Name Changes and its impact

Its the time again, when we are changing, from a Satyam to a Mahindra Satyam. Believe me the feeling is not a sense of " We are Changing" it is more of my identity will no longer exists.

Having spent 12 + years in the organization, which started of as Satyam Enterprise Solutions, We were quite proud of who were and what we did and how we were different from our parent organisation ( Satyam Computer Services).  The first pain was when we had to forgo our entity of SESL and be called SCSL, I still remember the fights i had with my room mate on being classified along with Satyam Computer Services, who at that point only did Y2K work. We were know differently and had hope to create that. 

Anyway, work took priority and was busy doing what I was best and hence did not realise when i became a Satyamite. The next 7 years are busy, until the storm of December 2008 and January 2009 hit us hard really hard. All sorts of names were being hit at us. Scam Tainted, Scammed, Fraud hit, with Tabloid of India ( TOI) and Entertainment Times ( ET) doing most of the damage, with what they called reporting. The name still meant something to the 50000+ Satyamites and to the customers who knew us like that, we were a creed. It was like a gotra for most of us, as you can understand, there were folks who had spent close to 8+ years in the organization.  So it hurt when folks did not realize to separate the perpetuator from the organization. 

It was a toughest 4 months, then Tech Mahindra came over and took us under their wings. Looks like an angel coming to help. and now we are called Mahindra Satyam. There is a sign of "We are changing" hanging on our door. and i am wondering again, what is our identity, what will we known as.

Only time will tell, if we continue to be Mahindra Satyam or change into something else. Will be succeed with this new name ? Will this name come to us as smoothly  as Satyam came over? Will our customers know us with the same confidence based on the new name? 

Wishing the best for the organisation, for i strongly believe that the organisation is above the individuals who run it or work in it. Wishing Luck

Wish us luck

The importance of WORDS

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President Obama retakes oath of office
WASHINGTON: Barack Obama was sworn into office for a second time on Wednesday, amid legal concerns raised after he and US Chief Justice John Roberts erred on one word during Tuesday's inaugural ceremony. Some constitutional scholars raised questions about whether Obama was technically the president after Roberts, attempting to recite the oath of office by memory, misplaced the word "faithfully" while administering the oath to Obama. "We believe that the oath was administered effectively and that the president was sworn in appropriately [on Tuesday]," White House chief counsel Greg Craig said in a statement. "But the oath appears in the Constitution itself. And out of an abundance of caution, because there was one word out of sequence, Chief Justice Roberts administered the oath a second time." The presidential oath set out in the US constitution states a new president must say, "I will faithfully execute the office of the president of the United States." Roberts put the word "faithfully" at the end of the sentence. Obama paused, allowing Roberts to correct himself, but then repeated the sentence as Roberts originally said the words. Most constitutional scholars said the slip-up didn't matter, because the 20th amendment to the constitution states that an incoming president takes office automatically at noon on January 20. But one expert, Boston University scholar Jack Beermann, told San Francisco Chronicle it remained an "open question" whether Obama was actually president if the oath was administered improperly. So, at 7:35pm on Wednesday evening, Justice Roberts administered the oath again — this time correctly. The scene was the White House Map Room in front of a small group of reporters, not the Capitol platform.
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Interesting continuation to the media related articles i have been writing. The emphasis of using the right word at the right place in the sentence and the importance of it when dealing with the most important man on earth. If we look back on our day to day conversations or the books we read, we do not place as much emphasis on the words that are coming out of our mouth. Infact we rarely pause to think on the words and their meanings. Esp when you are coming from India, where there are multitude of languages, we speak multiple languages, but unfortunately have little hold on a single language. To understand the nuances of the language, the pitfalls and the good and similarly use it to convey what we think.

At this stage I would like to bring to notice what Shri KM Munshi had called the Vedas in his book Krishnaavatar ( an eloquent book written on Shri Krishna), he had called the translation as the WORD. and nothing else, is it surprising that the Vedas, should be called WORD and the way the Vedas are structured in Sanskriti, each word has a meaning and each sentence is structured in a uniqued way.

So let us be more aware of what we say and what we read and how we structure our "WORDS" and most important of all, stand by the "WORDS" we are saying.

StoryLine

Today, my wife was talking about a historic story writer, not validating facts when writing the story. The story was basically talking about flora and fauna in a point of time in history, when that flora and fauna did not exist.

In today's world of the internet, it is so easy for any reader to validate these facts. And hence it becomes even more difficult for writers to write historical stories. I grew up reading stories written by Frederick Forsyth / Robin Cook / Michael Crichton. The amount of details on history they would write used to be amazing, it really was the amount of research that would have gone into making this story real. Why aren't stories written well I used to think.

Well the same applies to our newspapers, the Fourth Estate in India is nascent and I guess everybody wants to make their mark, the movie Phir Bhi Dil hai Hindustani, really captures the essense of this. Is this the reason that stories are being published instead of news reports. Will out Fourth Estate mature is the question that needs to be asked.

I just hope for you and me and our future generation, they come through

oH !! Why did you cut the tree

An intersting story of current times

There was once an enterprising man, who bought a vast land. On this vast land, he planted a tiny sapling. He saw the sapling settling in taking strong roots and firm ground. To ensure the growth of this sapling, the man got the services of a gardener. The gardener watered the sapling, provided fertilizers and set up a fence around the sapling to prevent animals from eating it. As the sapling began to grow, there were other wonderful things thats started happening. The roots went deeper and deeper in search of water and minerals for the sapling to grow to a tree. The tiny creatures in the soil allowed the roots to grow along by ensuring that weeds or other harmful creatures were destroyed to enable the roots to grow stronger.

Similarly, the sapling was growing big above the ground too, the branches started hosting a lot of birds, critters and insects within it, they ensured that the branches and trees grew too and ensured all the harmful creatures were kept away. The sapling had grown to significant large tree in a short while. The tree no longer needed the fence, but the gardner was still entrusted with the care taking of the tree. The owner of the land was very happy with the tree, the tree was full of fruits and creatures and the whole environment around the tree was a wonderful ecosystem in itself. He opened the tree for others to come and enjoy. People from far and beyond came to see this wonder, bask in its shade and smell the wonderful fragrance and take rest under it. Kids played on and around the tree. Lovers met and carved their names to ensure their love was for time immemorial. The tree in itself was happy that it was able to touch so many lives and was happy.

Suddenly out of no where, the owner of the land decided to chop the tree and bring it down. He did not once think or talk to the gardner, the lovers, the critters, the birds, the insects , the kids or the people who made this tree a wonder. An all of the sudden the tree was nothing but a block of wooden blocks on the ground. To be sold in the marketplace for a few coins of gold

Oh !! mighty land owner, why o why did you cut the very tree you had planted, why did you not think of the fate of all the folks who had depended on this very tree. Who gave you the right to cut the tree, true you had planted it, true it was on your land, but it was the energy and effort of all the folks through the years of growth of the tree that had cherised the tree to grow to its stature of grandure and fame.

So Let this be a lesson to all the owners, If you so want to get a few coins of gold, please plant a tree that does not touch so many lives and still gets you the coins of gold you so desire.

Satyam & Media

It has a been a eventful 2 weeks at Satyam ( I am a proud Satyamite). What has happened is evident to everybody. But what pisses me off, is the way the media has been showcaing the news. I want to question whether what Economic Times or Mr Udayan Mukherjee of CNBC were doing was news in the first place. Let me go point by point

Economic Times and TOI: Somebody mentioned me that TOI should change their name from Times of India to Tabloid of India. And Economic Times is supposed to be a paper that does analysis on business. But both these news papers have been spewing lies after lies after lies. No Analysis, no verfications and no understanding of what the impact of the news will do to the general public.

Mr Udayan Mukherjee: I am singling out only one person from this channel because, he was not non-partisan in his statements and news coverage. Overall CNBC india has provided a very balanced approach to the whole scenario. but this one guy was going on and on and on, as if he had lost a lot of money on this stock, he did not care about the employees working at this organization. He should remember that organizations are made because of people working there. His news show runs because of people who do the analysis and write it up for him and not because of his cute little face in the camera, i am sure, nobody is going to listen to just crap coming from him because of his cute face. There are people who make an organization successful. I hope Udayan understands that.

News and Analysis : The another this press has done is done reporting ( a.k.a post man giri). I expect the journalists in the business domain to let me and the overall public to let me know very objectively what will the impact of this be to the overall economy and to the business community in general. What options does Satyam as an organization have to survive and what are the impact because of this to the IT industry in general and what customers and new comers to this industry need to worry about.

Hvae they atleast done all the reporting in good faith and objectivity: Unfortunately NO. There were reports that
a) Satyam employee's will not be paid salaries ( a rumour). Have they now reported that salaries have been paid, when this task is accomplished
b) Customer Fleeing Satyam: has any of this been verified
c)Satyam senior officials have fled the country. Did they a retract the stateme when they came to realize it was a fault.
d) Satyam officials have sold their shares in big numbers. This statement has been retracted, but have they apologized for the pain caused. No


Last but not the least, the one person, who should have not have made the statements that were made and who has lost support and respect from every satyamite is Mr Narayanamurthy. I cannot imagine a person of his stature behaving so in the media.

UNITED WE STAND