I remember longing to see the face behind that wonderful voice for such a long time and used to keep asking my dad to take us to meet him. I don’t remember when I first saw him on TV. But he looked a lot different than how I imagined him to be. I have seen him in SUN TV only a couple of times. He will be one of those guys that will be remembered.

I think I was in one of my longest flights between Dubai and JFK, NY (something between 13 and 16 hours). I watched three movies on the flight (and actually one movie thrice - didn’t realize that I had slept as the movie made one full run) each of average length 2 hours and still had so much time to kill. Towards the end, it became too difficult to endure. I don’t know how people manage direct flights from Mumbai to JFK. I landed pretty late at the hotel. Emirates has a good in-flight entertainment system. I got to watch 2 Hrishida’s movies - Chupke Chupke and Golmaal. I also watched Billu, Santosh Subramaniam and Mugavari. I wish they had some more new Tamil movies. Clubbing Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu along with Hindi movies in the Bolllywood category was not a good idea.

I liked Billu (remake of Kuselan or Kathaparayumbol) except for those forced songs, all of which sounded the same. The climax was not very realistic - they could have tweaked that a little bit. Irrfan, as usual, made us get into his character, Lara Dutta wasn’t so convincing with her starched and colourful sarees and designer blouses in the midst of poverty. Overall, I was surprised the movie ran so badly in Hindi. In Tamil, I can understand why - P Vasu killed the nice storyline.

This morning I’m excited about the new assignment. I have lot of things to complete, both on the job and personally, this week. Hopefully, jet lag will not linger long and come in the way. Looking forward to a busy next 3 weeks. I also hope to keep my blog updated with a lot of personal stuff. Who reads it anyway!

The probability of a hero of a movie having your name is reasonably high (especially, as a friend tells me, if your name is so common that in a group of 5 random South Indian men, there’s 100% probability that atleast one of them will have your name; yeah I know this is an exaggeration, but you get the point!)

The probability of a heroine in a movie having your wife’s name is medium, considering she does not have a very South Indian sort of a name.

Now what is the probability that in a movie, both the hero and the heroine have your name and your wife’s name respectively? Pretty low I would think.

Let’s go a step further. What is the probability that a movie *actually* has (and just has) your name and your wife’s name and the lead characters have your name and your wife’s name? It’s very hard to believe it is possible!

Such a movie got released on April 10th here! However, the twist in the tale is that the movie didn’t cross the second day in many theatres. We planned to watch the movie in theatre, but couldn’t find one that was still showing the movie even as early as April 15th .

Please answer the following questions:

1. Tamil actor ilayathalapathi Vijay’s actual name is Joseph Vijay. Why did he leave out Joseph and just have Vijay?

2. Another actor Vikram’s actual name is John Kennedy. His close friends call him Kenny. He chose to call himself Vikram, which unlike in the previous example, is not even a part of his original name. Why so?

3. There’s another actor in Tamil Nadu whose popular name is Shaam (sounds more like Shyam), but his actual name is Shamshuddin. Did he break his name only because it would be easier to call him?

4. Why did Tabu not choose to keep her actual name Tabassum Hashmi?

I don’t think you can make conclusions so soon with few data points.

Right from the time this guy shot to prominence, a lot of my friends who have been his classmates at one institution or the other have told me that his actual story is not what he makes it out to be in the press. His other utterances in his interviews about him being discriminated in educational institutions doesn’t seem to be true. So, I really have my doubts.

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What is this thing about Young India or some such campaign that Times of India runs about the oldest Parliament (in terms of the average age of MP’s) representing the youngest country? I’m not a fan of the idea of having young MP’s just for the heck of it. Unless a guy is well-qualified, has done some extra-ordinary social work in his short lifetime, I don’t think I’ll vote for a guy just because he’s young. If we were to go by the thinking of this campaign, we will bring in a lot of Varun Gandhi’s to the Parliament. TOI seems to simply cash in on what it thinks is its target segment.

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The best case scenario, at this point, would be for Congress to get near simple majority and Pranab Mukherjee to be the Prime Minister. And if I’m allowed a little more liberty, I’ll say this should happen without its ally, the DMK, getting a single seat in Tamil Nadu. I don’t know the exact numbers, but I know none of the things above will happen. The worst thing for the country as a whole would be the Third Front drama playing out for another one year before another election gets imposed. If people like Deve Gowda get one more shot at the limelight, it will show all the voters of the country in poor light.

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A lot is being said about the IPL being shifted out of the country. Mr. Swaminathan Aiyer makes his own conclusions in TOI, which seem to be a stretch. IPL is not an event of national importance for the common man. To me, it is akin to the high and the wealthy betting on horses of their choice, just to flaunt their wealth. While I can’t hate Chidambaram enough, I think he called it absolutely right in this issue. He didn’t give IPL an iota of more prominence than it deserved (while taking care not to dismiss it entirely) and made sure it came nowhere near something as important as a General Election. I think it is one of the very few times where the Indian Government has been very proactive and has given the message loud and clear that the safety of the general public is more important than the safety of some 8 teams. If we don’t have the bandwidth to provide security for two different things, then we need to admit it and do what is possible. The massiveness of Indian electoral exercise should not be under-estimated. All the talk around losing tourism revenues because of the exodus of IPL is all humbug. I don’t even care.

Suppu: Hi maama.

Kuppu: So what’s up. How’s your school going?

Suppu: As usual, nothing special. In fact I find it boring.

Kuppu: Hmm…you’re too young to find life boring. Not so soon…

Suppu: I just find my school boring. I definitely find a lot of things interesting outside school.

Kuppu: Like?

Suppu: Like the recent announcement from the Tamil Nadu government on the gold ring for every new born child with a Tamil name.

Kuppu: Yeah, that is yet another welfare measure from the state. It is so heartening to see all that they have done so far for the people of the state and for promoting our language. A couple of years ago they came with the rule on Tamil names for Tamil films and now this. They have even recently appointed a committee to study if the tax concessions for Tamil films are being passed on to the people. But what did you find interesting in that?

Suppu: No, just the rule itself. How would you just identify a Tamil name?

Kuppu: Why? Isn’t that a no-brainer? Ezhilarasan, Kuralarasan, Kalaichelvi, Malarvizhi, Periyasami are all Tamil names.

Suppu: I get the obvious ones. But what about names like Abhinav, Abhilash, Keshav, Pranav, Shreya, Shradhdha, Anaga, Abhinaya, Ananya etc.?

Kuppu: Come on, I expect you to be more intelligent. Those are definitely not Tamil names. They are mostly Sanskrit.

Suppu: Okay, then what about Saraswati, Karthik, Meenakshi, Sharadha, Deepa, Shanti?

Kuppu: Well…hmm… Some like Saraswati, Karthik, err, are still Sanskrit. Karthikeyan is probably a more Tamil name. I’m a little confused about the rest. But that might be because of my ignorance.

Suppu: And I’ve not even started maama. What about Arjun, Ashok, Nakul, Ram?

Kuppu: Well, Arjunan, Ashokan, Nakulan, Raman should be Tamil names. I don’t know if whatever you’ve called out will be accepted as Tamil names because they sound like North Indian names. But, I think I see your point. It is not as easy as I initially thought. But it isn’t as difficult either for someone like our Chief Minister. If he can order a committee to be formed, just like the one that was formed for the Tamil movies, which can be led by a retired judge, then that committee can arrive at a comprehensive list of all Tamil names and the non-Tamil ones so that this rule can be applied better.

Suppu: I see. Just tell me one more thing. Are the names Peter, John, Joseph, Jacob Tamil.

Kuppu: Why? Definitely not!

Suppu: What about Mohammed, Siddique, Shamshuddin, Sirajuddin, Salman?

Kuppu: Hmm… I see where you’re going, you’re trying to get us into trouble here. I think the same committee can look at bring in reservations for minorities under this rule so that they don’t feel discriminated. They can look at what additional names can be considered Tamil. That should fix the concerns.

Suppu: I rest my case. See you.

Kuppu: !!?!!

Please find below my interpretation of the whole news. This may or may not be correct.
What is the relevant US tax code?

What the US tax code has is a decades-old provision that allows American companies to defer income tax payments on offshore profits until they are repatriated back home

Another version from the text in Rediff:

“…proposed move to do away with a particular provision of the country’s tax code that allows them to pay lower taxes for profits repatriated from foreign shores….Back in 2004, the US Congress had allowed a one-year repatriation tax holiday which reduced the 35 per cent tax rate on foreign earnings of American companies to just 5.25 per cent.”

Based on the text above, who does it apply to?

Companies that outsource IT jobs to India (to other Indian outsourcing firms; i.e. say if Pepsico outsources part of its IT maintenance to Infosys), do not make profits offshore. IT is mostly a cost center, which by definition, does not make profits. Companies definitely increase their profits by outsourcing or offshoring, but this is because of lowered costs of offshore resources and not because of “profits from offshore”. Even companies that have India-based IT captives do not make profits in India, unless of course the Indian captives work for outside clients as well.

So, who makes “offshore profits”?

Only companies that have wholly owned subsidiaries in other countries, like India, that cater to the local market make offshore profits. For example, Pepsico sells bottled drinks in India and makes profits from its operations. If Pepsico India is owned by Pepsico US, which is most likely the case, then this law applies to Pepsico US.

What is the tax code?

Now, companies that make profits in other countries, in the absence of any favorable tax laws, will essentially be taxed twice on the profits they make in the other countries: first, by the country in which they earned the profits and second, by their home country. It appears to me that this was the case in the US due to a “Tax Reform Act of 1986” (courtesy: http://www.accf.org/publications.php?pubID=14; only some sections are relevant and I think the news report gets its 35% arbitrary number from here).

Now, this tax code seems to have been applied, taken-off, re-applied in other forms and taken off again several times, so it is hard to identify what was the original state. When the tax code applies, it means that companies no longer have to pay taxes for the profits they earn in another country as soon as they earn them. One version of the tax concession is that the taxes will be deferred until the profits earned in another country are repatriated to the home country. That version seems to have been repealed in 1986. The 2004 version seems to be that (from the news item in rediff above), companies get a one year flat tax holiday on the profits earned abroad. Since, both the news items above are contradictory, it’s hard to verify what the actual concession is. Whatever the concession is, from the companies’ point of view, it seems to be correct, since profits earned in another country could be re-invested in that country itself, for growing the company, which means profits didn’t make it to the parent company at all and the company will be unfairly taxed. This tax code, thus, appears to reduce the tax burden on multinational US companies, thus, making them more competitive with their competitors from other countries. The reasoning is that if a French company, for example, caters to US customers and competes with an American company, that is again multinational, double taxation would make the American company less competitive vis-à-vis the French company even in the US markets. Since, French company enjoys the tax concession from its Government (my assumption; may or may not be true), the US company should also enjoy the same just to be on equal footing.

So far so good. So, what are the arguments against the tax code? A lot of companies, as expected, abuse the tax code (i.e. the concessions provided to them by deferring tax on the profits they make outside their country) through tax haven operations and transfer pricing frauds (again, courtesy: http://www.accf.org/publications.php?pubID=14). It is easy to see how this happens. In their books, the companies would inflate, for example, the sales costs in foreign countries, so that while they show the profits in their income statements for their shareholders, they pay taxes only for the US portion of their profits, and claim whatever concession is available for the offshore portion of the profits. So, the argument against the tax code is that it is prone to a lot of abuses by rich corporations and hence, tantamounts to cheating the common man by taxing the cheating big corporations less.

Why is the concession being repealed now?

The easy reasoning is what Bobby Jindal calls “growing the government”. For all the stimulus packages that Obama is doling out every day, he needs as much money from taxes as he can get. Repealing the tax concession above is just one of the many ways to raise taxes. As I said earlier, this doesn’t seem to be the first time the tax concession is being repealed. This is just being related to outsourcing this time.

Is it anyway connected with job creation in America?

All the dollars raised by the government through taxation can be directly or indirectly linked to job creation. At least, that is what Obama is trying to portray with all the stimulus packages. Other way in which jobs could be created is, companies that were encouraged by the tax code to keep the offshore profits earned at offshore will now remit those profits back to the US sooner, which it could be claimed, will lead to more job creation. It could also be argued (admittedly, by some stretch of imagination) that some roles that apply for all subsidiaries and the parent company would have actually been offshored to show lower profits repatriated from offshore, even though these roles could be performed the best in the US (I’m not able to think of a very good example. This cannot be true in case the roles are direct costs to the company, as then they reduce the profits anyway.). By repealing this concession, may be these jobs may move back to the US.
I cannot think of any other case where this can be connected to job creation. I think this repeal is generally being associated with job creation just to avoid the negative publicity as another measure of increasing taxes (as he’s anyway increasing taxes for households and businesses earning above $250K).

So, will it not affect outsourcing in any way at all?

Not that I can think of.

So, is Obama’s tirade against outsourcing just empty rhetoric?

It is difficult to dismiss it that way as we don’t know what the other measures he’s thinking of to discourage outsourcing are. So, I think, at least in this case, this repeal of tax concession does not directly affect IT outsourcing.

When I made those journeys between home and hostel during my engineering days, I remember always trying to squeeze myself into the side berths and always ending up sleepy the next day. One consolation was that atleast the side berths had more vertical space when compared to the regular berths in sleeper coaches.

But now, Lalu, with an eye on short term profits, has introduced middle berths in all sleeper coaches. Just a look at a photo in the Hindu (4th December Madurai edition) made me feel claustrophobic! Without any change in passenger space or other amenities (like restrooms), they have managed to increase the number of passengers in a coach. In the day time, the additional passengers will sit in the regular lower berths, so each regular bay will accomodate 7 instead of 6 passengers while sitting. Moreover, I hear that even three tier AC coaches have not been spared. At a time when Indian Railways is drawing flak from outside on the design of its toilets, this clearly goes on to show the utter disregard for event basic hygiene and comfort for the passengers.

The Super Singer Junior, I should say was worse. Though the competition was probably better, again doing things like shooting in the schools of the finalists and all didn’t really appeal to me. Add to that the reactions of some of the kids suddenly pushed to stardom. Some of it was apparent on the show itself, and the off camera incidents have been pretty boldly captured by Chimayi in her blog. Again, I think the Vijay TV folks are to blame for the whole episode.

Hence, when the new season started this year, I almost gave it a miss but for a few glances when I browsed the channels. Frankly, it was easy to miss the programme when you’re browsing channels. There’s a break at the end of every fifth minute. The maximum content in the one hour slot is for 25 minutes, the rest of it is taken over by the “very short commercial breaks”. However, recently there has been so much talk about this programme in the web that it is hard not to notice it. There have been talks of prejudiced judgements favouring a particular contestant and so on. This made me get a little more interested in the programme and watch it more regularly (for the last 2 weeks or so). And I must say, I have seen some very good singing, far better than the 2006 edition. Even though the show seems to be dragging, the content is still music and not the “reality” type stuff has not reared its ugly head (atleast not yet. Vijay TV can be trusted to bring those aspects in one we reach the final rounds).

I think I heard the best singing last night with the performance by Ravi for the medley round. Like Shreenivas pointed out, it looks like this guy will easily be crowned the Super Singer with his current form. The first few minutes and the Udaya song is simply amazing and I still don’t get tired of viewing this video. The reactions of judges in the end says it all. Sujatha, who to me looks like a no-nonsense judge (from what I’ve seen so far; I know there have been a lot hue and cry over her judgements) summed it up very well.

My personal favourite has been another contestant, Arvindh. I know he has been consistently receiving adverse comments with his carnatic flavour to all that he sings in all the earlier rounds so far. Though the judges have been very harsh on him in the medley round (with Shreenivas almost accusing of being arrogant), I still like the way he easily sings the difficult songs.

I just hope Arvindh just makes that small correction in his singing and competes with Ravi on better terms. That would add to the overall interest in the current season.

Another highlight of the season has been Chinmayi herself. She is so natural while hosting and does a lot of things impromptu. Though one initially feels she shouldn’t be venturing outside singing, given her divine voice, compering seems to come to her very naturally. The bond that she shares with everyone - the contestants and the judge - makes it a fun to watch everytime she comes on stage.