact maybe) that he is taking a sabbatical after next semester... you get the idea. Many of my friends who bid >3000 points (which is ~25% of your total available bid points) still ended up empty handed as the course cleared over 5000 points! Initially I thought about bidding for the course (and most likely not win) but then I decided against it. I wanted to focus on taking courses that might help me perform better during my summer internship in an investment bank (if I'm fortunate to get one, touch wood!).  I got lucky and got all that I bid for- Capital Markets & Investments by Professor Tetlock, Financial Statements Analysis & Valuation by Professor Katz and Consumer Technology by David Pogue (New York Times Technology columnist). There are a few more courses we had to bid for and those bidding results are due in a few days.

Moving on to more fun things, I had to decide whether to participate in the lottery for Chazen study tours. Chazen study tour is basically a week long trip to experience the business and culture of a new country. Some of the main attractions about these trips are the opportunities we get to interact with senior managements of the top/most exciting companies in that area and also meet with  the senior political leaders of that country. The main attraction is of course the cultural exposure you get to experience and share with your friends from CBS! For the spring, we were offered trips to Italy, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Mexico. Most of them had a selection process that included a lottery or an application. (When you decide to attend an MBA program, get ready to accept  this as a fact of life- there is more demand than supply for all things worthy, except beer during happy hour!) All that said, I was in two minds about applying for the trip. On one hand, I had missed out on the awesome CBS World Tour and I was excited about traveling with friends from CBS. But then, for good or bad, Chazen didn't allow significant others to accompany us on the tour.  I was looking forward to spending time with my wife without stressing about internships and academics etc. Finally, my wife and I decided that it will be a good experience for me to take part in the Chazen trip :-) So I applied and was lucky enough to win the lottery for the Israel trip (my first choice!). Yay! The itinerary is exceptional- check it out here

So it's going to be a great start to a new year! Now before I start thinking too much about spring break, there is still final exams, cover letters, resumes, interviews and all that jazz standing between me and 2011. So for now, back to reality.

Pre-MBA exams

So Columbia requires us to pass some exams on Finance, Accounting, Math etc before August. In June, they gave us access to some online tutorials through HBS courseware.

The accounting tutorial was pretty good. It explained concepts well but I kind of became tired by the time I reached Cash Flow statements and also the tutorial for that part didn't really help much. It took me about 10 days to go through it without putting more than 1-2 hours at a stretch.


The exam itself was some work (I printed the pdf and solved offline), I had to go back to the concepts to solve the problems. I could solve most of them except 1-2 cash flow stuff.


Finance tutorial started out nicely but by the time it started talking about projected fin. statements, I wanted to kill myself. I couldn't understand much nor the example problems in the tutorial really explain how it got those answers, ugh.

So I left it there and decided to take the exam. Luckily the exam was a breeze, it mostly focused on concepts instead of tough problems like accounting. I think I am not sure about may be 2-3 questions maximum.

Vocabulary- that's kind of a joke. The pdf tutorial has all the answers if you don't know something :)

Math- Embarrased to say this, I thought I would be solving everything in a jiffy considering my background. Long story short, I still havent solved about 5 problems.

After all this there is still some reading, some excel tutorial, some essay to write etc...