Dr.Rajkumar and Obama

Also see: ‘Harry Potter’ of a different sort

Slumgod Millionaire!

Satyam to ‘Asatyam’

Design: RK

Satyam (Sanskrit). ‘Truth’.

Truly, it can’t get more ironical than this.

Raju and the Number 7:
• Ramalinga Raju was born on 16 = 1+6 = 7
• Raju founded Satyam in 1987:  1+9+8+7 = 25 = 2+5 = 7
• Received the Lifetime Achievement Award, given by Hyderabad Management Association (HMA) in 2005: Adds up to 7 again
• Raju invloved in a Rs.7000 cr fraud: Again the number 7
• The crisis in Satyam was triggered by the management’s aborted bid to acquire Maytas Properties and Maytas Infra for $1.6 billon: 1+6=7
• Raju overstated Satyam’s September 2008 quarterly profits by 97%: 9+7=16= 1+6=7
• On Dec. 16, when Raju announced the company would spend $1.6 billion to buy two infrastructure companies run by this sons, only to reverse the decision a few hours later under shareholder pressure: 1+6=7
• Raju confessed on the 7th
• Raju confesses of an accrued interest of Rs 376 crore (which is non-existent): 3+7+6 = 16 = 1+6= 7
• News of the scandal sent the Sensex index down 7 percent on Wednesday (Jan.7)
• Raju can get a 7-yr jail term
• His spouse has 7 letters in her name (Nandini)

Updates:

The number 7 is still not leaving Raju – According to rediff news,

• A Hyderabad court on Monday deferred till January 16 (1+6= 7) hearing on bail applications filed by Satyam’s three disgraced executives including Ramalinga Raju, as also market regulator Sebi’s plea for quizzing Raju
• Raju’s lawyer Bharat Kumar told reporters, that a team of 25 (2+5= 7) lawyers has been put together to defend Raju and others

According to TOI (13.1.2009 = 7)
• Raju confesses he was cooking books for 7 yrs

According to Mint (23.1.2009)
• Raju inflated Satyam’s staff strength 25%: prosecutor - (2+5 = 7)

According to ET (07.1.2009)
• CLSA cuts Satyam’s price target to Rs 25 – (2+5 = 7)

According to ET (22.1.2009)
• Lenders now hold 25% in Maytas - (2+5 = 7)

According to BusinessLine (23.1.2009)
• Satyam effect: 70 firms report director exit - (7+0= 7)

•• Interestingly, MAYTAS is SATYAM spelt reverse
•• The name ‘Satyam’ has been kept after Raju’s father, Satyanarayan Raju

***

A few questions from a layman:

1. What made Raju confess now?
2. Should we believe the contents in the confession letter?
3. Were the auditors so dumb that they never smelt anything fishy?
["Satyam" can be rearranged to make the word "Matsya" - which means "fish"]
4. How many are involved in the fraud?
5. What will happen to the employees?

***

• The Satyam fiasco [Rediff]
• Text of Mr Ramalinga Raju’s statement [Business Line]

Has the Indian Bubble Burst?

Cartoon: RK

Also visit the Cartoon page on RwB.

Blog Cartoon – 63

Cartoon: RK

Also visit the Cartoon page on RwB.

Blog Cartoon – 62

Cartoon: RK

Also visit the Cartoon page on RwB.

C for Chidambaram, Chocolates and Chips

BIG-FM of a different kind!

Most of you must be following the Budget today, the seventh by Finance Minister P Chidambaram. And I’m sure you want to take a break from those figures. So here’s a link giving some unknown facts about PC:

What you didn’t know about P Chidambaram

AOL: Art of Looting

While rambling along the blog space today morning, I read a post by music lover ’Chiroti’ titled India alias Hindustan? and left a comment there. Next, I came across this article The The great great Sri Sri NGO NGO scam scam in Churumuri. It was sheer coincidence that the last portion of my comment and the article in Churumuri were on the same issue.

Delicious Idli-Vade for 70 paise

by TSSM

Veena Stores (VS) is good, because a senior friend swears by it. In fact he and my other friend used to come all the way from Koramangala office to VS for the Idlis. Now my friend is working just a road away from VS, next to Aranya Bhavan. Heaven knows how many times he must have overtly or covertly (because he is the big boss in his office now) sneaked out to VS and eaten there.

I too have been to VS, but the quantity is too small for guys like me (Ravanana hottege arey kaasina majjige). Hence we used to devour in Janatha Hotel, whenever we were in Malleshwaram.There is also another hotel by the name Central Tiffin Room (Opposite Malleswaram Club). That has crisp Dosas. Of course the Dose in Vidyarthi Bhavan is mouth watering. We also have Dose camp in Jayanagar and other places.

In my college days, 1970-74, there was the Shanbag Hotel, near St.Joseph’s College which used to give at 70 paise a Rava Idli and 2 Uddina Vades. They were just delicious.

Later came Sapna Hotel on Brigade Road, which is now shifted to Residency Road, which had good Dosa and Idli.

D.V.G. talks about his Thindi habits, in his Jnapaka Chitrashale, wherein near Dharmarayana Gudi they used to have good mixture, sweet and coffee. I think the hotel is still there. I have eaten there, but I am not sure, if it is the same hotel DVG mentioned.

I still remember when a hotel near Netakallappa Circle in Basavangudi sold idlis for 5 paise each (Bellur says Idlis in his childhood days were 40 paise). I myself, as a young boy, have taken the parcelled Idlis many times.

Bangalore had and still has many good eating joints. Have hotte thumba thindi and burp or croak like a frog.

‘Indians are abdicating their social responsibility’

by TSSM

I had a discussion with a senior professor of a reputed Institute in Chennai. He was referring to the Tsunami in Tamilnadu and his efforts, to help the affected people, through his students.

Some of his erstwhile foreign students, now in Europe, called him up and offered half a million euros to support his efforts. He flatly refused their offer stating that he valued the small contributions of the local people, from the local neighbourhoods, to mitigate the hardship, more important to him than such a generous offer. When I asked him why he thought so, he replied that his logic was, nowadays, Indians are ‘abdicating their social responsibility’ the moment they hear of any government project, any donor inflow, any private initiative, to tackle such issues. This he said was against his grain of thinking. Hence the refusal.

I was left dumbfounded at such a logic, when times are such that people would fall head over heels to get external funding at any cost.

One would immediately retort, saying ‘how about Bombayites during the recent floods ?’ Well these are exceptions and exceptions do not make the rule.

Again, to state, most Bangaloreans, for eg., do not have any idea about the issues and the plight of northern Karnataka people face. I am a living example for this statement. I/We know more about what is happening in US and Europe than what is happening in my/our own backyards.

Sorry to provoke the readers, but then, it is so. (I do not mean to denigrate any one, here.)

Though this is a digression, I felt that the look on the Jatka saabi appeared to be melancholic. It led me to wonder whether there are brighter days ahead at all for him. How would he manage his family with his dwindling income from his profession, how would his family meet its requirements?

While Bangalore is getting swankier by the day and is trying to compete on the global scale, what has it brought to the poor people’s lives? They are edged out of their jobs, their locations, their roots. They remind me of ‘living fossils’ waiting to get sucked into the pages of history.

This applies not only to this segment of people, but to host of people depending on small vocations, who fall into mainly silent and voiceless category. (I have seen these people always pleading for enhancing their rates from customers). Bangalore alone is not Karnataka.

In the race against technology versus people, it appears, in most cases, it is always the people who lose. Is it not the time to stop, look back and see whether we need ‘technology rewind or unwind’?

Again back to the quote, ‘Quo Vadis’?